Bushy Park is situated in the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames, and is the second largest of all London’s Royal Parks. It is in the close proximity to Hampton Court Palace, which makes is widely accessible and a very inspiring location to be at.
Bushy Park was used as hunting grounds by Henry VIII. Charles I of England built a 19-km canal to provide water to Hampton Court and the various ponds in the park.
The park has many devisions. Its size truly amazes – as soon as you enter the park’s gates, the park widely opens up, and you feel like you find yourself in the place of a true nature paradise. It is also amazing how many deer and birds you can see even outside the car window! The deer are protected in the park, and can even come out in big groups when there are not too many people.
Even though we love everything about Bushy Park, we found that, for us, the walks in the park’s gardens were the most rewarding. And here are the reasons why.
We found an amazing animal diversity in the park. In fact, there are always so many animals right away when you enter the gardens that it makes you feel like you are in some magic forest or in a Disney movie. You can find all sorts of animals there – squirrels, ducks, parakeets, cranes, geese, bunnies, moles – you name it! And, even though the place looks completely different from some other more common London parks with its more wild feeling, it is still surprising to find so many friendly animals coming up to you (probably, for food!) and not being scared of your presence. We find it very easy to communicate with animals there, especially on weekdays when the park is not so busy. In fact, we got so close with some of the animals that they regularly jump on our lamps when we sit there! The other day, we also went by a tree and heard baby parrots in the tree hole just above us! This is what we mostly love about the park – the life is truly everywhere; you just need to be patient and mindful, and you will be amazed at the beauty ann the richness of the nature in this place.
So if you would like to have a feel of a more forest-like wild place, but still try out your animal communication skills, Bushy Park is a nice place to start!
We were also struck by the unbelievable diversity of plants of all sorts and colours – the experience has actually inspired us to learn more about the local plants, herbalism and foraging. It also gave rise to our interest in natural color therapy, which we are planning to make part of our Nature Therapy walks. Indeed, the nature has always been an inspiration to all kinds of artists and inventors. It can be regarded as a pure form of art – readily available, alive, colorful, inspiring, and potentially full of life force and healing. It is amazing how much we can actually get from nature just by looking at it! We find that mindfulness helps us slow down our thoughts, which allows us to take even more from the nature around us. And color therapy is definitely one of nature’s wonderful gifts. Just try looking at yellow color for more motivation, will-power, confidence and happiness; at red – for passion, grounding, energy and grounding; and try sinking in the emerald green all around you for an overall emotional, mental and physical healing, heart-opening, and relaxation. We would love to heart your comments on your color therapy experiments in the comments section below!
Another reason to go to Bushy Park is for the diversity of landscapes and paths you can take. It seems that there are places for everyone there – open green lawns for family picnics; tranquil small ponds for bird gazing; small little allies for exploring and, maybe, playing hide-and-seek; peaceful riverbanks for quiet meditation…and many more! We found that whatever mood we were in, we would always feel at ease in Bushy Park, and I think it is exactly because of its multiple sides. You can either decide to stay at the place where you feel most comfortable, or explore the park (there are maps in each section of the gardens), or maybe use your intuition to guide you to some magical undiscovered spots? Try it – you might be surprised at the results!
We found that our walks we much more rewarding when we were going on the weekdays as it was much quieter, and we were able to be more mindful. The best hours for us were in the afternoon-evening, after 4pm, as we could see lots of animal activities like birds feeding their chicks; parakeets flying around in big groups; squirrels gathering food for their evening meal; bunnies peacefully grazing at the lawns… We could also be more quiet then, just observing the nature, sinking into it, and enjoying all the benefits of Nature Therapy. We also recommend being quiet and mindful because from our experience, this helps to see the nature in its true beauty and notice things you probably would not see otherwise.
If you are interested in learning more about Bushy Park, you can visit its page on Royal Parks website https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/bushy-park.
Have you ever been to Bushy Park? If you have, what are your experiences of the place? Did you find the information useful?
Please, comment below – we would love to hear your thoughts!
We are happy to announce that we are launching our Nature Therapy walks in Surrey! For our upcoming walks, dates and locations, please, follow us on twitter @Holistic_HT.
