Nature Bathing Can Transform City Living: Join My 365-Day Peaceful Photo Challenge

DAY 304. Living with irrevocable differences and curating peace through contemplative photography.

Author’s Photos: Views of Barclays Center and the surrounding area in the Atlantic Terminal area in Downtown Brooklyn, New York.

July 2, 2025

Although I have lived here for 34 of the last 37 years, New York City has never truly felt like home to me.

I dislike enclosed spaces, and despite exercising regularly, I do not have a gym membership because I try to avoid places with walls whenever possible. Home and work are my only consistent in-building endurances.

Twice this week, I had appointments in Downtown Brooklyn, and twice, I stood at Atlantic Terminal, at the busy intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, which now resembles Manhattan with the Barclays Center and surrounding skyscrapers.

Twice, I went into the urban jungle without anxiety or annoyance. Twice, I felt as though I was in my backyard salt marsh. Twice, I was amazed and peaceful.

Noting my peace, I traveled inward to look outward even better. I needed to examine my process of seeing and what had become so starkly different.

So, what did I do?

I utilized the mindfulness nature bathing practice, which calms the nervous system and enhances emotional and psychological well-being through heightened sensory awareness (using all five senses) of one’s surroundings.

I became aware of the sky and sailing clouds, as well as the bustling aliveness of pigeons, people, and vehicles.

Urbanity became a dense “forest” of brick, concrete, steel, and glass trees rising above my head. Textures, patterns, past and present designs, skyscraper windows with glinting sunlight, and reflections of the sky filled my vision.

My hearing attuned itself to conversations, footsteps, the prolonged cooing of pigeons, the occasional flapping of their wings, and the silence of the sky. My feet stood on the sidewalk as though they walked upon the grassy open field atop the Barclays Stadium.

How do you re-wild or re-nature your senses and cultivate a sense of spaciousness in your life amidst urban confines?