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As part of Mindfulness Week, the Vollum Library at Portland Japanese Garden presents “Let Your Senses Guide You: The Science of Mindfulness in the Garden.” Discover how engaging your senses with our landscape, textures, sounds, and seasonal beauty can help reduce stress, improve memory, and support overall brain health.
Inspired by centuries of design that encourages contemplation, balance, and harmony with nature, Japanese gardens offer a unique opportunity to slow down and reconnect with the present moment. Join us for a volunteer-led talk exploring the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of spending time mindfully in a Japanese garden and the neurological processes that support this.
Drawing on lived experience and contemporary research, this engaging presentation by Cecily Hunt and Steve Bayer, volunteers at Portland Japanese Garden, will provide simple ways to cultivate mindfulness through immersing yourself in the rhythms of the Garden as well as how to learn more through the Vollum Library’s resources.
Cecily Hunt and Steve Bayer are a husband-and-wife duo who have been volunteering together at Portland Japanese Garden since 2020. In addition to offering public tours, Hunt helped develop a Mindfulness Tour option for the Garden in 2023, which focuses on engaging your senses as you intentionally stroll the Garden’s paths.
Drawing on decades of yoga awareness and instruction for her tours, Hunt has witnessed the benefits of bringing conscious attention to the sensory details of being in the Garden. Bayer lends his medical background as a neurologist, combined with his years leading public tours, to explain what happens in the brain when you allow your senses to guide your experience with nature.
Discover how Portland Japanese Garden meets you where you are.
In recognition of World Mindfulness Day on Saturday, September 12, join us for a week of programs exploring the practice of slowing down, paying attention, and embracing the present moment. Whether you’re seeking quiet, joy, inspiration, or simply a moment to pause, the Garden offers space to reconnect in your own way.
Throughout the week, explore Japanese approaches to presence and awareness through a Mindfulness Lecture, a guided Mindfulness Tour, a Cultural Corner Talk, and special ikebana exhibitions and demonstrations that highlight the mindful practice of finding beauty, balance, and harmony through flowers.
The Vollum Library holds over 4,000 publications relating to Japanese gardens, arts, and culture. During operating hours, volunteers or staff are available to help explore the catalog, answer questions and search for specific books. Located on the 2nd floor of the Jordan Schnitzer Japanese Arts Learning Center, the Library occupies a single, multi–purpose room that comfortably functions as a reading room and small conference space when the library is closed. The Library was made possible through the generous support of the Vollum Family and aids staff, volunteers, members, and visitors in understanding garden practices and Japanese culture and aesthetics through maintaining, developing, and sharing resources. The collection can be viewed online through the Vollum Library Catalog.
Portland Japanese Garden would like to thank James F. and Marion L. The Miller Foundation and Toshiba International Foundation for their support of arts and culture programming.
