Meet Komal Kadam
Founder of earthkin
Forest Therapy School Graduate + Certified Forest Therapy Guide
As part of our Get to Know a Guide series, we're delighted to introduce Komal Kadam, a certified forest therapy guide and graduate of The Forest Therapy School's January 2025 cohort.
Komal is the founder of earthkin, an initiative rooted in the belief that the wellbeing of both people and the Earth are deeply interconnected. In this conversation, she shares how her relationship with nature has shaped her personal journey, her guiding practice, and her hope to help others reconnect with the living world.
1. What first drew you to forest therapy, and how has the practice evolved for you since your FTS training?
Forest therapy aligned deeply with my sense of purpose. During a period of slow travel through the Himalayas, I spent a lot of unstructured time in forests and in nature. I didn’t know it then, but I was already practising forest bathing. Simply being in nature, without an agenda, helped me come to a deeper understanding of myself. It taught me to slow down and see things more simply as they are, while also becoming aware of the invisible threads connecting me to all of life.
There was a sense of peace in that experience — as though the boundaries between myself and the world around me began to soften, and with that came a certain ease. I wanted to create and share experiences that could help others encounter some of that same peace and joy, which I believe are inherent and accessible to us when we spend time in safe forest environments.
Connecting with the Earth has been a beautiful and ongoing part of my own healing and awakening journey, and I feel a deep desire to share this experience with as many fellow humans as I can. At this point in my journey, I also feel that nature reconnection is going to play a crucial role in the next phase of human evolution. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to help spread this awareness, and I hope that the experiences I facilitate can become invitations into a more reciprocal relationship with the Earth.
My FTS training gave me a valuable structure and flow for holding these experiences. In the beginning, I sometimes found myself thinking about the sequence, remembering particular invitations, or even feeling a little like I was performing the practice rather than inhabiting it. Over time, that has softened. The more I practise, the more natural it feels. There is less of a need to remember or control what comes next, and more trust in the process — in listening, responding, and allowing the experience to unfold as it needs to. For me, forest therapy has gradually moved from something I was learning to facilitate into something I am learning to surrender to.
2. What feels most alive or meaningful in your guiding, work, or personal practice right now?
What feels most alive for me right now is witnessing what unfolds for participants during a forest therapy experience. I love seeing them engage with nature in their own way, and sometimes, when they arrive at a space of stillness and peace, something deeper begins to surface. It is deeply meaningful to witness what emerges for them, and then to see how nature holds them through that experience and becomes a source of solace.
At the same time, my own time in nature — whether with participants or alone — continues to open me up. It keeps opening my heart to the almost unfathomable beauty of this world. The more I pay attention, the more I find every creature, every form of life, inherently beautiful and precious. That feeling has begun to shape how I want to move through the world. It inspires me to be kinder and more loving in my everyday interactions, because I feel we all deserve that.
An excerpt from earthkin:
“earthkin is rooted in the belief that our relationship with the living world is an essential part of our human story — and that human wellbeing and planetary wellbeing are deeply interconnected.
In our search for safety, security and progress, humanity moved further away from nature. Somewhere along the way, we became strangers to the very living world that sustains us — even turning it into something to be owned, consumed and commodified.
Reconnecting with nature is not about going backwards. It is a step forward in our evolution — remembering that we are not separate from the living world, but part of it.
And when we feel connected, we care. When we care, we begin to live differently.
earthkin wants to play a part in this reconnection — creating experiences and spaces that help us remember our relationship with the living world, with each other, and with ourselves.”
Learn more about Komal’s work and Earthkin offerings here:
https://www.instagram.com/_earthkin_/
And to view Komal’s Growth Rings Project video, visit here:
https://www.theforesttherapyschool.com/journal/komals-growth-rings-project