About Health in Nature | Sutro Stewards

Health in Nature

About Health in Nature

One of Sutro Stewards’ core principles is that experiencing nature, wildness, and adventure is critical to healthy, meaningful, and joyful lives--and that everyone should be able to benefit from access to wild nature. The Health in Nature Program was created in partnership with UCSF and various community organizations throughout San Francisco with the intention of increasing access to the outdoors to vulnerable and underserved populations that could benefit deeply from time spent in nature.

Through the Health in Nature program, Sutro Stewards and UCSF are uniquely poised to build on our expertise and use it to address systemic racism as experienced by our low-income communities of color in the form of unequal access to nature and health inequities. By implementing a program of nature immersion geared towards this population, we hope to take one step closer to closing the nature access gap.

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🌱 Mindfulness, Storytelling & Somatic Practices

Our Mindfulness, Storytelling & Somatic practices offer various ways to connect deeply with the body and the more-than-human worlds, recognizing that people are part of the environment. Collectively, these practices cultivate a deeper awareness of the body, emotions, and the land, fostering a sense of balance, calm, and interconnectedness. These practices include:

Earth-body meditation, tea ceremony, and nature journaling, helps to ground participants in the present moment while developing a connection to the earth through mindful observation and reflection.
Multisensory and movement meditations, such as mountain listening and anchoring, encourages awareness of body alignment, breath, and the surrounding environment.
Storytelling about Mt. Sutro’s Indigenous ancestors, supports participants in meaningfully understand the effects of environmental injustice, and begin to repair harm and disconnection between people and planet.

🌱 Plant Craft & Medicine Making

Plant Craft & Medicine-Making programs introduce participants to traditional and sustainable practices using native and invasive plants alike for healing and creative joy. These practices, which include ethical harvesting, highlight the cultural and medicinal significance of plants to develop a deeper appreciation and respect for traditional and Indigenous healing methods. These practices include:

Basket-weaving with douglas iris, soap-making with ceanothus, and seedball making, and ink-making offer a hands-on experience to connect participants to sustainably explore their creative well-being in addition to the myriad benefits of our mountain plants.
Working with sage bundles, creating yarrow salve, crafting Mt. Sutro herbal tea, and creating mugwort pillows deepens participants understanding of holistic and medicinal benefits of these plants, while gaining insight into their historical and spiritual importance to Indigenous people.

🌱 Healing the Mountain, Healing the Self

In Healing the Mountain, Healing the Self, we collaborate with our Conservation, Nursery & Trail programs to create experiences of wellbeing in relationship to tending the mountain. By supporting the health of our ecosystem and environment, we encourage participants to experience reduced stress, increased physical activity, and a deeper sense of connection to their surroundings. These practices include:

Caring for our mountain by mindfully clearing out invasive plants, and planting native plants to restore plant and pollinator habitats. This offers a greater chance for our native plants to thrive.
Seed-collecting and sowing as an intentional offering to the land before engaging in action-oriented activities to remove invasives from the environment.
Growing organic, native plants from seed to mature plants for conservation sites allows one to be in step with the seasons, while learning from each other in a multigenerational community of growers.