Just Visiting?

 

Do I belong here? Am I just a visitor? I mean apart from the few miles I drove to get here. Am I “other” than the natural world that surrounds me in this wood just because I drive a car, live in a house, and use a pen to write these words in my notebook?

I walk this place often – often for more years than I’d like to admit. I know it well. I recognise many of the trees – both the living and the dead. The waterfalls are old friends. I know the rocks. I know them wet and grey stripped bare by the spring thaw, green and brown in mossy summer garments, draped with red and orange leaves in the fall, and encased in the white and blue of winter’s icy grip.

I can put names to many of the birds that I see and hear. The kinds of the plants and trees and animals; I know them pretty well too. The smell of the earth and the feel of it under my feet and fingers triggers memories.

I breathe the same air and feel the same sun warming my shoulders as the tall tree that supports my back and forms my chair. Am I so different because I have not stood silent watch here for so many years?

We think of ourselves as other. Nature is one thing and we humans are something different. Maybe we have widened the gap too far. We are made of the same stuff after all.

A couple weeks ago I recounted some of my experiences while in another forest and concluded as I left that I was “only a visitor” there and that maybe the wood was glad to be rid of me. I’ve been thinking about that statement and now I’m not so sure. This place sure feels like home to me sometimes.

Now my beliefs are firmly mainstream Christian, so I’m not suggesting that we all throw on togas, dance into the woods, and start worshipping the stones. On the other hand we might do better by ourselves if we start thinking of nature a little more as our home and a little less as so much raw material.

MDW

Wet

 

Wet, wet, wet ,wet, wet. It has been raining off and on for several days and it is raining now. Wet trees, wet grass, wet rocks, wet clothes, wet face, wet boots, wet socks.

I thought about not walking today. I could stay home and do some printing and framing which I have been putting off. Nah. It isn’t raining too hard… It might be good to try some different light and besides I can be pretty sure that I’ll have the soggy muddy old forest to myself.

I started out at the top of the hill and walked through the trees until I reached a stream (of course) and followed it down. I soon came to a large drop that I couldn’t climb down what with the rocks being wet and slippery and all. So then a struggle up the hill to the ridge and through the trees until I could find a likely spot to go back down again.

Part way down the hill I realized that I had turned in too soon and I ended up spending a long time working back and forth across the slope using tree trunks, exposed roots, rock ledges, and anything else I could get my hands and feet on to reach the bottom in one piece. The last twenty feet or so I just had to flop down and slide on the mud.

It is a good thing that my camera (Nikon D200) is sealed pretty well against the weather. Besides the usual spray from waterfalls, today there is the rain. Sometimes I try to ward off the drops with my hands and sometimes I wrap a plastic bag over the whole shebang (except the lens of course). Now I’ve smeared it nicely with mud from my hands.

I slid and slithered down the gully until I reached the bottom. The trouble with starting at the top and working down is that eventually one has to get back to the top. I trudged up the hill on a trail though the woods. The clouds broke up and the sun came out while I was walking, but I had to get home early today so I just kept going.

You might notice that the photos in this post don’t show much evidence of the rain. Well I’m afraid that I cheated. They came from a previous hike. I didn’t like any of the shots I took on this day – bummer.

MDW

An Odd Day in the Forest

It was a bit of an odd day in the forest this week. It has been a dry spring and early summer so far and the streams are running low like it is August already.

Yesterday a series of thunderstorms rolled through the area bringing much needed rain, albeit in isolated fits. This morning dawned bright with a clear rain washed sky. I hoped for lots of water.

All the pot holes in the seasonal road leading into the woods are filled with a muddy brown soup. I had to get off the cycle a couple times to clear away fallen trees that barred the way. Fortunately they were of a size that I could move by myself.

Everything is wet as I hoist my pack and walk in among the trees. The leaves are wet – they flick showers of water at me from their fingertips whenever I jostle against a tree. The ground beneath my feet is soft and wet. The air around me is heavy with water.

One odd thing is that even though the temperature is in the 60s(F), I can see my breath as if it is winter. The sunlight slants down through the trees in misty hazy beams like spotlights in a smoky theater. My camera lens constantly gets fogged up.

Another odd thing is that the stream is silent. I scramble over bare rock searching for signs of life. The thirsty forest is hording all the water. It has none to spare for the rousing of the indolent stream.

As I descend lower and lower a trickle begins and grows. Some fugitive water begins to slip through the grasp of the tree roots and sneak in among the stones. The stream perks up a little bit. It stretches its limbs and begins to murmur under its breath in a grumpy sort of way. It will never become the rushing joyous torrent it was a couple of months ago, but now it can at least give me a bit of surly company.

By lunchtime the bright sun had wrung most of the water out of the air. I sat at the edge of a waterfall with my legs dangling over the edge. Shadows flickered across the rocks below and looking up I saw buzzards gliding through the sky above the trees. They circled lazily a few times and then flew off up stream. I went back to munching some cookies and writing in my journal.

Minutes later I was startled by a loud swooshing sound right above my head. I jerked quickly up thinking I would see a low flying jet; there was only a buzzard.

I often see buzzards soaring overhead (or sometimes below if I am high up overlooking a deep valley) as I walk. They are always silent. I have never heard even the slightest flutter from them. It is like they mirages or maybe phantoms from another dimension.

This bird must have been diving down the ravine skimming along the tree tops and decided to slow down really quickly – maybe it spotted something. What I heard was the rush of the air through its feathers as it put on the brakes. Pretty weird.

MDW