It’s November 2nd, All-Hallows-Eve just past;
the anniversary of my mother’s passing is tomorrow.
The veil between the worlds is thin.
I’ve stopped to write this while walking through the forest on the mountainside.
The sun is shining, burning off the morning mists after two days of rain.
Silvery shimmers all round. It’s a shiny, clean, sparkly world.
The autumn colours are so intense they take my breath away.
The larch trees are radiating such goldenness against the
rich dark evergreens it’s a wonder such a colour can exist
without bursting into flames.
The depths of the browns of the fallen leaves,
against the impossible variety of greens and shapes and
textures of the mosses staggers my mind.
The smells are deeply nourishing to me.
Sun kissing wet cold earth brings forth a primeval scent that
smells somehow of the infinite potentials of life.
The profound stillness of the forest in the mountains feeds my soul;
nourishes body, mind and spirit.
All the sounds that are contained within it don’t seem to disturb it.
How can that be?
The creek burbling, the leaves rustling;
a frog croaks, a squirrel chatters, a raven calls and a nuthatch chirps.
The profound stillness remains.
It’s the trees and the rocks, the earth and the clean wild air.
And here I am. A part of it.
Breathing it in and out. Appreciating it. Loving it.
So thankful for it that my gratitude is barely bearable.
In order to take in the forest, or any environment of the natural world,
be it forest or ocean or prairie, desert or icefield or garden ~
in order to even begin to take it in we have to give over to the
impossible miraculous beauty of it.
And in doing so we open wide.
So wide that we expand into it and become one with it.
And are healed.
All is well.
