Remembered in the Woods

FIELD JOURNAL, DAY #3

On a day out in the woods, I remembered what I’d forgotten. As the sky faded a dusky black, the red fire came alive. 

It was there, quietly whispering the whole day.  I tended to it at moments. Prodding it with a stick or heaping a large log onto the flickering embers. But I’d gone quietly noseblind to the sugary maple-glazed scent and used to the quiet crackle.

Now against the night-drenched sky, wisps of silver stars spread, dimmed by dancing flame as the cool set in.

Sounds faded as the world went to bed.

It seems there is little left where man does not reach into the wilderness, asserting his presence even in the deep places. I remembered, in this rare quiet moment, the silence that is lost. 

I could feel my soul stretching into some forgotten peace, when there was no constant thrum of engine whirring, always humming, lulling man into his fast-moving world. As the silence spread, I felt it in the whole of my being. And it was like the forest itself took a breath. The wind washed through trees, the air sweet from summer sun and rain.

I planted my feet, bare on the earth, and listened. But it was felt more than heard. A vibrating, soft grounding, the electricity within me aligning once more with the rhythms of the natural world. 

Then the sounds drowned out by the goings and the mowings met me in this place. An orchestra designed for my nervous system. A song sung throughout the ages.

All my ambition began to fade as doing little became once more human. And what I could not see before blazed in living colors. Turning over itself again and again, beckoning me to unbecome and become in tangential moments. 

How had I grown so disconnected that this lively ballet would seem at first dull and boring? Red light not blue, soft and waiting, not stirring me on to look at the next, but inviting me to see more in what is.