Walking in the woods can be a heavenly experience. Recently we took the familiar walk around Moss Lake, yes there were a lot of people camping, walking, recreating, but the forest is so vast that in minutes you can be alone with hardly a sound of civilization. The path looms ahead of you arched with pine, birch, maple - tree after tree. A tree was even growing on top of a rock. I’m always impressed by the way trees will try and grow anywhere.
Up hill and down hill, crossing a brook that feeds into the lake; ferns, witch hobble, lichens and moss are everywhere that the eye takes time to look upon. At noon, you can hear the Eagle Bay fire siren reminding you to eat, distant voices and laughter are heard here and there, but other than that when you are far enough from the road you think you’re in a very secluded place. When you listen in stillness, there is the haunting sound of the wood thrush, a few chickadees, and above all there is peace.
There are huge rocks along the trail, and you wonder where did they come from, how did they get there? The answer is they were pushed in place by the huge glacier that covered the whole area in the last ice age which receded about ten thousand years ago. Ancient rocks, rocks of ages, it is awesome to think of how long they’ve been there, and how long you have not. John Wilde’s words to to mind:
“We are
intimately,
intricately,
infinitely
connected
by a matrix of
unconditional,
unlimited,
uniting
LOVE
which is
miraculous,
mysterious and
marvelous.”
and that we, like the rocks are made up of star dust. We have our heavenliness in common.
The hush of the forest whispers many stories, that we have passed this way before, that this is new, that we are a part of something that is much bigger than we think, that we are known intimately. We drink in the quiet, we let is surround us and in that present moment we are experiencing heavenliness.