If I were a great photographer, I could capture a photo that would speak volumes of the ground you see before you. Not the trees, not the river, not the sky--just the ground. I could snap a photo and people would immediately say, “Ah, yes, there is the beautiful ground. Now I see it.” But I’m not a great photographer, and no matter how many pictures I took of the ground in the woods today near the river, they all were largely forgettable.
Instead, I can use words to tell you about it because that’s
what I do, and they might paint a more accurate and beautiful picture than my
camera ever could. You see, I had been walking
for a long time on asphalt (which I don’t usually do) when I finally got back
to the woods. It was a tiring day and my
feet were sorer than I thought they’d be.
After all, the path I had been walking on in town was smooth, straight,
and clear of debris. Surely, walking on
such a path should be easy and enjoyable?
Isn’t that what our city paths are for, after all?
Oh, but they are so hard and unforgiving. We don’t realize it when we look at
them. They do not bend or sway or give
in any manner whatsoever. They are
callous and rigid and exacting. When the
foot lands on a city path, the path hits back.
Each touchdown is met with an equal and hardened force, as if to say,
“Hit me, will you? I’ll hit you back!”
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| The photo that can't show the real forest floor. |
Not so in the woods.
I did not think I’d be able to go out into nature today because I was so
tired and sore, yet I realized if I did not, I would not be able to equalize
the damage done, and so I headed off into the woods, hoping for the best.
That’s where this photo comes in. It looks pretty ordinary, doesn’t it? But here is what happened to me: I stepped on to a carpet--no, a bed, I
stepped on to a soft bed. It yielded immediately
to my foot, which sank in about an inch or so.
It was a velvety feeling, like a caress, like a tiny massage. The bones in my feet did not meet hard
resistance but instead met softness, and in doing so, they instantly
relaxed. I hadn’t realized up until that
point how much “on guard” my feet had been, silently begging me to stop hurting
them.
The floor of the woods was thickly covered with needles from
hundreds of white pine trees. They were
brown and dead yet somehow still beautiful, as things in the woods always are
because there is not as much differentiation there between life and death. Each step brought up a tiny fragrance of
pine, and as the fragrance wafted up to my face, my shoulders relaxed
deeply. I hadn’t realized how tight they
had been in the city, but the aromatherapy of the woods soothed them into a bliss
I did not know they were lacking.
There was no click of my shoe on pavement, no rasping sound,
no grating of tiny pieces of dirt or pebbles.
All was quiet and peaceful. My
steps were silent as they sunk into the pine needles, and the birds of the
woods were grateful that I hadn’t disturbed their peace. All around me, invisibly swathing the equally
transparent aroma of pine, there was a sense of moisture. It was something I could feel but not
see. The trees breathed it down upon me,
showering me with their tiny tears of joy for the return of the sun. This secret moisture heightened the scent of
pine and brought it from delicious to divine.
Nothing hurt anymore.
Nothing was tight and sore or guarded and worried. Everything was as it should be. There was nothing to worry about, nothing to
fear. This was what the forest floor
brought to me as I stepped upon it and it lightly kissed each of my feet. How lucky I am! If only I could have shown it to you.
