By RACHEL LOVEJOY
From the Urban Wilderness
Published: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 10:17 AM EDT
Article from Journal Tribune
No matter what we are doing or where we are – work, school, sitting in front of the television set or computer, or fast asleep – the woods are there, watching, waiting, ever-changing. Millions of tiny dramas go on unseen by most during any given time whose increments overlap each other toward infinity. Each movement of a leaf, each bird call slips as smoothly as a stitch into the fabric of life that holds such places in its embrace.
The change of seasons corresponds to our own inner rhythm as we emerge from winter’s restfulness into the exuberance of spring, then move on to summer’s headiness and fall’s denouement. And all the while, the woods live out their lives independently of us, heeding only the laws that nature has subliminally imparted to them, fertilizing, emerging, growing and maturing, from the lowliest weed to the stateliest oak. And it all goes on just a short distance removed from our own activities along pathways that run, if you will, parallel to ours but that might as well, in some cases, be happening a million miles away for all the notice we take of them.
To the untrained eye, a tree stands there, static and still, its only movement produced by that of wind, bird or squirrel. But deep within its very fibers, life moves along at a deafening pace as all the processes necessary to its survival take place in perfect sequence. What we see ultimately is the sum and total of dozens of different outcomes that dictate the shape and placement of the tree’s leaves, the texture of its bark, the shape of its crown and its potential to produce more of its own kind. All this is determined in its genetic code, and it all happens silently without any great fanfare. This energy is dispersed among all the members of a woodland community, to the extent that it becomes a great pulsing body of life that includes all vegetation and all warm and cold-blooded creatures that call it home.
The woods benefit us all, whether we live within their parameters or not. Beyond providing us with the raw materials from which most of our necessities are made, they bring an immeasurable amount of beauty to our lives. I’ve lost track of those moments when, leaving the bustling town or city, the sense of peace and serenity that only the woods have the power to provide moves over me, washing me clean of this world’s cares. I simply cannot imagine a life that does not provide me with that sort of exquisite escape.
The woods know things we don’t know, but most of all that, without them, nothing else could be. They know what it’s like to really touch the sky and to not have the option of going in out of the rain. They know the feeling of losing their outer covering each year and having to stand there braving winter’s winds, waiting for spring’s first balmy touch that will get their juices flowing once again. The woods are a testament to survival and resignation, and they have intimate relationships and wordless conversations with the many creatures, both winged and furred, that seek protection in their innumerable secret places.
Following disasters, the things we humans have built need rebuilding, often at great expense. Conversely, though it might take time, forests slowly rebuild themselves after some sort of trauma without any help from us or at any cost at all. A single tree has the power to remind me of this truth, one of many out there in the natural world. And what a lovely and inspiring way it has of doing it.
— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Springvale, who enjoys exploring the woods of southern Maine, can be reached via email at rachell1950@yahoo.com.
Article from Journal tribune
