Sunday 13th March 2022
Having the opportunity to be in some forests these past couple days got me thinking. Of course there were moments when my only thought was WTF was I doing trying to get up the steep and slippery inclines, but there were some other good thoughts as well.
In the indigenous forest it was easy to imagine fairies and other worldy critters with the moss and hanging vines that sometimes reached out to grab my foot. The huge majestic trees stood silently playing home to birds and beasties. Mushrooms popped up in obscure places under branches and if I looked really closely, I could see tiny footsteps (lol)
I started thinking about the personality of trees. Do some of them want to be seen, admired and photographed? Are there those that would prefer to hide in the depth of the thick vegetation never having pesky human eyes cast over their shapes?
Perhaps there's a council of trees, where such bark decisions are made. Some trees offer their appendages to assist the humans on their clumsy tumbles through the valley. Or perhaps there are those that are willing to be sacrificed to be appreciated under weary feet. The ones willing be on display for the mortals get special mention at the council meetings while the older oakes know a thing or two in their hundreds of years of existence and choose to remain silent.
I swear I heard a rumbling of such a meeting while grappling a strong branch on a particularly slippy descent...
"I'm tired of being manhandled, granma pine, they have also started engraving scars in my trunk now..."
"Okay, let's get the vine to reclaim the underbrush but we need to allow access a little further down..."
"I'm carrying homes for those birds with hammers in their beaks. I used to laugh at old mother stinkwood complaining about the noise, but now I feel what she means..."
Yes, a flash of thought pushed a feeling of a different kind of appreciation for what I am now calling my 'forest council'. The mysteries of the council that keep treasures hidden for as long possible from us humans with our electric chainsaws, axes and footsteps.
Treading lightly on those inclines was impossible and I did offer a silent apology in amongst all the cursing, but there's also a renewed respect as the forest spat us out one by one.
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