An Encounter with Nature Ch.3 Silvanus
I lean against a moss covered tree surrounded by a long forgotten bog on Lord Hill.
Today my grandfather died and I felt a calling to come to this place, though I had never been here before.
I needed a place of solitude to meditate and mourn.
As I wandered through forest–first alderwood, then evergreen–I eventually came across a small unmarked trail.
As I looked down the trail, through the forest thick with trees covered in moss and ferns–ferns that grow everywhere, from the ground to far overhead out of the moss on the sides of the trees–I saw in the distance the nameless bog where I now sit.
I made my way out into the middle of it, carefully walking across fallen, decaying trees over slowly flowing murky water towards a big, beautiful tree rising triumphantly out of the swamp.
There I found a place to sit that softly cradled me and I leaned back against the mossy tree.
It was as if the earth was caressing me, consoling me, reminding me that where there is death, there is also life.
Out of the dead leaves and trees below there is an abundance of new life, reaching up out of the bog, seeking the sunlight above.