Tag: forest

Here in the Berkshires, my neighbors’ ancestors have been hunting on these lands for generations. So I need to examine my preconceptions about hunting.

Lily draws us into possibilities and mysteries, while at the same time reminding us of our limitations.

Sometimes, meditatively, we follow one or another leaf with our eyes as it circles slowly downward before settling on the ground.

And perhaps that’s one of the problems with civilization. It unrests the soul.

If I didn’t observe with my own eyes the two trees solidly arising above, I would perceive the roots as a single organism of braiding parts.

Right there, under scampering Lily and under me, is a world that I can only imagine, a city under a hill, the brain center of a family of trees.

So Lily and I left the tree and went to my favorite spot, a rock beside Yokum Brook where the water tumbles beneath my feet, and I reflect on the various complexities of life.

Once home, chagrinned, I glanced at my insect-shield clothing lying unworn in its basket and my bug spray unsprayed on the mudroom windowsill. I had been tromping full-tilt through a New England forest in the height of tick season with no protection whatsoever.

Morality, as I think about it, is about conflicting needs and demands, and choosing who or what deserves to be spared and who or what deserves to be sacrificed.

This is what Lily is meant to do. This is what she’s enacting when, with bright eyes, she eagerly offers us her plush green duck toy, then tugs back against our grip, shaking and snarling.

Sometimes the newts come out before the rain as though trying to get a head start on their journey. How do they know that rain will come?

Surprisingly, the roots, where they emerged from the ground and joined the trunk, were embracing a papoose, held tightly to the body of the tree.

I had grown up in a world stripped of death. I hadn’t even been to a funeral!

Oaks, in my mind, are tall, strong guardians, thoughtfully dropping their heavy acorns, deliberate and wise.

Lily and I discovered the big, messy, seething forest that lies behind the few houses that dot our road. I’m talking about hundreds of acres of forest connected to thousands and hundreds of thousands of acres of forest stretching northward through Vermont, into Canada, beyond the Yukon, and clear to the North Pole.

When I turned around at the crest of the hill, I saw brilliant light with a rosy glow spread across the top of the mountain to the southwest, above the dim hillside below, where I stood.