Late Winter Walk
I nearly tripped as my toe caught the root that strechted out across the trail. I was too entranced to look down. With a childlike wonderment I took in the scene around me; all my senses engaged. I reached out my hands. The feathery needles of a hemlock sapling and the waxy leaf of the rhodoendron made their way through my fingers. I could hear twig and leaf snap and crumble underfoot. If mother nature has a smell it is not the perfume of her flowers, but rather the organic detritus of her existence decomposing; fallen folaige and trees, shed antlers and spent blooms, the surrender of life for the wild fauna. And although no taste was in the air, inhaling deeply to fill my lungs with the breath of her aura quenched my soul beyond any drink of water. Now it begins. Each day the sun lingers a little longer and we start to see the evidence that Winters death is not final. It is the necessary peeling back and breaking down of her layers, becoming vulnerable in order to embrace change. It is the baptism of nature so that she may be reborn and emerge into new life.
