Forest Meditation

I press up the steep hill in my back yard, making my way to the wild raspberry brambles that mark the edge of our local nature preserve. As I pop a ripe berry into my mouth and press through the thorny path into the woods, I wonder if the neighbors watch me through their closed windows and call me “that crazy hippie.” Always spending time outdoors, regardless of the weather, seldom in shoes, seldom caring if my clothes match so long as they’re comfortable. Picking herbs, sledding, listening to music, playing games, doing yoga, eating, laughing. Quite the fool.

Our household seems to be the only one with adults who venture past their back door. So sad. Their loss.

I make my way along the graveled pathway and turn off onto the blazed dirt trail, sheltered by increasing darkness as I penetrate deeper into the forest. Down the foot-worn hill and up to the creek, all in a matter of a few minutes. Oh. The footbridge has been wiped out by this summer’s floods. Someone has hauled its pieces up on the opposite bank. Guess I’m in for a muddy climb. With wet feet. This is fun!

The damaged bridge inspected, I continue up the hill on the other side, watching small toads appear out of nowhere and scamper away from my feet as I disturb their camouflaged repose. Up, up, up. I reach the ridgeline out of breath with burning legs.

Something else has changed. The chipmunk tree has fallen. I can see why a storm blew it down. The proud and mighty American beech was hollow on the inside – literally rotten to the core. Who knew? I suppose the chipmunks who used to live here did. I can see a pile of beechnut shells in the base of the trunk where their nest must have been. I realize that it’s been a few years since I’ve actually seen any of them here. Maybe they knew their home was becoming unstable. Maybe they met some other fate. Goodbye chipmunks.

Passing the tree that once held a nest occupied by a patient catbird, I slowly walk down toward the reservoir. Quietly now. The less noise I make, the fewer animals I will frighten away. This is where I always wish I could move silently like the stories I heard about my Native American ancestors when I was a child. But I can’t. And I don’t. Fortunately the forest always rewards me anyhow.

Here I am. My destination. A little spit of land reaching out into the small reservoir. This has changed as well. The flowing water continuously deposits sediments behind the dam and the lake is filling in. I think about the heavy metals and toxins in the layers beneath the sandy bottom – the legacy of Army experimentation on this land during World War II. We will not disturb their resting place or the dam that traps them there. We will keep them from the plants and animals and people who live here now as well as the Chesapeake Bay several miles downstream.

I notice that there are now young sycamore trees growing on the sandbars that have formed in the middle of the reservoir. Eventually this will simply be a forested valley where two streams merge to travel as one to the Bay.

Nature’s symphony performs as I stand motionless beside the dark, shallow water. Bullfrogs call to one another with their throaty booms. A bald eagle cries out to his mate and glides overhead, carrying a mangled fish to a distant perch. I can just make the white tip of his tail in the thick foliage. He is feeding his young. Great blue herons silently note the occasional flopping fish. Flying bugs with long legs dip down to the water and fly away again, leaving behind small concentric circles on the reflective surface.

This is heaven.

I stop and think about how someday my molecules and atoms will be part of this place. It will look quite different then and I will be part of that difference. I will be the toads, frogs, chipmunks, birds, bugs, fish, and trees. I will feed the eagles. I will be the eagles. I will be the water. I will flow to the Chesapeake Bay and on into the oceans and out into the rest of the world. Then I will return again and again. To my back yard.