Forest

Forest I'm standing alone in a deep green conifer forest .Black Spruce, tamarack and the odd birch or poplar permeate the damp mossy landscape. I can barely make out an azure sky through the thick tangle of branches and growth as I look up, The sun winning the battle here and there with the odd deft ray making it to the forest floor. Green moss hangs from the branches and covers the root systems which splay away from the trunks like the skin draped over the bones of an old mans hand. The ground is uneven with the odd pit or crevice half filled with black water teaming with microscopic life. I don't know why I am here , I am simply there , smelling, feeling , breathing, hearing, tasting, seeing and loving the earth. All is well. I am simply standing there and absorbing the Technicolor green. A silent witness to the reckless cascade of photosynthesis that I am privy too all around me . A tiny bystander on this massive machine we call earth's echo system. There is a small clearing of flat moss before me about 8 by 8 feet. As I stand in the tiny clearing I am stirred out of my reverie of natural bliss by the fact that I feel a light cool tingling on my feet. I look down to see that my feet have sunken about 5 inches into the moss. I pull one foot out to investigate the cause of the tingling but as I try to undo my shoelace, it dissolves in my hand and is blown by the slight wind like a pussy willow's puff on the breeze. I grab my shoe and it crumbles like dry sand off my foot. Standing on one foot now ,I am left with the decision of weather to put my foot back down into the moss. I think of my other foot still in the moss and it feels like wonderful cool tingling yet non intrusive. I put my other foot down into the moss. I immediately feel small wet roots growing with fervor in between my toes to pull me taut to the earthen floor. I have never felt more grounded or rooted in reality. I stand for a few moments ,then just let go . I let go of all the stress that followed me into this forest , and fall forward arms spread not caring to break my fall. The moss floor caress my face and body in a welcoming gesture of soft soliloquy. Falling into and through it I feel the damp rubbery moss welcome me . As I lay about 8 inches counter sunk face first into mother earth. My fleeting moment of negative thought as I think to inhale is met by the muffled earthy underground sound of small root tendrils as they make there way up my nose and down my windpipe , I can taste the earth as it starts to branch into ever smaller segments into my lungs . Then suddenly that life time need of autonomic muscle memory breath is no more. Replaced by a steady sustained influx of freshly squeezed photo synthesized energy . My worries abated I allow my self fully to the earth . I am at peace on a world level . I am at one with creation. I am at one with the biosphere of the north at that moment , I feel the earths reciprocation as I feel the wet moss and earth further suck me into its womb of viscous greenery . From the top view you can see the last traces of my black hair as the thick moss carpet envelopes the back of my head. to fully envelope me into its earthy womb. All is still for a few moments . I open my eyes on reflex to see a world of black. Then the sound of muffled earthy movement from all around me as I feel and see slick gentle white root tendrils shoots dart down like white botanic lightning all around me. I feel them individually grow there snaky random shoots around me caressing me . There pure white roots the essence of natural life .They wrap me in a loving embrace till I feel there connection and will . I am . .. . plugged in to the natural order of things . I am suddenly aware that I can sense everything . There is no perspective here , for I am omnipresent I can feel everything from the squirrels jumping in my canopy to the earthworms snaking in my peat moss The elegant dance of photosynthesis coming easy to me , as well as an acute affinity to barometric pressure. Mean wile my human body, in the proses of biodegradation is honored of the fact that it chose me to recycle , I feel it is one of the best used gifts I have ever given. I awake with a start as I sit in bed with the biggest sleepy smile this insignificant meat sac of a body can muster.