Time is meaningless in the thick of all those trees (even when the trees are still bare); the trees blur the space between here and there, crowding out everything but the moment, these woods. I am grounded in a way only nature can provide.
With time at a standstill, sight and sound and smell step up to register the world in novel ways. The sun dancing across the canopy of blue high above the trees is the only indication the world has gone about her business of revolving and evolving. The clear trill of a lone bird cuts through the crisp afternoon of early spring before being swallowed up by the dense carpet of leaves. I’ve paid good money to then burn it all away at the end of a wick in the hopes of duplicating the woodsy smell that naturally permeates this tranquil place.
Fortunately it doesn’t take money to experience this tranquility, to find this peace. In fact, money and all its commercial trappings have spoiled more than its fair share of wooded wonders. I lament this knowledge every time I return to civilization after a walk in the woods.