Sunday morning I went to Wolsfeld Woods SNA for a hike with my camera. This place is
My Sacred Place,
my Sunday cathedral in the woods. I think that I feel closer to God here than anywhere else.
These two tall trees stood in the middle of the path into the woods. I saw them as the gateway into this special remnant of the Big Woods that I love to visit. It was warm and humid Sunday morning in the woods. The light was dimmed by the high canopy of maple and oak tree leaves above. Now that the leaves have fully grown in, it has become a shady sanctuary occasionally pierced by bright spots of sunlight.
I saw this perfect dandelion seed head lit up by a beam of light against the dark shaded tree trunk. It seemed to glow in the dim light.
Most years the mosquitoes are not a bother in these woods until after Memorial Day. From Memorial Day until first frost I tend to avoid hiking here because the mosquitoes are fierce. Fortunately on Sunday I saw a few mosquitoes buzzing around, especially in damp protected areas but none of them bit me.
The only other person I saw in the woods Sunday morning was a guy carrying a camera on a tripod over his shoulder. He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. As we briefly chatted about photographing these woods he told me that the mosquitoes were terrible and he hadn’t been able to make any photographs. He was heading back for insect repellent. I was glad that I had worn a lightweight long sleeved shirt, long pants and a hat.
Wolsfeld woods are filled with ephemeral ponds that are a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. Still, the reflections in the water, of the green plants that are growing around this little mosquito petri dish captivated me.
Everywhere I looked I saw different kinds of beauty, the light through the trees, brilliant green moss-covered logs, maidenhair ferns, jack-in-the-pulpit wildflowers and towering green-leaved trees. And I was reminded as I always am in the woods, of the cycles of birth, growth, maturation, and decay that repeat over and over again in our world.
I leave you today with a few words from Annie Dillard
“…..Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The lights of the fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had my whole life been a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. I have since only rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam…..”
–Annie Dillard, ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek’ (1974).
What beauty do you see today? When was the last time you took a hike in the woods?
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