"May The Forest Be With You"

The trees again have centred me. I return home relaxed, filled; Meg.

Why is it that people are moved to exhibit a silent reverence in a cathedral, but amongst trees they forget to listen?

Trees, in fact, are perfect mirrors; living reflective pools for the deepest places in your soul. A tree in it's silent being is able to draw voices forth from heart to teach and encourage you. To strengthen you. To remind you of who you were always meant to be.

If only you listen. If only, as one famous teacher once said, “You have ears to hear...”

They speak of majesty. Of being vulnerable enough to admit that you are small, mortal, finite. They teach that to know this weakness is to know true power. That in understanding your true state, you may be wholly fulfilled in it.

Strength.

Immortality.

Reverence.

Trees will draw forth what is most beautiful from your being, if only you pause and let them.

I do not walk often enough through the forest. When I do, I'm usually in a hurry to exercise my dog before I have to make it to the next appointment; the next job. The list for the day piles up. I bring my mobile phone with me in case anyone needs me while I'm walking. In case I am unable to face solitude that day.

When I come seeking, willing to find and be found, I am never disappointed. I always return home, my thirst quenched, my spirit overflowing.

So why do I forget?

Because the world around us in no way resembles a forest any longer. There is an absence of awe. A lack of reverence. Nothing is sacred. Humanity has become the highest rung of divinity. With science and religions formed by man we have lost our childlike wonder.

We no longer have “ears to hear”, and so the world becomes at once very loud and yet with nothing of value to say.

And we forget. We forget the murmurings of our ancestral places We forget our roots and the strength that comes from the deepest pools of our souls. We forget that silence is healing, and that only in knowing our own selves may we ever be able to help others.

Even now the trees wait. Quiet sentinels of our past, guarding truths that were once commonly accepted; eager to share. Eager to draw truth from you. They will wait until all of humanity is of an age again to listen. They will wait until again we search for awe.

Dear Winter

Dear Winter,

Today I tried, I really truly made an honest attempt to embrace your return to my life. The softly falling flakes are beautiful, thank you. My friends and family are all so pleased with the delightful gift of fresh tracks that you have presented this March. It was...unexpected, what with the Spring birds and the crocuses and all.

I had every intention of traveling up the gondola to play in your gift, I swear. I woke up early. I caffeinated. I even lovingly stroked my snowboard last night before bed and whispered all sorts of promises about the Sunday we would share together.

The truth is- I'm living a lie. I just don't love you like I did in December.

Remember December? When our season was young and all of the grand dreams and possibilities wrapped us in a euphoric state? December, when my first turns of the year were exciting and fresh, and I couldn't wait for all of the powder days ahead.

I'm sorry, Winter, I'm over you. I've moved on.

You see, while you were away for the last couple of weeks, Spring and I fell in love. I know it's hard to hear, but please, let me explain.

It started as a casual observation that I didn't need to shovel snow, or scrape ice from my car anymore. Then I realized that I didn't need to put on so many layers in the morning. Some days I didn't even need a coat!

Maybe Spring wouldn't have been so enticing if I didn't work outside, but I won't change for you, Winter.

I think what finally drove me from your mountain play lands was the first time I laid eyes on grass. So green and alive and glistening in the sunlight. I was instantly seduced, swept away by distant memories of long lazy days spent lounging on the dock at Alpha Lake; camping, hiking, riding my bicycle...

And it was hard when you left me, Winter. All of that confusion- would you return to me? Were you gone for the year? Would it be days before I saw you again? Weeks? Months? And then there was the terrible mess that you left. The slush. The half-frozen snot falling from the sky. I don't want to go through that again.

So it's over, Winter, at least for me, anyway. Maybe we can give it another try next November, when we've both had time to find ourselves; to analyze our shortcomings and really think about what we could bring to the table in a new season.

It's been real. It's been fun. It just ain't real fun anymore, darlin'.

I'll think of you when I put a thick coat of storage wax on the Arbor. A tear will come to my eye when I get frostbite reaching for a popcicle in the back of the freezer this Summer. I will look back at all of our pictures together with only fondness.

And hey- we'll always have December.

The Truth About Stars

I am living my perfect life. I have become everything that I so passionately wanted to become when I was eight years old. It is only now, laying beside my parents fireplace, curled around my dog, that I see it so clearly.

I am everything that I dreamed I might be. I am becoming this blooming mystery even to myself.

It makes me giggle.

I makes me laugh out-loud.

Last night I stood beneath the stars and twirled around trying to see them all at once. When it dawned on me I began to laugh. With my head thrown back I stood there twirling and I laughed with a heart full of joy at the stars. They twinkled merrily.

Stars love to have a good belly laugh.

(That is how planets are born, my dear one.)

I have, for years now, chosen to sleep beneath the stars. Because I live where it is cold or pissing rain eighty per cent of the year, often my stars are the fake plastic glowing ones stuck to my ceiling with tack.

No matter. The small pin pricks of light are eerily similar to their real living mentors. The mimicked glow stirs something in my heart. Whispered memories of the peace and the joy that stars call out of my soul fill my ears.

After throwing back my head and laughing with the stars, I crept inside to my teeny tiny room. Getting undressed in an unfamiliar house is always a little nerve racking for me. I feel vulnerable, a little scared.

Eight years old again

As I wrapped myself up in my familiar little bed, and curled around my familiar dog, I found myself grinning at an unfamiliar ceiling because of one tiny familiar little star.

You see, when I was packing up the room that has sheltered me for the last two years of my life, one little star was left behind on my duvet cover. Before I left, I went to gather my purse and there was the pointy green plastic star. I felt badly that she had been separated from her constellational family network, but I wasn't about to search through my car to find them. So she came to live in my purse.

After hitching a ride to my new temporary home, she also became the first to be welcomed to my tiny new bedroom. I promptly forgot in the stressful following hours that she had made her way to me at ail.

Until much later, when our grinning face found one another...

...and we threw back our heads and laughed.