I follow a trail of white mushrooms into the heart of the forest. They leave me standing amid towering beings, ancient and slow. In this place, the light of the sun is transformed, its fierce brilliance transmuted into primordial twilight, softening the edges of time. The air is a sacred hush—not silent but reverent, animate with gentle, whispering beings too shy to emerge from the shadows. Suddenly, a chattering squirrel overhead, the echo of a distant thrush, otherworldly. And I think how long this world has thrived with no knowledge of our world outside—our mechanical, depleted, constructed atrocity of a life. No wonder we are lonely. No wonder we feel lost.
I rest on a fallen trunk, a bit soft with decay, but solid enough. I breath forest air, rich with the workings of life and death. I listen a long while. I let myself forget who I am, hoping I might rise as a stranger to myself. Rise to leave this place as something new, carrying soil and fern spores on the soles of my shoes, depositing a trail of hope as I follow the white domes of toadstools out toward home.
Deep-hearted wisdom
lives in slow, passive growth
and willing decay
.
.
Al Fournier
.