My husband and I took a couple days at the start of this week to rest at a bed and breakfast about an hour from our house.  With the busyness of working several jobs, maintaining the farm and animals, and keeping up with the complexity of a blended family we absolutely have to set aside short spaces of time for just the two of us to be someplace peaceful and reconnect. It sustains us. 

The bed and breakfast where we stayed was on 132 acres of land, a mix of woods and fields. Wednesday morning before we headed home I set off for a quiet walk in the woods by myself. 

Deciduous forest soon turned to mostly cedars. I love the neon green moss in the mostly brown woods of late fall.  It is a surprising pop of color. 

The woods have always felt like home to me. I grew up in a home surrounded by woods and I think long days spent wandering in them instilled in me a deep love of trees. That feeling of being so small in amongst the soaring trunks, the sound of the leaves dancing high above in the treetops, the secrets hiding along the forest floor. I love it all. It was good for my spirit to be in the woods again. 

The Presence of Trees 

by Michael S. Glaser

I have always felt the living presence

of trees
the forest that calls to me as deeply

as I breathe,
as though the woods were marrow of my bone

as though
I myself were tree, a breathing, reaching

arc of the larger canopy
beside a brook bubbling to foam

like the one
deep in these woods,

that calls

that whispers home

Here are some treasures I collected along my walk. I love noticing the amazing textures and colors nature creates. 

A sycamore losing its bark to become a “ghost tree”

Someone had created this little alter along one of the trails with bits of deer bones found about the woods

I don’t know what these are but their gorgeous color stood out in the dry leaves

This tulip poplar leaf looked like someone painted it with watercolors

I wonder who lives in this hole at the base of a towering tree. Maybe some fairies?

The inn’s resident cat, Bob, was waiting for me when I got back. He had made himself a soft bed in a pile of dry leaves. I sat on a rocker and he hopped up in my lap for some snuggles. I’m not usually a cat person but that cat was just what I needed to finish a perfect morning.