• Nature is truly a gift from God, a precious treasure in the world that should forever be lived, experienced, and preserved in its fullness. During my hour of concentration, I thought of romanticism, and both the black and white sides of transcendentalism. I soon realized that one reason the word transcendentalism was created, was to explain man’s connection with nature. I’d been on numerous Boy Scout campouts, so nature to me, was always romantic when it was calm, peaceful, meek, all this without the sound of cars in the background. The feeling didn’t need to be explained it was just as H.D. Thoreau said “Simplistic”. The setting I experienced was the “natural object” that Thoreau was talking about, and I felt its presence.

    My journey of feeling nature’s gentle touch began as I went to a sector of forest that existed on my friend’s property, I kindly waved goodbye, as if I wouldn’t be seeing him for a while, and hopped the barbed wire fence that led me into the confines of the forest. I walked a ways until I found a clearing that I knew had had recent visitors (does the word “poop” mean anything to you?), which immediately gave me the anxiety that, something was watching me. The occasional twig snap and leaf rustle gave me a scare; it felt later however that these unusual occurrences could be a ceremony of the forest welcoming my presence. I prayed at this very clearing, for two reasons. One, I didn’t know what was out there. And Two, It seemed the forest had humbled me in a way that my house couldn’t. The quietness, you can hear everything that goes on, you’re always informed.

    I pulled off my jacket and sat on it in the clearing and heard a bird chirp and something buzz. On my left I saw a hill, something told me to observe it, so I put on my Jacket and stared at the hill. It was a peculiar hill, one that rose to a point, and stopped its progression with a wall of thick trees, that looked more like a cage. Then I had the thought, “if cages exist in the wilderness, why make ones out of metal?” .I hopped on a nearby tree that had fallen and balanced myself, arms held out like a plane’s wings, as I glided towards the edge of the wood. I stood in this spot and observed everything around me.

    What stood out were the leaves, mostly from madrone trees, that formed a sort of leafy tile on the forest floor, and the sun, which breathed through the tops of the trees. Here I thought of the “Cathedral” of faith that is said to be found in the woods. Let the shrubs be the ministers, and the animals, the converts. I looked up from the floor and saw rows and rows of trees that made me wonder on how Indians had navigated themselves; I thought, “you could lose yourself in here if you weren’t careful”.

    I looked then to the right where I found a lower inclined hill, in which I slowly wandered over too. I soon came upon an unusual tree that looked like it had three trees growing out of the same stump. There was also a huge gash on one of the tree’s trunks that remained even after it had grown to its enormous size. I put my hand on the gash and felt it, like a comrade’s battle wound, full of sap, and hollow. I tried to rewind myself in time, when this land hadn’t been tampered with, what did it look like? Unfortunately there was a tire, and a few cans around which distracted my train of thought.

    I found a hole not far from the gashed tree, which if in larger scale would resemble a ravine. I looked down on this landmark as well; something inside me wondered what other secrets this place had in store for me. You seem to describe things thoroughly out here, because, you seem to be intrigued enough by it that you think its worth observing. The Earth around the nine foot hole reminded me of play dough from my youth, shaped in an odd way. I walked a bit from the hole and took my attention to the trees once more. Since there was so many of them, I felt like I was in their domain; so much even too give tribute to them in words. These trees, I think pines, were covered in moss which gave them an animal like trait. This connected a lot of wild-life to them that had nothing to do with them genetically.

    I wandered back to the clearing to see what else I could find. I did find something that came across my mind, and that was the ground was teeming with life, insects and plant alike. I thought if all this nature had a human mind, if tempted with power, would the forests of the world try to gain dominion over other forests? They don’t though, because all the forests don’t need that to go on, “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity”, Thoreau makes more sense now.

    The insects, the trees, the signs of life all around me, remind me of clockwork. Going along, as nature does to preserve life. There’s even life underneath my very feet, I was stepping on life itself as I spend this hour here. Signs of underground life peek upwards in the form of holes scattered about. I walk around finding more holes; I feel overwhelmed to be in someone else’s space. The tree branches next to me seem to be reaching out in all angles, like a thicket of thorns. But because they had no thorns the branches seem to represent a friendly handshake that almost says to the soul “Did you enjoy yourself here? I hope so, come back some time, we never get to see people as much, unless they cut us down, which we, as trees, don’t enjoy”. Interrupting the nature wasn’t interrupting anything if observing the beauty of it, if all this ground was never trodden by humans, the dirt would go where it does, and nothing would be interrupted, like space’s moon.

    After the supposed farewell message from the trees, I heard some dogs barking. “What uncanny timing”, I thought. The dogs were my friend’s animals and I seemed to go little by little out of nature’s trance every time they sounded a bark. It was as if civilization was calling for me, like it had lost something valuable. Things started to annoy me more as I trudged back through the trees, when spider webs hit my face, I didn’t think of it as destroying a master piece, it was an annoying obstacle; I was becoming an anti-transcendentalist. I looked down as if in slow –mo to see rotting trees pass me by, they reminded me of human corpses, same color, same destiny.

    My friend was waiting for me by the Metal fence that surrounded the perimeter, holding out his hand to help me back over the barbed wire. At first I refused to go back over and asked for an extension so I could finish my notes. I needed to drain every trance-like energy particle before I went back, I felt myself getting farther away from nature, even if I was standing in the same spot all along. So by the fence I observed a little more. The metal I saw in the forest looked unnatural at first, but as I glanced at the fence, I remembered that the ore made into this can was once nature, and still was in a sense, part of nature. After this thought I glanced at the bearded moss hanging from trees, and wondered how the forest would look if bioluminescence took place inside the moss, what a spectacular site that would be; like the night sky on land.

    I saw dead tree stumps all set in a row that resembled grave sites. From this image I thought, yes, nature has respect for its deceased as well. My friend, after I had finished thinking this thought, pushed over a tree that was otherwise standing up on its own, cracking its truck. Once it hit the ground he said “it’s dead”. I took notice immediately to all the trees through out the forest, guessing what trees were dead and which ones weren’t, I couldn’t. An alive tree could stand up on it’s own as well as a dead tree, leaving the dead tree still faking death in a sense, among the living. If their mission is to stand above all other forest creatures as the prime support of life, and support life there of, does standing then indicate a breath of life? Nothing in here is dead, I concluded.

    I looked one last time at the trees and wondered about their lives, how in the morning they drowsily stretched out their branches until the sun rose, when at that time they would absorb the sweet rays of the sun. In the afternoon when light was more easily obtained, they all moved in unison towards their God, the sun. When the sun set they wept, then got over it, as they remembered that tomorrow they will again receive that blessed sunlight. So they keep living, knowing as long as they do that, they will be rewarded with sunlight.

    I peered at my friend now on the other side of the fence, looking in his eyes was like looking at my former self, a civilized self by societies standards. I quickly glanced down at the fence, and saw vines crawling all around its metal exterior, “this fence was part of nature now”, I thought. The Trance of nature was now gone after this last comment, and I hastily jumped over the fence back into civilization, a little caution prone due to the barbed wire. The fence struck me with a thought as I walked back to the house, that it was a gateway from civilization to nature, a sort of barrier keeping the other one out. And the journey to either one is perilous. If you’re either journeying from nature to civilization or civilization to nature; you have to give up something whether it is life styles or flesh. It’s hard to live directly in one way and go randomly to another, from this point I deduct that because I have been living in civilization so long, I needed nature; I needed a balance of both because of how I was raised up, I needed to go back to my roots, the roots of trees, and innocent mankind.. This explains though Indians in the sense that they needed only nature. Because civilization is man made, it can’t provide all the necessities of life, as much as nature does. A house made of wood can’t give the same thought pattern or spirit as a living redwood, with its massive limbs that have seen more then any human could imagine.

    The journey had been a dream once I got back to the house. I longed for that feeling I felt that mixed God with his creations. I marveled and reflected upon the romanticism that I felt as well, and of the anti-transcendentalist view that hurt me, even if to just change my mind for a second. To see in the eyes of Thoreau was my assignment, but as of other times in nature, it became a humbling experience, not just an assignment I needed done. It was “Simplistic”, wonderful, revitalizing, to name a few words that could explain the time spent. The forest’s natural presence can affect anyone romantically, if you allow it too for an hour.