Monday, December 05, 2005

Into the Woods



"I wish to grow dumber, to slip deep into woods that grow blinder with each step I take, until the fingers let go of their numbers and the hands are finally ignorant as paws. Unable to count the petals, I will not know who loves me, who loves me not. Nothing to remember, nothing to forgive, I will stumble into the juice of the berry, the shag of bark, I will be dense and happy as fur."
Noelle Oxenhandler

In the depths of winter I occasionally ponder doing a wild thing, something I have not done in many years - I think about donning a heavy parka, wool trousers, boots and snowshoes, tucking my paints under my arm and heading deep into the woods for a nice long sojourn, far from the madding crowd. The wild calls to me in a voice which is at once plangent and clamorous. "Leave the city behind and return, return to the forest of your deep knowing. Return to the place of your elders, far from the urban canyons in which you have wandered so long."

On dark winter nights when the wind howls around the little blue house, I dream of sitting beside a campfire again, great trees all around me, a bright moon and a sky full of stars overhead, the voices of wolves and owls in the distance, and I am as happy as one wild woman can be. This time (of course) I will be taking my digital camera with me......

Addendum: If there is a seminal or watershed moment in my life, this was it. I stood on a mountain top and looked down, and there was boreal forest stretching in every direction, as far as the eye could see. It was perfect in every way, and I knew I had come home.

1 comment:

daringtowrite said...

This photo stopped me in mid-breath. Oh my!