{photo from Pinterest, no source listed}
The
forest was old. It knew many
secrets. Secrets that it guarded, given
to it by the Creator. The forest as it
grew learned the keys to this world. It
knew what was needed to thrive. The
forest had passed many hundreds of years standing strong and protecting itself
and its creation from what passed it by.
The
forest was sacred. As the land around it
was taken, through need, through exploration, through progress, the forest
remained. As if some great force was
protecting it, it continued its calling.
Its purpose. The forest housed
life, from the long buried earthworms, the most diminutive of insects that
crawled across its roots, to the animals that sought refuge inside the
sturdiest of trunks and the birds that flew among its guarded canopy.
The
forest was a sanctuary. Created from all that was good, it grew in its own time and at its own pace. Life flourished. Native flowers blossomed unhindered. The shaded ferns unfurling themselves each
year. The branches lay dormant but each
spring flourished in a vibrant green that burst forth in new hope and thrived
until the period of decline came, itself so beautiful, heralding a last
glorious brilliance of color before coating the soil in a blanket of detritus
that would serve it in its rest and retreat the following winter.
Any
living thing that came to the forest thrived.
Plant, animal, even human. Humans
were a rare sight in a forest this deep.
The few humans that did venture to the forest left different than when
they came. The ones that came to the
forest had open hearts. They felt a
longing to something more primal, some draw to the nature of things, some grasp
of the understanding that there is more to what is seen on the surface of
things. The things the forest knew but
could not teach, only provide.
