I’m in love with muddy deer prints. Tails of trails. Fresh or frequent. Five minutes or forever long ago. They play and stray. Misses or misters making their mark. No worries. Creatures of grace and wonder, long lashes and lean bodies.
Feeling honored that they share my space. Or is it that I share their space? Soggy wetlands and paths yet to be forged. Their presence welcomed and apparent. My arrival, in the woods, as stealth as I can muster and still they notice me. Before I spy them. Stillness if only for their nostrils’ mist, their hooves sinking, snapping branches, crunching brown leaves.
Prints more frequent in the Spring thaw. New growth, juicy buds, spruce tips, cedar tips, arborvitae fronds. The fragrance of enticing treats pulling them closer for a nibble. Through the cyclic mushy, then frozen earth, their signature on the land preserved
Surrounded, cloaked in decaying matter. Fresh smells of moist, decomposing life. The split center of a giant hickory. The trunk, cracked wide open in invitation, welcoming me home once again. Allowing. Allowing me in, like a generous neighbor, availing it’s wisdom. Without an entrance fee. Because I exist. I enter. Stepping out of my muted, insignificant existence, into this earthly goodness. The slow, methodical, rhythmic heartbeat of the earth echoes in the fresh rot. My exhales slowing to meet the offering.
Mother, I am home. I remove my coat and hang it on the rack. At the base of this Hickory, soft green Cedar fronds, border the huge Hickory in a semi-circle – concealing this sacred world from outsiders. Surely a magical thing. I shine brightly here in this dimly lit ins-tree-tution. I shine brighter. My secret safe palace, holding me sacred. I play. Alone, at peace. At once. Secluded from the jagged edges of life and dreaded doom. Stuffing myself into it’s humid warmth. All is lost in the wind circling, swirling.
Oh the cleansing wind. Blowing fantasy fulfillment. Take away everything, everybody. Dispose of them, I won’t mind. Discharging my death-wish fantasies into the open palms of these two grounded lovelies. Into these trees. Make it happen – I whisper. The howling winds, snow, rain, hail – experienced only as sound and sights. Destruction cannot touch me. I am only an observer. For once. I hunker into the safety of this energetic earth shield.
Hickory and Cedar, the finest bouncers, guard the entry like a rabid wolverine. I am grateful, if just for a moment. I am filled with wonder. What small creatures have also found solace here? I can’t be the only one… Under the watchful eye of Wise Woman. Mother Earth oversees this changing landscape, recording my fears, wonder, cries, rants, whispers. She never tells. She, for sure, can be trusted to hold and transmute all that ails. Offering me anonymity as I unload my bags. A long held fantasy, sleeping in here, energetically bathed in her light and love, protected, invincible. I will never leave.
I emerge so much more. Grown under the watchful eye of the elders.
A Fish Named Karen 