The Mad Nakedness Of Nature

I want to lose myself in the mad nakedness of nature, take a deep cleansing breath, a full immersion into everything that’s primeval, untamed and untainted by the toxic times that we’re currently living through. Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll hug trees, towering, ancient redwoods, cool, slick madrones, sinewy willows, wizened oaks. I’ll take each and every one of them into my loving embrace, feel our hearts beat as one and their essences pulsate through my body. I’ll wrap my arms around their trunks as far as they’ll go. Looking up into their crowns I feel small and humbled while my body and spirit grow stronger with each deep inhale. And the green, I’ll drink in the soothing green, the color of peace, the very reason for life here on earth. Dappled light filters down through leaves of infinite shapes and sizes creating a dazzling dance on the forest floor. The light plays upon soft spongy mosses, lichens like snake skin, sensuous grasses, trillium with their single, delicate white flower, the three-leafed carpet of sorrel and ancient ferns with their fiddle heads unfurling. The intricate design of a spider’s  web is backlit by the low angle of the sun.

I’ll join all the mysterious creatures of the forest in a glorious union of man and beast. I know that only a few chromosomes separates me from them, we’re  alive together on this earth, sad and desperate times that dissolve, if only for a short while once I enter the womb of the natural world. Lemon yellow banana slugs do their slow motion slither vibrating against the muted colors of the forest, a California newt with its clumsy, side to side gait moves with determination, I pick it up and feel the cool smoothness of its body as it crawls through my fingers. And the river, it is the lifeblood that flows through everything. Its  calm, mirror-like surface belies the wild tangle of life swimming just below the surface. Fish jump with a blip and are gone, otters poke their heads above the surface their soft, inquisitive eyes beckoning me to join them, gentle Zen creatures I long to roll with them through the cleansing waters, the timeless current of life. It’s all here: joy, freedom, peace, beauty, everything we crave and hope for in our lives and the lives of those we love. Immersed in the mad nakedness of nature I’m everywhere and nowhere. 

Night falls and owlsound echoes through the forest. I hear a pair call to one another, sonorous and sad I can listen to these sounds and always hear something new. The forest is full of beautiful noise: squirrel chatter, songbird melodies, riversong, trees that creak and yawn in the wind but owlsound is my favorite, something primal in me is awakened by their vibrations and I’m filled with wonder every time I hear it. When all is quiet and darkness has settled in, the silence of the forest is all encompassing. Stars begin to blink on, pinpricks of light visible through the canopy. Soon there will be moonglow and the other night creatures will gradually awaken. Inside this cocoon I feel safe, the cool and the darkness surrounds me and I’m not afraid.