How the land speaks to us

This morning at dusk I made my way up to the forest while the cottage was still dark and quiet. Unable to fall back to sleep I had forced myself out of bed and put on my boots, my eyes still refusing to open entirely but my legs determined to crawl up the mountains. A wild little wolf by my side, we had one particular destination in mind: The squeaky old bench in the wild and overgrown birch grove.

Stalks of dried up mugwort and goldenrod were towering next to the bench like a protective wall. Previous storms had their way with some of the old and sick birch trees and in their place a couple of young oaks and beech trees grew from seeds that the wind brought a decade ago.

The past few days were hard and my heart felt bruised and tired of fighting. As the first rays of sunshine made their way through the bare bones of the winter forest, I felt numb and in awe at the same time.

I was safe here so I let go. Crying softly at the bitterness of life while the wind rocked me back and forth like my grandmother used to.

Something in me felt broken for a long while and just when I thought that this pain would last forever, a dried oak leaf left its stem and landed on my head like a pat on the back from the earth, insisting that I see that all is going to be well again.

The land always speaks to us in many different ways.

We just forgot how to listen.