On Silence
Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2018 2:14 am
I found it this morning - that stillness of soul that we seek in the woods.
I had come down the hill from the pasture, and unlike my usual treks stopped on a large stone to simply sit beside the pond.
It took a while after I'd started again to realize something was different.
I was moving without sound - not stalking as one seeks game, nor as one hides from danger - but merely because the stillness within could not bear to break the stillness without.
My feet wended through fallen branches, landing without conscious care only on soft wet leaves. Some ancient instinct must have been guiding my steps, one foot coming down canted here, the next going a bit wide there to miss a twig. Had I been trying, I could never have passed so quietly.
Eventually I broke through the woods into the clearing at the top of the hill, and turned to simply take in the rainy half-naked trees fading into the distance.
The spell did not break until I met the old logging road again.
How I missed this.
I had come down the hill from the pasture, and unlike my usual treks stopped on a large stone to simply sit beside the pond.
It took a while after I'd started again to realize something was different.
I was moving without sound - not stalking as one seeks game, nor as one hides from danger - but merely because the stillness within could not bear to break the stillness without.
My feet wended through fallen branches, landing without conscious care only on soft wet leaves. Some ancient instinct must have been guiding my steps, one foot coming down canted here, the next going a bit wide there to miss a twig. Had I been trying, I could never have passed so quietly.
Eventually I broke through the woods into the clearing at the top of the hill, and turned to simply take in the rainy half-naked trees fading into the distance.
The spell did not break until I met the old logging road again.
How I missed this.