Forest Belly

The forest is hungry and so am I

I go in to get lost. Right into the belly of the forest. Where parts of me can be consumed. Altering me with its being. It’s the devouring and the devoured. All at once. Here, there’s no need to be palatable. Come as you are, with feet dirty.

My hunger is for connection with the more than human world. A craving for a language beyond words. It’s a deep thirst for seeing without having to name. An appetite to be swallowed whole.

If all goes well, there is no way to get a hold of me for a while. I leave the city and the summer heat behind me. The hum of an engine hangs in the air. The only thing I carry is an intention to listen.

I lay my hand on one of the tree trunks. It’s covered in a mosaic of emerald moss and turquoise lichen. We greet each other. I know to be a good guest and I take off my shoes.

As I walk in my vision adjusts to the new scenery. Everything is dipped in green shadows and the floor is freckled with glistening spots. Listening to the beat of my naked steps. They form an unfamiliar kind of rhythm. I feel my muscles tensing and releasing. Change is lurking in the joints and my stomach growls quietly.

What does it mean — this hunger?

My feet push down into the soft pillowed ground. I hear the birds calling for one another. I imagine them telling stories of distant places. From where they’ll be in a few moons from now.

What must a mighty tailwind between your feathers feel like, rushing up above in blue air?

A small opening appears in front of me. It invites me between the trees, winding downhill. I follow it past bushes of thorny blackberries. Steadying myself as my toes claw into the descent. The warm smell of rotting wood expands into my chest. The scent of humid leaves tickles my nose.

I spot several wilted flowers. They stand on the side of the small trail. Once, they proudly stretched their blossoming heads toward the sun. Now, they bow with small furry seed pods. Soon merging with the winds of longing. Sailing off into new forms.

Maybe they are secretly counting raindrops, like I am counting heartbeats?

Wishing to be pulled apart and touched by that same water that once has been in cloudbursts, rivers and glaciers. That same water that has known the electrifying force of an ocean wave. That same water that runs through my own body.

In this forest bath one could drown.
I let my head fall back.

Layers of leaves bend and sway in fractal repetition. I trace a tree trunk skywards as it splits into two thick branches. Moss is enclosing it like a soft blanket. Caressed by the sun it sparkles in green and gold.

How does a tree decide in which direction to grow?
Always reaching for the light.

Damp air climbs down into my lungs.
It’s fertile with the energy of a recent storm, tingling at the edges of my skin.

Arriving at a fork in the path I come to a halt. The mosquitoes immediately begin to feast on patches of bare skin. If I don’t keep moving, the ants will surely conquer my toes.

Nothing here is born clean. It knows lust, flowing from rotten fruit. From the revered collapse of what once was. It tastes acidic on the tongue, like the digestive juices of change.

I spot a few centipedes gnawing on the decaying bones of the woods. The shadows now fall differently between the trees. How much time has passed?

I sense forest time. A conversation between living organisms. Rather than abiding by a linear numeric unit, everything here reacts to all else. Moving with light, air flow and pressure. Answering to humidity, or a predator close by. Time is felt and tasted in others. An instinct my species has buried below layers of modern life.

The ecology of time is relational. Created in intimacy with the pulsing elements. Attuning to the ripples within and around. Beyond mere peril and perish.

The forest teaches to listen through intuition. Wrapping us in blankets of green foliage and raising the frequencies of a humming life force. Intimately aware of the forces of the woods and their ancient, continuous rhythms.

Inviting us to recall the quality of each moment that the forest unfurls. Defying linear mechanical time. Somehow older, slower and revered. Emerging as spiral time. Accepting change at each bend. Blending the borders of growth and decay. Like the warmth radiating from a stone or the repeating phases of the moon.

The forest is awake. I see it now.
It’s looking at me through the eyes of a tree stomp.
I touch the Earth and remember.

The soil is not just a dark cold ‘thing’. It’s alive and vibrating with billions of microorganisms. Like skin, the ground senses and envelops all that’s precious. It’s our largest organ. Nutrients pulsating through mycelial highways, as blood pumps through my veins.

I am a body of Earth.
I exist right here, in this instant.
I change form in wild rhythms.
I invite pleasure to spread its roots through me like a mighty oak.

I take a deep, luxurious breath into the belly.

And I step
into the expanse
of timelessness.