A Day in the Woods

Yesterday was a long day in the garden and house, doing chores and prepping the beds for transplants. I need a day off, which isn’t likely but I can at least take the morning. Caledonia State Park, in Michaux State Forest, is the nearest park, but going there isn’t at all just settling for easy. Many of the trails run alongside streams, and those are my favorites.

The music of the stream calms my soul and eases the stresses of the day. Tolkien said it beautifully: ”“It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth…

The young cinnamon ferns are just beginning to unfurl their standards, and fallen trees adorn the moist forest floor. Moss grows on the old stumps and logs, and whole ecosystems inhabit the hidden crannies and secret hollows.

We’ve had enough rain recently to spread the streams across low lying areas, creating small marshes and bogs. It’s stayed damp long enough to allow reeds and skunk cabbage to flourish.

At the end of the Midland Trail, I came to the creek’s entry into the Conocoteague. There is a favorite spot, a fallen tree, decaying and falling to pieces, but with a strong young sapling, straight and tall, springing from the detritus. Life will always triumph over death. We are promised that in the Bible; it is why Jesus died, why he was resurrected, and why I continue to have hope, and faith, and love.

Every spring, we relive that resurrection, and we rejoice at the return of life and renewal of the world.