Descending into woods, a sign says “No bikes, No dogs.” Good. Leave that behind.
The first fallen tree, two big trunks. This one fell last year sometime, not so long ago.
Continuing, another tree with a young couple’s initials. I took their photo with their cell phone two years ago. I wonder if they are still happy. Or even alive.
As I descend further, I meet people, some of whom acknowledge me and others who simply glide by without a greeting or like I am invisible. Sometimes I think these might be ghosts. Probably not, otherwise they would be Pottawatomies.
Going further, there are logs, fallen trees from many years ago. They have the most fungi, but different from the mushrooms on the live trees. There are beetles and worms and microbes. I can’t see the microbes, but the log decays and gets soft.
A huge tree recently fell right across the trail, maybe on purpose. Its upper leaves and branches still green and tender, sap still runs. Deer munch on the leaves. Some people say that when a person’s heart stops, the brain still functions for a while, maybe for hours.
In several years, this big tree will host the mushrooms, beetles and microbes that will break it down. A big “living” tree that I always greet and touch (sometimes even hug) has some raccoons living in it along with some bugs under the bark which woodpeckers find.
Bird nests and squirrel nests are in this big oak at the top of a hill where I take a rest.
Through all seasons the colors of these woods change. Fungi and moss change almost daily especially after a rain. Deer also change color throughout the seasons. I don’t know if deer can see color like we do, but their coat changes.
I walk from a neighborhood where people manicure their lawns, plant tulips and flowers, spray for weeds and dandelions. But in these woods, flowers and buds are mingled with rotting logs, fungi, and native grasses. By hiking this trail in all seasons, I am greeted by old friends that bloom lavender then leaf green then reddish brown in the fall. Also, some old friends fall “dying.”
Is that old log “dead”? There are all kinds of life in it.
Most of the cells in our body are not human. Where we live now, in this time, at “death” we either encase the body in steel and concrete or burn it down to an urnful of ashes. Some cultures do “sky burials.” We don’t accept we are part of nature.
Nature is there, waiting to transform us.