Watchers in the Trees

I have walked in the woods many times, and almost always, it instantly calms me. There is a serenity there, the same peace I feel in old houses and cathedrals, or when I breathe in the scent of the flipping pages of a book. It lets me breathe deeper and see farther. But once and awhile, while walking alone, I have gotten the feeling that something was watching me. I look and see nothing, but some primal creeping feeling tells me it is there, lurking beneath what I can actually see or touch, but utterly real.

It is in the breathing of the trees--it is in the dark, disguising itself as sunlight. It is like something moving beneath the skin.

It is terrifying, and it makes me want to run back to the safety of man-built walls. But this is what makes it so beautiful. This primal world that provides and kills. It is danger that makes beauty.

If nature could not so easily reach out its hand and crush me, then I would not love it as much as I do. It is like God that way. Perhaps it is God.