Listening to the Woods

In Illinois in midwinter, the trees are bare and brown. The sky is generally gray, and on most days there isn’t enough sun to satisfy my cat. Without leaves in the way, I can see a mile over to the next hill where there are more brown trees. Brown doesn’t interest me much. I prefer green.

The woods are quiet as I walk down the hill into the Forest Park Preserve, follow the creek around the bend where the water has carved a channel into the land, and find a place to sit. Today there is sun, and I lean back against a tree and wait.

One Percent Changes Everything

It makes a difference. The one percent.

You’ve seen the commercials. One person does something nice for someone else, like picking up a package she dropped or holding the door open. Someone else sees this and does something nice for another person down the street, and so on. A chain-reaction of helping others. But this is more than a feel-good moment.

An experiment with the particle accelerator in Batavia, Illinois found there was a one percent difference between the number of muons and antimuons that arise from the decay of particles known as B mesons. This one percent more of matter particles than antimatter particles is the reason we don’t explode into smithereens. You see, matter and antimatter do not get along.

Staring Into the Woods

Why do I stare into the woods?

There’s not much going on. The woodchuck is hibernating. The deer haven’t come through in quite a while. The birds are foraging elsewhere. And don’t get me started on the owl that’s been on vacation for six months. Everyday it looks the same. Basically black trees sticking out of a foot of white snow that has buried the bushes and rounded the land so that everything’s smooth.

And yet I stare at the white landscape, mesmerized by the intricate patterns of dark branches and trunks, watching two squirrels chase each other over the snow.

I also like to walk in a cathedral when it’s deserted on late afternoons. Nothing is going on there, either. No rituals, no music, few people. Yet I do because I feel a presence as I sit in on the hard wooden pew in the darkness of that cavernous space. Red votives flicker up front. Stained glass windows glow in the shadows deepening to darkness on the side.

Winter Canticle

Primordial turn of Earth.

Snow.

Solitude with stone.

Light rises,

            travels below the south ridge.

Cold lingers

            on the shadow side of the valley.

Fleeting moments of warmth midday.

I clap hands to awaken my ears

            to this season’s voice.

This aliveness.

This.