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.

To be poetic about it, I feel the century of devotion that has seeped into the stone, and smell the scent of incense that lingers in the air between the wooden pews and the vaulted roof. Who knows how ancient that incense is.

I do this because I like to be surrounded by something larger than myself, something grand and soaring like a cathedral, like the mountains of Yosemite. Something powerful and unsettling like a massive thunderstorm that booms and crackles across the sky. Something that holds mystery in its folds. A power that hums through the earth, vibrations I feel when I rest my hand on its stone.

Presence and mystery. Two matters that don’t physically exist. Things we can’t pick up, turn around, and examine from different angles because we exist inside them.

We sense the sacred when we are quiet and still, and when we stop talking and listen to another person’s journey.

It’s a grace to be in a place that opens up my interior hovel to light and fresh air. A place that allows me to breathe deeply and dream of what might one day be. A wild place that challenges me to take risks and see another unfolding of the spirit’s mystery. You probably have your own spots where everything comes together and you feel delightfully alive and energized. Hopefully you go there often. Life is hard, and it helps to be swept up by something greater than ourselves.

This woods, in the ordinary living of its life, helps me believe in more than what I see.