Trees

I went for a short walk in the woods today and had an odd thing happen. I was with Ginger, (The Poorly-Shorn Golden Doodle), and we came to a place in the trail where the woods on either side backed off a bit, forming a small clearing surrounded by fifty- to seventy-foot tall trees. We stopped and I had the same feeling I get when I walk into our house and can somehow tell that Erica is already home from work.

Do you ever have that feeling? I am unable to put it into words that carry much actual meaning; but if you have felt it, then you know what I mean. It is as if there are sense organs (beyond those that account for the usual five) and these sense organs react when there is another person around, even if that person is not visible. I picture these sensory receptors almost as magnets.

When the opposite poles of two magnets come into proximity there is an attraction created that pulls the poles toward each other across the gap.

THAT is the feeling I had out in the woods. Only, I knew there were no people around. I stood still and just allowed myself to feel the feeling. It soon came to me that it was the presence of the trees I was feeling. I am generally not a spiritualist, so I am not prepared to claim the trees had anything like what some might call “souls”. But at that moment in those woods I did have the strongest sense that I was surrounded by sentient beings.

And, oddly, I had the very specific sense that those trees had a sense of humor about humans and our short-term worries and overblown egos.