Amid a pandemic, where the common rule is to self-isolate, walking the forest trails has been one of the most important resources in maintaining my mental and physical health. Why does this small act of moving across the earth, one foot in front of the other make such a difference in our lives?
I have always found a measure of peace while walking. As a child, I’d find space to sort my thoughts while walking through my neighbourhood. I’d stop to greet each lady-bug or snail, giving them proper names like Dotty and Slick. This familiarity gave me the feeling of kinship with nature. I felt there was a real possibility these creatures were sent to me by my guardian fairies, reminding me I wasn’t alone.
Stepping stones trailed through a herb garden in our back yard, winding a pungent path between rosemary and lavender bushes. Plump with a large vegetable garden and wispy greenery this was a great place to collect specimens. I had a collection of old jam jars that I had dotted with air-holes. Filled with grasses, leaves and dirt from the garden, I’d embark on a search for critters to fill the home-made terrariums. Once filled, these jars lined my bedroom windowsill. In one, earthworms occupied ‘Wormville’, a cricket I named Jiminy stayed in one and my treasured lady bug, Dotty was in another.
With a spritz bottle of warm water I’d create small, humid habitats for each one. Watching Jiminy rub his tiny, toothpick legs together like he was strumming a fiddle kept me busy for hours. Imagining him in his own cricket-world, building a home, gathering food or basking in the sun, made me feel like I was inhabiting the pages of one of my cherished Richard Scarry picture books. By nightfall I would take the jars outside and let everyone go, back to their homes.
In my teens, I walked because I had to. I walked two miles to school, to and from my part time job at Newlands Golf Course and I walked to my friends’ houses. I lived in a small, rural neighbourhood in Langley, BC, where the roads were lined with small hobby farms spattered with livestock. Cows, horses and sheep kept my attention along the way. There was always a peaceful connection when our eyes met. I adored them from afar knowing they may run if I reached out. This mutually respectful distance felt calming and I was blissfully happy to have these gentle souls watch me as I watched them.
Apple trees, grand oaks and trailing fence lines framed small pastures like they were hung upon gallery walls. Brilliant greens and yellows were the background for century old barns and farmhouses. The rain invited a whole new experience, making the colours vibrant and reflective. Still leaves on low hanging branches of old-oaks came alive, weighted by heavy, bouncing droplets, rolling as they’d fall, pooling into shallow, muddy puddles.
I moved to the beach community of Kitsilano in Vancouver, British Columbia when I was twenty-three years old. Sitting on one of the several massive logs that settled on the beach there, I found connection to the earth by digging my toes into the warm sand at the shores edge and counting the waves as they rolled in.
So many of my senses were seduced by the sea. I found rapture in the lull of waves, seagulls squawking to the Gods, and the smell of earth and ocean intertwined. Thirty meters away, bustling Cornwall Avenue fell silent while I walked through tangles of sun dried seaweed, always keeping an eye peeled for washed up offerings from my darling-ocean, like bits of flotsam from sunken ships or coveted sea glass.
Today, I live across from a magnificent old-growth forest in Port Moody, BC. This forest calls me to her, like she knows exactly what I need and exactly when I need it. My mind and soul have been soothed under falling branches of cedar and over leaf carpeted trails. I have come to trust her invitation like that of my beloved grandmother offering a loving embrace.
Walking the path beside the heavily travelled Murray Street that parallels my home, cars rush by on one side of me and the deep, wild forest’s gaping lungs pulse on the other side. It truly is two different worlds separated by a walking path. Look one way and see a world of man-made towers and construction rubble, look the other way and there’s patience and creation underway.
Entering the trails recently I was struck by some colourful painted rocks. Adorned with rainbows, hearts and words like ‘love’, ‘gratitude’ and ‘peace’ written on them, they were seemingly placed there by a kindred soul. These beautiful fragments of the human world felt like an offering of peace to Mother Earth.
Within seconds of walking the path the human world diminished. I could no longer hear the swish of cars or clatter of trains. Walking through a tunnel formed of sweeping cedar and pine branches, I could only see thin shafts of daylight seeping through. Hundreds of grand trees surround this trail, most are over one hundred years old, many are over five-hundred years. They stand like sentries, and in the space between them there is a golden haze sparkling with fairy light and a quiet bustle of creature activity.
Fallen trees crumble onto the earth and melt into the soil giving struggling seedlings every ounce of life they have within their nutrient rich and age old wisdom. Their deep-rust colouring is alive with gratitude and a sense of community. Thick, velvety-soft moss blankets the forest floor giving cover to the grubs and worms that serve in abundance to the scavenging crows. Rows upon rows of shelf fungus ladder up into the coniferous branches. ‘Fairy puke’ speckles peeling bark shingling the tree-trunks. These colourful tiny spots of tangerine lichen are rare. Finding them feels like discovering a magical treasure.
On the other side of the forest there is the marshland inlet off Indian Arm. When the tide is out the dense, black mud flats reveal long vein-like waterways. Perched upon one leg, in yoga tree-pose, herons stand over these narrow running streams—still. They stand patiently awaiting a flinch of movement to induce their keen hunting skills, then with one swift reach, a small fish wriggles helplessly in their bill.
I walk these forest lined shores daily because I must. The more disconnected I feel from myself and others, the louder this call from nature becomes. Once in her presence, immediate reminders of gratitude, community, patience and selflessness are so prevalent that immersing myself in this habitat helps me understand the circle of life on a greater, more meaningful and Universal scale. I believe we as humans are one with the natural world and thus I believe we can find our purpose by watching and listening to the wisdom of the forest. Giving what we can and taking only what we need, being present and patient, and knowing that if we have faith and remember there is always something to be grateful for, we can achieve a blissful joy for living in peace and abundance.