From Darkness To Light

The forest very quickly engulfed the explorer. She noticed the dank smell of winter's rotting needles and felt the sudden chill of the darkness within. So thickly had the pines been planted that their branches interlocked and she turned, unable to retrace her steps. A puzzle, a maze, which way? A dry, dead branch snapped as she made a wrong turn.

Looking for a narrow way through, her boot sank into the thick, wet, peaty swamp. It had not rained for days, but this was a place where the sun had never penetrated for decades so the earth was wet. Why had she gone to there? To search for the glow of the setting sun through the slender giants!

But cloud had gathered, she felt a touch of panic, she must escape!

A clearing! She saw a clearing ahead, the saws of the forresters now silenced by the evening but, nevertheless, their work provided an exit. She saw the light! She saw the joy the light brings, the growth of a seedling mountain ash. She loved its vibrant colour, and sank her knees in the softness of fallen needles and ensured it lived forever in her journal.

And of that darkness, that coldness, that dankness, would she dare to venture there again?






Oh, yes! The forest has a lure leaving a memory of cones, lichens and a promise of fungi and lovely silent wanderings!