I Thought The Earth Remembered Me (Wk59/104)

Wes Martin

Sleeping out in a forest, next to the earth, can be a simultaneously beautiful and terrifying experience. In Winter the nights are so long, cold, and the mornings quiet, free of birdsong. In summer, the rains can fool us, make us weary..heats dry our skins, bring a thirst. Despite these things, when that moment comes to rest on the earth, we are at one with nature, and with ourselves. Lying alone, in the wild, exposed, returned, can deliver questions and answers like no other experience can. Washing in and out of sleep, time upon time, minute by minute. All is seen. The title of this comes from the following poem by Mary Oliver.... Sleeping In The Forest I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better. - Mary Oliver Image by Casper David Friedrich