The smell of a forest takes me back to when I was living with the stick soldiers, ancient trees that shared their shade in the summer and their heat in the winter. The smell of burning campfires an invitation for others to sit down and be warm.
As I hiked through the forest, the smells captured me and stirred my senses with every step. Damp patches of moss and decaying leaves, a musty reminder I was an uninvited guest who tread lightly on sacred land, as not to wake the spirits who slept deep into the ground.
As I continued, it was not the smell but the sound that brought me to a river, its raging water deflecting rocks and boulders as it rushed to a waiting calm that silenced its rage and gently flowed onward.
Once again, I found myself deep into the white birch and mighty oaks that had smells of their own. Deserted nests cradled in the crook of a pine, a smell of life born and a mother's care until the day of reckoning when wings spread, and freedom just a few flaps away.
I loved climbing the trees and looking out at the distance that seemed to have no end. The fear of falling was just a passing thought as I climbed higher, and I found a nest as large as any I had ever seen. The sound of a baby's cry followed by the scream of an eagle on a kill mission, and that mission was me. I climbed down the tree and lost my footing as gravity got me to the ground quickly and without injury.
To me, the time I spent in the forest was better than any book or campfire stories. It was my one-room schoolhouse that invited me in to walk beside the teachers who shared their knowledge of earth, sky, and life as old as time itself.
When I walk out of the shelter of the trees and the smells of hot dogs being grilled await me, a sadness fills my heart, and I wish I could retreat back into the ancient trees, the smells of damp moss and decaying leaves filling my senses, and the understanding that this is where I was meant to be.
Mike 2026
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