Thoreau’s Ghost

Thoreau’s’ Ghost

“The fire is lit, a sacred long pipe is passed around connecting us to our forebearers, while the flickering light of the campfire creates shadows that dance onto the trees and stars.”
-JC

We happen upon a cabin from antiquity next to a pond, nestled deep within a thicket made to specifications out of fallen trees. Sitting upon its rustic porch at night amidst the visual of fireflies, we listen intently to all it has witnessed, as this rustic castle dispels all thoughts of the mundane with stories of fairy circles, dryads (tree spirits) and haunted groves, awakening our imaginations.

One by one, as we retire to a well-earned rest under the stars, through sleeps silent veil, I find myself in deep thought about the disrespect to the land and extinction of forest and creatures everywhere. I’m humbled by nature’s power and angered by man’s negligence toward the Earth, his only home.

How many wastelands will it take to see the error of separating nature from the spiritual? How many rogues will fail this test of enlightenment? Yes, Perceval did ask the compassionate question, “Sir, what is it that ails you” and reconnected the realms of heaven and earth. But everyone must in good time ask the same question and only then will compassion fill your heart.

To each our own degree we tread down these paths into life’s shadows, for it is in the dark that we find the light of divine grace. The universe, in what Plato called ‘the faiths’ push one forward and intercedes on this path in the woodlands of our lives. I felt as Gawain and told each amongst us to enter a path in life where no one has gone before. Each step we take is our very own, unique to one.

I slept soundly and dreamed I was walking with Thoreau on the trails we hiked today. Upon waking the next morning, a curious thing happened, the cabin and pond were gone, vanished like they never existed. And as explanations of what may have happened fall asunder, my intuitive self comes into play, strong and sound as though I could turn it on or off with the flick of a switch.

It is these children of the woodlands… it’s trees, plants, and natural creatures; that is witness to what appeared last night in this seemingly infinite dimension beyond space and time in which we just might catch a glimpse of the mystical rummaging through everyday life.

©jc2017-9

*Photo courtesy of Pixabay