Contemporary Reading: Janisse Ray, from
Something happens to you in an old-growth forest. At first you are curious to see the tremendous girth and height of the trees, and you sally forth, eager. You start to saunter, then amble, slower and slower, first like a fox and then an armadillo and then a tortoise, until you are trudging at the pace of an earthworm.... I drink old-growth forest in like water. This is the homeland that built us. Here I walk shoulder to shoulder with history -- my history. I am in the presence of something ancient and venerable, perhaps of time itself, it's unhurried passing marked by immensity…each year purged by a fire, cinched by a ring….I can see my place as a human in a natural order more grand, whole, and functional than I've ever witnessed, and I'm humbled, not frightened, by it. Comforted. It is as if a round table springs up in the Cathedral of Pines and God graciously pulls out a chair for me, and I no longer have to worry about what happens to souls.
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