I spent my lockdown time walking in the woods. Before, the trees were passing posts of green moss as I was busy thinking of something else, of other things. Over the past few months, I watched spring and early summer roll out across the woods and I had time to notice the natural changes. The coloured layers of woodland anemones and bluebells as the canopy burst into a cloud of papery green. The deft swoops of the buzzard through the mossy tree trunks and the agile pine martin intrigued as to what I was doing in his world. A curious red squirrel squatting on the same fallen tree on which I lay. Lying on a fallen tree in a forest is a great way to see the sky through the canopy hole. It is through a void where a tree once stood that the movement of the other trees can be noticed; the forest sway. With roots deep in the landscape, the forest offers a communal protection to all the trees. When one tree falls, the hole in the canopy is noticeable and appreciated for a short time by myself and a fleeting squirrel. In time, the forest will heal itself and new growth will emerge from the forest floor, dormant seeds will awaken and new life shall heal and fill the communal canopy. Those that have fallen during this lockdown have left holes in our lives through which the light shall shine and new, stronger growth shall emerge. We should remember the beauty revealed during these times, the squirrel on the fallen tree, the sky revealed, the memory of the fallen and the new growth emerging towards the light. We are tentatively returning to our everyday lives or for many what may be a whole new world.
