It’s the forest floor to which I most liken our lives.
Fresh falls light on former falls, and all falls lie, whispering together as one, “Thank you, former falls, and welcome, fresh falls. We give our green again to the world.”
We fall, we die, we become the “and’s,” the “or’s,” the “lovely’s” of another branch-suspended, waiting-to-fall batch of community recruits. They wind-wave, frantically and with emergency in their dancing days, and we watch them, guide them, remind them where this is all headed.
To the forest floor. Then back up the tree again by seed and soil and soak and sun.
Life, from seed to sky, breeds death, from branch to burial. Then life, from death, rises in resurrection and we all see just how true it is that the forest floor is the most precious of our walking grounds, our hunting grounds, our loving grounds.
The places where we live, and we die, and we live again – these we will call home. These are our forest floors. These are where life is seen for what it is – a gift.