Tapio

Spirit of the Forest

Many years ago, when I was still a young man, I lived in a neighbourhood which backed up to a wood. I had never liked the woods and used to avoid them. I much preferred paved streets and groomed lawns to the uneven ground and dry branches of the forest. Whenever I was underneath that canopy of foliage which the poets so loved, I felt a sort of oppression as if I were in a windowless room. A day spent in the forest was not refreshing or invigorating to me in any way, instead it was annoying and dull. I would come back from a hike exhausted and feeling as if I had gotten nothing from it but dirt and bug bites.

One morning, I was out for a jog and I saw, several blocks away, a certain neighbour with whom I was on very bad terms. Thinking it better to get twigs in my shoes than to risk causing a scene, I quickly turned off the sidewalk onto a path leading into the woods and turned my jog into a hike. I intended to follow the path for a short way and come out in my own back yard, but when I came to a fork in the path something compelled me to turn away from my house and go deeper into the forest. After walking for some time, I suddenly became aware of a man standing before me. I cannot say what he looked like or how he was dressed or anything of him, I do not remember any of that. I do not even remember seeing him, all I remember is that he was an old man and that I stopped to hear him speak. I do not remember his voice or his words, or even if he used voice and words, but he spoke to me and as he spoke my mind was opened. I do not know what he told me, but I listened to him. I stood on the dusty path and gave heed to this old man for hours, and as the morning wore into afternoon I sat on a rough stone and continued to understand him.

Late that afternoon the I was aware that the old man had gone, leaving me alone in the darkening wood. As I began to walk towards my house I knew that I had been wrought for nothing else but to be amidst the forest's branches. I rejoiced with the birds that the sunshine was so bright and green beneath the trees. I sang with the stream of the rocks and the earth. A zephyr blew dust in my eyes and sang to me of the rich earth beneath the layer of fallen leaves. A tiny shaft of the setting sun darted through the leaves overhead to show me a stone in my path. The air darkened and the stars shone through the trees. I noticed that it had gotten late and that hours ago I had walked right past my house. I continued to walk and the moon peeped out to light the path and show me my way to my house.

Every day since then I have walked in the woods, and twice since have I been aware of the old man. But except for the day when he revealed the woods to me, he has given me nothing.