From the Forest in the East

I can't even begin to explain to you just how much my soul has been craving trees & the forest.

I love the desert, I really do. But there is just something about the aliveness of the forest that just about drops me to my knees.
It reminds me that life is abundant by nature.
It reminds me of the reciprocal nature of life, I can feel it while I'm walking around in pure awe at how goddamn beautiful it is, I can feel that love pouring back into me.

I'm reading a story called 'The Bear' (by Andrew Krivak, highly recommend), ever since reading this paragraph it's completely reframed my relationship to nature...

'Did you ever feel as though the trees around you on the mountain were somehow companions to you and your father? Asked the bear.

Yes, said the girl. There were times when she believed she heard a voice that was not the wind, a voice as old and slow and gentle as water curling around stone.

Those were the trees, said the bear, companions to us all, who forget nothing that happens in the forest beneath them and whose memories span seasons beyond count. For each one carries the memory inside of every living thing that has ever touched it or passed beneath the shade of its limbs and leaves, trunk and branches. Every living thing that has ever walked the earth.

So they will remember us, won't they? asked the girl

For as long as they stand in the forest, of that I am certain replied the bear.'