Nobody is speaking now. Aside from the light banging by the cabin, I can enjoy the sounds of the forest undisturbed. Each sound is discernible yet unimposing. I think the tranquility comes from the fact that you can hear the wind before you feel it. Beneath the trees blowing in the wind, I can hear several birds and insects making the forest sing. A lower rhythmic bird chirps in the incessant snaps from the further trees, while different higher pitches deliver little melodies closer by. Every so often, I hear a sudden caw in the distance

We take the cricket for granted; its chirp is so consistent, it might as well be part of the wind. As the sun sets to my right, the other bugs subdue their purrs, possibly asking us to recognize the infrequent solo artists that approach.To my left, I see an illuminated mountain serve as the backdrop to the nearer shadowed forest. The sunlight, barely breaking through the trees to my right, shines across the valley, providing one last glimpse of daylight as the evening approaches.

At this moment, I’m not bothered by anything. I watched a small fly walk along these pages and felt no need to swat it away. I even offered it a seat on my pen, but it respectfully declined. Nothing is sudden. The forest moves at a pace conducive to each plant and animal’s living situation. I think nature recognizes there are twenty-four plentiful hours in a day. If it moved any faster, it might get bored.

The moths are as lovely as the butterflies. One perched upon a gray tree trunk next to me shows just his silhouette. It says, “Recognize me for my simple, unobtrusive shape—not my vibrant wings, or lack there of. Besides, colors don’t need to shine to be beautiful.”

I understood John Muir, even believed him, when I read his adventures through nature. Here, I can feel him. I feel why he was not afraid to sit in a tree through a violent windstorm, why he was not afraid to stare a bear down, why he was not afraid to chart unknown lands with nothing but the clothes on his back and his faith in God. There’s no reason to be afraid of anything.

I stare here at the paradox of proximity. The grass I’m physically sitting on; the tree beside me; the hills less than a football field’s length away to my right; the mountains to my left so far they blend into the clouds, the sky thousands of miles above me. I can see how God can be ubiquitous. A skeptic asks how a being can be everywhere at once. Well, come here and see—it’s as plain as the very land I’m looking at.

~Jonathan