Going to the woods is going home.

~ John Muir

Nature abounding in the woods and along mountain tops strips away the stresses of the modern world, the work world, the life-filled with garbage. In the woods, I find home. I imagine places I could build shelter or a cozy cabin and projects for harvested pinecones and rocks. I dreamily discover that perfect rock chair so I can just simply sit and listen to the burble of a small stream or the wind whipping through canyons and treetops.

I relax. The fragrances of wilderness, fir trees, clean dirt, evergreens, mountain breezes. They cleanse noise-city-dirty air-vehicle polluted senses and engage my entire sensory system.

My imagination runs wild at times, inspired by pencil-thin bouncing hooves of deer and bunny-tail rumps disappearing under shrubs. What was that noise? Is a bear nibbling berries on the other side of this patch? Will mosquitoes or wasps or ticks invade my body? Is a hungry cougar lounging over the trail, ready to pounce? Should I perhaps be thinking about how I would survive if I became lost? Is the birdsong loud and joyous or absent and ominous?

I am at home. I feel free to dream and imagine and just be. I drink deeply of the mountain air, listen intently to the sounds of God’s creation at its most pure.

It’s been too long without my woodsy home. To the mountains, to the woods, I must return.