Trees surround like towering sentinels, keeping their silent watch for years, decades, centuries. Overhead, a skylight opens in the canopy to allow a single sunbeam to pour in like liquid, bright as a mirror, and fall at the feet of the Great Tree. She is the largest, oldest, strongest of the forest. She has housed generations, witnessed the fury of storms and heard the secrets whispered by the wind. The way time has bent and twisted her is a testament to her strength. She squats low to the earth, her toes and feet digging into it, through worms and stones, to hold fast her foundations. I sit in her lap, cozy as a babe in mother’s arms, among her sprawling network of tangled roots. Those roots speak to the soil, carry the knowledge of the earth up into her weather-beaten body, up into her deeper heart and across her strong shoulders, up along the woody veins of her arms to burst forth from her fingertips, to sing to the sun. I can see time stretched out within her; mushrooms sprout from old rot, limb and leaf erupt from a branch once barren, a nest is nestled by her ear, built from fallen pine needles. To everything, a season; she watches the seasons turn. New life springs eternal. The breeze sighs sweetly as it tousles her hair, and her leaves shimmer shyly at the gentle caress.

She is soft as a melody,

strong as thunder,

old as memory,

and full of wonder.