1428 (REFLECTIONS ON WALKS)

One thousand four hundred and twenty eight walks in the forest.

Approximately four year’s worth.

Three pairs of shoes from big box store, imitation skateboard shoes, 25 dollars each, remarkably comfortable and durable, with thick tongue, size fourteen, light beige (they only come in one color but have added a similar grey model as of late).

One pair winter boots Kodiak ergonomic and bright colors. Steel toed, light considering, and intentionally or otherwise, basically waterproof. Regular price about almost three hundred dollars plus tax, but were found at warehouse sale for forty dollars, the find of the century. Now, I also rebel because even they get heavy and wear the ‘running’ shoes when it’s too icy or wet.

One pair of ice grips, (don’t know what they are called), given to me without asking by some kind old lady who must have seen danger ahead. They work well, but one sure as heck must make sure they are secured properly to the boot or they will fly off.

Music in vehicle- classical, Van Morrison, Likke Li, The Velvet Underground, Tom Waits, sometimes silence or the sound of the engine.

One blown tire five feet in front of a fast moving eighteen wheel truck on a one lane road.

Two close up coyotes, friendly enough, curious, beautiful not mangy like urban coyotes, more like a totem, a graceful gift, a vision.

Hawks. Black birds, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Yellow Birds, other.

A baby deer and its mother, making their way.

Eggs.

A turtle.

Some snakes (just Garter Snakes and a small Milk Snake).


Field mice.


Daisies and clovers, birches and oaks, caterpillars, slugs, toads and frogs, dragonflies, ants.

One coy wolf or actual wolf, but didn’t bother with us, and looked like he was coming home from an all night party and was tired, taking the foot path, and I laughed to myself, this wolf or coy-wolf having said, ‘To heck with the thick winter land,- I am taking a break and taking the well trodden path’. And when he came out later, adjacent to us, he was beautiful in the snow and wind and the somehow intense winter afternoon and he and us had by choice and design or even some unseen Providence, fought through loneliness and arrived at sublime solitude.

Ten trillion thoughts- life, death, existence, spirituality, other. Thoughts about books, - many of them.
About four thousand landscape photographs, - self taught.

Around one thousand pieces of writing, sometimes known as vignettes, prose poems, flash fictions, micro-fictions, word-art, hybrids, short stories, so on and on, but why label in the end?

Prayers, meditations, reflections, so forth.

Snow, rain, sleet, hail, thunder, lightning, little floods, moss, trees, odd sounds, slips and falls (about three harmless ones and one or two bad ones), mud, dirt, rock and pebble, stream, bush, flower, other.
Poison Ivy,( possibly Poison Oak, Poison Sumac but for sure poison Ivy, (lots), mosquito bites, various cuts and scrapes, water drenched, slight frost bite, worry, headaches, a bit of vertigo, wind that is vexatious and can almost take you over,- but no worry, we made it.

Valley, field, crevice, pathway, back way, farm, fence, hill, summit, groundhog.

One fight with a porcupine, about fifteen quills, - all taken out safely. Pull them straight, and calmly, if they break, they can ‘travel’ though the blood stream and hurt the organs.

A wild turkey.

The reports from guns miles and miles away at ranges but they echo through the woodlands, like something out
of a movie, or moreso a good independent film.

The sounds and visions of trains, when in a big field, to the left, going in, always cargo trains. Evergreen, Triton, designations like that.

Wild berries, black berries, blue berries, raspberries, apple trees, some beans even.

Here it gets crazy, and nobody would believe, but I shall include it anyhow: visions of the spirit world- One small black dragon, and one man who were watching and raced away, and could have been Rumi for my instinct and the way he was dressed.

Then, - about ten pieces of good chaga mushroom, (found most of mine on Silver Birch trees) deep in the forests, past the purlieus of anywhere and anyone- and there is something about the Chaga Mushroom.
Some conversations with other souls,- people,- but for the most part perfunctory, light, cordial, sane,- just trying to avoid them and find the solitude because the forest has so much more valuable to say than almost any person or book I encountered.

That’s all I can think of now, - though I know I missed lots.





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