A walk in the woods

I make it a habit to go for a walk most mornings.  With much thankfulness I can say that I most always have somewhere enjoyable to walk. In my current estate it is a short trail that finds its way up the side of a small mountain as it bends away from a quiet road and a surging stream (in which, today, I saw my first salmon this year. Two of them, each some 20 inches long.)

It was a beautiful morning today. Accented by the fact that it had been raining with opression the day before, the sun cutting colors through the golden autumn leaves left an impression that only being there could render.  I stopped at a point where I could still see the road bending away below and still hear the rushing of the stream behind the birds and the forest's hum. My feet have stopped crunching leaves beneath them and in the thick stillness I see the trees growing up the decline below set as silhouettes against the relentless morning sun- whose beams lay stripes on the path and make my shadow dance quietly in the underbrush when I walk. The air is misty and dense. For the first time I notice that steam is rising off the moss growing on the trees below me, which had accumulated much moisture the day before and was now giving it back to the demand of a new day rising. 

Amazed with the lot of it I look upward and wonder at the golden yellow leaves that pattern the sky from their limbs and motherly trunks that set themselves far below on the ground beside me. 

"Like a crown." I think to myself.

"But not a spoiled and pompous crown that we think of ( so unfortunately) when we think of kingly. No. This crown is one that is too earthy in tone to assume more than it is. This maple dons a humble crown. Up there, existing in all its splendor, this maple knows that to think of itself more than a maple would only destroy the true glory that its simple existence allowed it. Such is humanity! So creation - so our lives."

And for a moment again I realize that being quiet and enjoying the Creators work is no less than he might have me do in this moment. Enjoy, breathe, learn. 

Why not?

I continue to walk again, only in time for another traveller on the trail to mostly miss seeing me gazing off into the air. As his dog approaches the owner makes a joke. 

"There ya go Fellah!"

Talking to his dog, 

"You can have him for breakfast!"

Talking about me. 

I laugh and give the canine a rub on the head before carrying on to greet his owner and pass by. Walking away I think to myself how much I liked the dog. 

Later I see a small bird that land and skirts around my near peripheral- enough to show his colors that would have been a blur in flight. Then he flies away. 

The morning sun is burning on into day and I am almost back to the place I currently call home. 

Hope, Love, Truth hold ground in me today.