My Soul | .

The path does not go upward; it goes down which for some rea­son is a sur­prise. I guess I’m so used to paths in the moun­tains I’m not sure exact­ly what to do with one that enters a val­ley. I’m car­ry­ing my cam­era and one wide angle zoom lens hid­den under my rain­coat. It pours; then unpre­dictably changes to sun­breaks or a fine driz­zle. A few peo­ple are exit­ing as I enter the trail and then all is qui­et, all except for the water. The rain is com­ing down with big drops falling from the trees, syn­co­pat­ing the still­ness. And behind that music there is anoth­er, also of water, flow­ing in rivulets down the hill.

You’ll have to imag­ine, if you haven’t walked this path your­self, a thick rain­for­est, one in a nation­al reserve halfway between Tofi­no and Ucluelet on the west coast of Van­cou­ver Island. As I walk into the first part of the trail I stop to read a sign warn­ing about wolves in the area. There have been sightings.

And then the path, bare­ly a hun­dred yards in and which has been a wide grav­el affair, splits into a loop of con­tin­u­ous, kilo­me­ter long board­walk with stairs plung­ing down into a for­est that oth­er­wise would be impass­able so dense is the foliage. 

Part of me would sure­ly wel­come see­ing a wolf. They are preda­tors, of course, and have been known to kill small dogs in the area, but we do under­stand, don’t we, that it’s real­ly their park, not ours and we might be inter­fer­ing with their rou­tines. And it also makes me won­der about what kind of instinc­tu­al preda­tor ener­gies still linger in me. I think per­haps the sign should have read, “Watch for wolves — you’ll be very lucky if indeed you see one so be smart and grate­ful. If you run into them you might want to pick up your chil­dren so they can get a bet­ter view and so the wolves also know they belong to you.”

I’m walk­ing now on the wet board­walk. I’m not as steady as I used to be and I’m alone so I’m care­ful, mea­sur­ing what might hap­pen if I slip or trip and fall off into the for­est prop­er. It looks to be the sort of place after a mis­step that like a Venus Fly­trap might quick­ly close in around you. Nobody said the jour­ney was going to be safe exactly.

It’s not, per­haps, but it is cer­tain­ly per­fect­ly beau­ti­ful. The air is rich with the earth and its min­gling scents of life becom­ing and dying. Deep clus­ters of ferns, moss­es, mush­rooms; leaves flut­ter­ing on drenched autumn branch­es and in the rain some also flut­ter­ing down. The board­walk goes up and down and down again and down fur­ther still into a val­ley among the tow­er­ing trees, and all the time the sound of water now loud­er as the rivulets con­verge. Once in awhile I can actu­al­ly see the water break out of the ferns grow­ing thick­ly beside it but most­ly the plants are so dense it’s just the sound that announces the lit­tle creeks that are pass­ing around me or under the board­walk itself.

It takes a moment to rec­og­nize the design of the path is an inten­tion­al thing show­ing off the lay­ers of the forest’s ecol­o­gy and its cycles, at least that seems the theme of the mark­ers along the way. It takes a fur­ther moment for me to rec­og­nize the oth­er metaphor. I’m going down and deep­er in. My heart seems to slow. I stop and stand and lis­ten to the implied refrains. My brain stops hum­ming with the usu­al dross of antic­i­pa­tions, con­cerns, plans, what if’s, the con­stant bro­ken record of think­ing so that now I’ve for­got­ten some of how to do that. I’m see­ing again, instead and for real; hear­ing again.

A moment fur­ther along I look down once more and I see I’m at the bot­tom, cross­ing a deep stream black with tan­nins from its run across the decay­ing for­est. I look down into that black stream for a long time, merg­ing with it per­haps for an instant or two, and am remind­ed I’ve come here to encounter in one more way my own soul. To drink from it is to drink the dark tea of my own life and a larg­er life beyond us all.

After awhile, I am free to move on. The rain is com­ing down once more and I try to dry my cam­era as much as pos­si­ble with my shirt and hide the del­i­cate tech­nol­o­gy under my coat. The cam­era, too, is a sym­bol and the lens, but that’s for a lat­er reflection.

I turn toward the rest of the board­walk, climb­ing the stairs uphill past a cedar thought to be over 800 years old. What must liv­ing that long be like? How many crea­tures in that time have rest­ed as I am, nes­tled next to its mas­sive roots? We come. We go. And the tree lives on, it’s branch­es in the wind and its roots patient­ly gath­er­ing min­er­als from the soil for say, 300,000 days.

I climb more stairs and more. The clouds clear away for the late light of the sea­son. My legs are hurt­ing from the climb and I’m sweat­ing. I open my coat to a cool, humid breeze. I walk along more eas­i­ly, stronger now that the for­est has flat­tened out. Soon I find I’ve com­plet­ed the loop. I am think­ing now that the design of this path with its stairs and board­walks, its jour­ney down and down to that black stream and then return­ing to its ori­gin is also the design of a poem. Per­haps one day I’ll write one, I say to myself. In the mean­time I say good­bye and trust that the wolves I did­n’t see were there hid­den all along and heard me whis­tle to them in the fad­ing light.