The Fairy Ring

Walking along a forest trail I notice a path that veers off amongst the trees. A bed of needles from falls past soften the ground as the path meanders under a low branch then between twin towering redwoods, opening into a circle of sister trees.  Each trunk the same size, as if they miraculously budded at the same moment. Hundreds of feet they explode into the thin air directly above, creating a fully enveloped canopy over the skeleton of a giant redwood lying in the center of the barren circle. Previously logged, and later burnt, only a quarter of the giant’s stump remains like an ancient scar on the forest floor. Brilliant green moss feeds on the black carbon dusting it’s brown skin. The light peaks in between the trucks as if through window shades illuminating the stump as a soft forest dust falls through the sheets of golden light. What’s left of its giant roots spread into the boggy soft ground from years of needles making their bed. It is as if the stump is nourishing the redwood sisters growing around it. In return, they shelter her remains from the storms. 

Altogether the site is mesmerizing. I’ve never seen anything like this before. A Fairy Ring they call it. 

When a giant redwood is cut or burnt its roots live on. Dormit growth points come alive and shoot out of the ground as new giants emerge and encircle the dead stump. As I take in this moment, surrounded by something immensely greater than myself, it seems impossible not to anthropomorphize this behavior. My reaction is to imagine them as human, when perhaps, the opposite is more true. 

Nature is so honest in its presentation of the web of life. And just as this can be a natural display of rebirth, for me, it also represents the oneness that lives amongst us in the shadows of everyday life.

What more is there to say that the forest cannot already show us? Words fail at transmuting the truth amongst the birdsong and leaves rustling. It’s as if it was already all right here, we just weren’t looking. Blind to the secrets of the forest.

Where we felt starved, there is only nourishment.

Where we imagined solitude, there is immense support.

Where we thought there was death, there is actually rebirth.

Where can you find The Fairy Ring in your life? When have you been offered the opportunity to grow anew? To rely on the branches of others to shade you from the sun? To begin again. Each day. Each moment. As if it is your first.