Rainforest Realizations

Hints on how to live are everywhere. This past weekend, for instance, I found strands of insight weaving themselves through the trees and detritus of a lush and dripping Quinault Rainforest.

The drive to the Pony Bridge Trail looked easy enough on Google Maps, which showed a clear blue line winding from my apartment to the trailhead, no red or orange traffic legs in sight. The map app, of course, didn’t mention the 12-mile gravel portion of the road or the numerous trees felled by recent rain or the countless suspension-jarring potholes along the way. Still, eventually, we got there a mere 4-plus hours after the start of what we thought would be a 2-ish hour drive. The axle, thankfully, remained in one piece.

The “we” in this case included me, Posie, and my neighbor, a critical member of my COVID lock-down sanity team. Clearly I enjoy Posie’s companionship as we stroll around Seattle, but boy do I appreciate a full-on off-screen human conversation when I can get one.

So with the bumpy road behind us, the neighbor and I and the dog stepped out of the car, two of us looking forward to a good dialogue and one of us ready to mark every stump. We were immediately wowed by the myriad greens and cool quietude of the old growth that surrounded us. I noticed the savory smell of damp earth and rain misted moss and the sound of water flowing in all directions. Unfortunately, I also noticed a "no dogs" sign at the start of the trail, so poor Posie was relegated to my backpack. She did not like it one bit.

Rainforests, to me, feel more dense and teeming with energy than other natural settings. And at first, that buzz was overstimulating. It felt an uncomfortable energetic shift from the small city space where I spend the majority of my time these days to that much deeper and wider and fuller open space zinging through my nerves. I wondered if this sensation — this overwhelm — might be close to what babies feel as they emerge from the tight confines of the womb.

Thankfully, there were only a handful of other hikers on the trail. Once they passed I pulled off my mask, filling my lungs with crisp evergreen air. Have you noticed the sweetness of that first breath after the mask comes off? I don’t thank COVID-19 for much, but it has made me truly grateful for every unencumbered inhale.

We moved slowly up the path, stopping every few feet to examine a particularly bright piece of lichen or watch light play through the moss hanging like hair from the trees. For me, being out in the forest is not about exhilarated movement. It’s about deep looking. Even as I am aware of the reach of the trees or the width of its most vigorous plants, I am pulled into the muck and undergrowth. I am enamored of the evidence that life rises up from death, the fallen trees atop which new trees take root, the tiny feather-edged ferns that push out from disintegrating stumps, and the carpet of decay— dead leaves and browning pine needles — that feed woodland flowers and molds and fungi.

The conversation soon fell in line with the landscape. The neighbor and I marveled at the intricate communication system beneath our feet (we're both fans of the film Fantastic Fungi; highly recommend!). All along and below the surface of the earth, a vast network of fungi allows plants to share vital information from root to root to root. If a tree falls to blight it sends its final energy and a clear warning to other trees nearby: “Protect yourselves.”

The dying tree sends its message without discrimination — Sika spruce speak to the aspens in their neighborhood as loudly as their brethren spruce. Trees, it seems, share a singular goal: continued life for all rather than the survival of one species.

And we humans think we are the highest intelligence?

I can be annoying to hike with, what with my stopping frequntly to find and photograph nature’s minutia. My kids find me a frustrating co-hiker. Thankfully the neighbor was just as curious about mushrooms glued to logs and rising up from leaf-covered soil.

As we crouched and snapped with our iPhones the talk turned to death. We considered how, oodly, especially in the United States, we act as if we can beat it. As if not acknowledging death, not talking about it, not allowing it to merely be another part of life we move through, will make it go away. Walking in a rainforest, death can be seen everywhere. It is so integral to living that the two cannot be teased apart. That tree there is growing up tall and strong fed from the nutrient richness of the tree that died and decayed in that same spot. There is no question about this: death feeds life in the forest.

I realize that this is true for all things, even dominance-loving humanity. Death feeds life. Not just in the body, but in the soul, and within a species or a country's or even a family's united psyche. Our country is going through a death, isn’t it? The breaking down of systems of oppression and polarizing politics will, I hope, give rise to true equality and a new, better, form of democracy.

Stepping over felled trees and into muddy patches, I noticed my own fear of death, of what will happen to my body or those I leave behind, fall away. For at least that moment in the woods, I felt released from the societal dissociation of death. So many religions promise life after death. None of them make much logical or scientific sense to me — just believe in this, they promise, and you will get that.

But standing on a dead stump blooming with dark black and bright yellow mushroom caps, I recognized my own truth: I will go on. I do not need Jesus to resurrect. Or Muhammad or the Buddha or Kali, all of whom I once placed hope in. I will re-become again and again. New life will grow up from where I lie down. This is nature’s promise, it’s intelligence. Rather than fear, these thoughts brought me peace.

We were surprised to find that it took us two hours to walk the 2.5 miles to the trail’s namesake Pony Bridge. To get there we scrambled over many trunks, through rivulets, over rocks. Time seemed to pause in the process. And while the view from the bridge was spectacular with its blue-green waterfall and frothy river gushing under the bridge, I realized arriving is a small matter, a small joy.

It’s the walking itself that is the reward, the wandering and wondering that bring awareness. What I found in the forest today was reassurance:

That life and death are not separate events, one to be clung to, the other to be feared. We are all dying even as we live. Happiness for me then lies in my acceptance of these as equal partners in my existence.

That I don't believe any life form or species has higher intelligence than another. Rather, it seems to me, we have different forms of communicating, most of it directed at extending the living part of a life-death cycle as long as possible.

And, finally, that sometimes you have to drive far and bottom out on a few potholes to reach the right path.