As a boy, I saw the trees as something larger than life. I always looked up to them. The town my grandparents lived in had big trees along the streets and on every property. There were so many large trees that there was always lots of shade. These big trees made their city amazing; it was like being inside a forest!
Our family cottage was on the same property as a provincial park, which was primarily forested. The roads through the park were mostly lined by forest, and light fell on the road in thin bands. These forests had the greatest scent, which often changed like the temperature from light to shade. Mornings were different from afternoons, and evenings different yet again. I liked it when things got quiet.
We also had farming in our family. At the farm, the maples stood stately along the west lawn. Trees lined the creek as it twisted and turned away from the house in both directions. It was a magical place in the late afternoon or in the evening, to sit and relax as the trees shimmered above.
Our family home had young trees, as did the entire neighborhood, but there were many parks with larger trees to walk among. I remember as a boy seeing names and shapes carved into the bark, and I wondered if a tree felt special when someone carved something on it.
This story is a small sample of the joy I’ve experienced with trees and the forest.
(Part One – An Introduction)
A most beautiful journey started in the summer of 2015. This is a story of how trees came to me, telling me their story and sharing the wisdom within.
I began visiting a woodland area that summer in the greenbelt of our city. It invited me to its heart and shared its beauty. I visited this forest many times that summer.
As the summer turned to fall, then winter, I continued to visit. Walking the trails and breathing in all that I was offered. The forest captured my attention, and I felt very at home with it.
Over the next few years, I found myself walking through many forests near our home, but always returning here most often. I walked there when it was sunny and warm, and also when it was not as nice. I walked these trials in the rain and in the dead of winter. It was as though we had become family; there was a closeness I couldn’t explain or understand.
The forest grew over rolling hills with many peaks and valleys. You could look across a ridge and down into a valley, or up from below and sense the strength that stood before you. This place had a character that drew me inward.
Being here was like taking a warm bath; you felt immersed in something pleasant and peaceful.
I felt as though I was being “taken” on walks and brought places, being shown where to stand and be still to listen, and to be silent. I experienced all the nooks and crannies, and where open space gently merged with density. I watched the trail ahead of me turn a corner, maybe vanishing deeper inward. And I felt the trees high above my head as they touched each other and swished in the wind. I heard the sweet song of birds and the rustling of animals. My walks here felt fresh each time, open to new ideas and insights.
It wasn’t new for me to connect with nature; what was new was how the forest connected and led me through its innermost circle.
I could sense conversation in the ethers as I walked. Every footstep I took was being watched as I traveled deeper within the magic here.
(Part Two – The Song)
In 2019, I was doing what was now very natural for me, walking and simply being in the forest. It was a cold and damp March day. A gentle breeze blew through the upper reaches of the trees, with gusts occasionally pushing harder. The trees were still partially frozen and made strange sounds as they moved. At one point, I was invited to stop and listen.
The sound of bending and twisting above was chaotic, almost like a madman playing a wild and unknown instrument. I understood just how unique these sounds were, and I listened more deeply. I heard all the usual sounds gradually disappear, leaving an opening. It was here, in this new space, that the trees sang to me. They sang for a long while, and I didn’t move or adjust, letting them continue. When a new and stronger gust pushed the trees, their song faded, then vanished.
I was still taking in what had just happened and quietly reached for my phone. As I waited patiently, the song came once again. This time, I was recording the magical moment and was excited to know I might have their song to share.
As the mystery of sound unraveled for me, I realized I had lost track of time. I was cold and wet, and had been here listening a long time. It was time to move on.
Wandering through one of my favorite hollows, I stopped to listen, but the sounds were not the same here. I climbed a small hill, bringing me into a grove of giant pines. Stopping here, I listened again. These trees rolled in the wind differently as they were pushed westward; the sound they made was also different. Then it happened, the singing began again!
It didn’t matter that I was cold and wet; what was happening was too incredible to consider that.
Their song was very innocent and could be heard in every cell of my body. It was one of the most satisfying, calming, and peaceful sounds I’d ever heard. This song was “rich” in depth and flowed like a gentle breeze on loose-knit fabric.
At home that night, I listened to the recording I had made and could barely hear the song through the wild bending of trees to the wind. It was not the same. This made me sad until I realized this song would play again, and it would play where it belongs, in the forest.
(Part Three – The Beach)
What you’ll see here is more than just trees and land. There is a deep layer of sand beneath the grass, and it’s exposed in many areas.
Going back to the last ice age, this area was a gigantic ancient beach. Its hills and ridges were ancient dunes. The sand here is fine and seems to hold great information and wisdom.
It took me a while to understand, but just like the calm we feel near the ocean, there is calm here too. Deep within the forest, there is a holding tank of peaceful energy. Unlike a forest with large amounts of peat and decay, the sand here creates a unique vibration. It’s like a magic carpet.
(Part Four – Voice within)
Walking in 2020, I wondered about the age of a particular pine tree.
As I stood looking at the tree, I heard a voice inside me say, “Ask it how old it is?” I stepped closer, placed my hand on the beautiful chunky bark, and said silently, “How old are you?” Immediately, I saw and heard the response as “48.” I said back to the tree, “Thank you.”
Without thinking, I questioned the tree, “How do I know you are 48? How do I know you’re not 45 or maybe 50 years old?” Then, an immediate sensation passed through me, a massive smile and hug was my answer. It was the tree speaking to me again.
The forest had again stepped in and deepened our relationship.
I spent the rest of my walk asking trees their age and smiling as they responded, not overthinking the answer.
Over the days and weeks that followed, I was guided further with the new concept. The trees were showing me what to do and inserting questions for me to ask. It was as though I was taking a course, and they pressed me to understand every detail so we could move on to the next.
One day, shortly after the age conversation(s), I was offered a new challenge.
They said, “You need to photograph us.” And I responded, “I do photograph you. I’m not sure what you mean.”
They proceeded to break this request down for me as follows. “We need you to photograph us fully. We want you to show the essence of who we are.” I still didn’t understand and asked them to elaborate. They continued, “You see the forest through a bigger lens now, and this expansiveness needs to be in your pictures.”
I responded by saying, “The essence of a forest is multi-dimensional and cannot be duplicated with a camera.” As I walked on, they took me to different places within the forest and showed me two specific visuals of how this could be done.
They showed me how to shoot from the middle of a clearing, capturing all 360 degrees, both vertical and horizontal. The best way to describe these examples is with the analogy of a sunny room with visible dust particles floating gently in the air. And to take a picture of the entire room from within the dust cloud.
The forest wanted me to reproduce its expansiveness, exactly how I had come to see and know it.
(Part Five – The Stones)
Shortly after this message to expand my photographic lens, another bit of advice was given. These are not messages on paper as words, but more of a tickle. Each subtle idea leads to another and finally becomes something meaningful, something tangible to work with.
I woke one Saturday morning with a new idea. To bring quartz crystals to the forest and intuitively place them around the forest. Without giving it a second thought, I headed to my office and got some tumbled clear quartz in different sizes and shapes. Over the next several visits, I placed crystals in the forest. There was no advanced knowledge of the locations for the crystals, simply guidance along my walk. The forest knew what grid was needed and took care of this through me.
It sounds crazy, I know!
Here I was, trying my best to take pictures of multidimensional space within the forest, and now arranging crystals here too.
I began to understand slowly what was going on. It was like an advertisement campaign, pictures were needed, and the images would hold potent energy. The forest, I was told, would become an incredible place of healing, where people could visit, allowing their physical and energetic bodies to relax and heal.
We were increasing nature’s potential!
On later walks, I would look for the crystals I’d left previously, but could not find all of them. I thought maybe they had been moved by animals, but intuitively I knew people who needed them had found them.
(Part Six – Unity)
Through the fall and winter of 2020, I noticed something new. Many trees, large and small, crossed over each other and spun up and around each other. Trees grew together. Other trees grew side by side, and halfway up their trunks would touch and then separate again. It was incredible that I hadn’t noticed this intertwined nature before.
During these winter months, I coined the phrase “kissing trees,” as many trees touched each other and created this illusion. One winter afternoon, I stood watching the sunshine sparkle across the snow reaching inward among a group of smaller trees, and heard the word “Unity.”
The forest was helping me understand that it could advance the concept of unity. Since then, I’ve called it the “Unity Forest” and often see this energy expressed here. This is the calm it holds deep within.
In 2021, more people were walking here. What made my heart bright was seeing the number of moms and dads with little ones. Talking about what they saw as they went along, and just being in the woods to experience nature.
(Part Seven – The Shaking)
May 2022, the Derecho
In the spring of 2022, our region experienced a significant windstorm. The storm traveled from Sarnia in south/west Ontario to beyond Montreal to the east, a distance of over 1,000km.
This storm caused heavy damage to our region, and the worst hit were our trees. Selectively and in large groups, trees were ripped from the ground or snapped in half, with only fragments left standing. It wasn’t uncommon to see a tree lying on its side with its roots intact and a massive hole where the tree once stood.
The power of nature was indeed incredible!
It was hard to look at the carnage. Whole woodlots were laid flat, often except for a couple of token trees left standing. It knocked down 33 successive hydro poles on a road near our home.
After a couple of days, when power was back and things at home were in better shape, I took a ride to see the forest. What I found was unrecognizable. You couldn’t get into the forest, too many trees were down and lay this way and that. The forest lay broken, seemingly unrecoverable.
It was a remarkable time. It helped people to understand the value of trees, maybe for the first time. To recognize the beauty that was gone and what needed to be rebuilt.
(Part Eight – Renewal)
After the storm, many people, myself included, needed to find their way forward. Our park service had a big job ahead.
And here was the conflict. If Mother Nature were in charge, things would be left as it was. Trees would be left toppled where they were. But the greenbelt and these forests are such an important recreational asset for our city, a cleanup was needed.
When I finally got into the forest, I realized most of the trail systems were gone, and frankly, it seemed impossible to sort the mess out. I had my doubts that anything reasonable could be recovered.
Heavy equipment smashed its way through these woodlands in the following months, cutting, removing, and restructuring. I purposely stayed away for some time. It bothered me to see these massive pieces of equipment grinding and churning this beautiful sand and soil, sawing and dismantling the trees.
By the fall of 2022, I was back walking with my camera. Stump roots were sprouting, and the change of seasons was happening, albeit in a new light.
The forest was open again, and it was very different. I came and went, witnessing the work and applauding the agency tasked with restructuring the forest. They had taken on an impossible task and had done well, creatively managing a new era for this damaged forest. They had left many damaged trees standing, as if a legacy. Many trees that hadn’t fallen looked proud again after the cleanup. Old trails were cleared where possible, and some were made anew. Portions of the forest that hadn’t been directly impacted stood tall.
It wasn’t the same, not even close, but a smile was here again!
(Part nine – Evolved)
The work I had begun many years ago here in the forest could be hindered but not stopped. The ideas and images are here and continue to grow. The heartache felt through unwelcomed change resulted in the grand opening of a new storefront, not better, just new.
Many of the larger trees are gone, yet I still see them there, along with their old friends, smiling when I walk there now.
Trees are graceful in ways we can’t easily describe. The sun twists around them across the hours, so we see them differently from moment to moment.
They hold stories and secrets and a sense of cheerful energy, something I see coming back to the forest again.
It’s up to us to see the beauty here and do our best to keep it safe.
(Part ten – An Update)
Since this story was written in 2022, the forest has evolved rapidly. It is definitely not what it was before the storm, but it is an intercity treasure unfolding before our eyes. Over time, the storm will be forgotten, and the brightness will unfold as it should. I have started to expand my time there and plan to listen to all its new stories and updates.
TK
This story is an inspiration to review my archives and bring to life photographs related to this beautiful place!
