Green bursts from every surface—raw, fresh, fierce, almost defiant in its newness. Just days ago, these hills stood patient in their winter bareness. Rain, light, and warmth now coax tight buds open, and the forest rises.
Morning mist clings to the valley floor, where azaleas perfume the air. Water speaks everywhere—in the stream’s chatter, in crystal beads trembling on fern tips, in dampness seeping into moss-covered stones. It flows unseen through winter-dry branches, waking them to unfurl leaf and blossom. Life quickens. I breathe deeply into weakened lungs, drawing in oxygen born of countless green things, savoring each note of the living scent.
Here in the American Northeast, we rarely pause to appreciate the world-traveling journey our seasons bring. For a handful of days, our world wears green so bright it startles the eye. England may claim its verdant hills like these but misses our wild pendulum swing. Our orbit carries us through climate upon climate – from frozen arctic stillness to Ireland’s soft dampness, through Mediterranean warmth to the breath-stealing heat of the subcontinent, into Bavarian autumn’s fire, and back to winter’s edge. Each season, a different country, each month a slightly altered world.
My wheelchair holds me at angles I never chose. I’ve spent hours looking at ceilings, at skies, at the tops of things as I shift to ease pressure points or open my airways. An unexpected gift—this upturned gaze. When did you last let your eyes wander the sublime vault of sky overhead? When did you last watch clouds build castles or trace the silhouettes of high branches against twilight?
This morning, I watched sunlight find a flowering dogwood branch nestled high in the treetop canopy from this angle. For a perfect moment, white blossoms stood stark against dark leaves, and this treetop bouquet burst into existence in the morning light.
Without its brightness, my eyes would have passed over it—just another branch among thousands forming the forest roof. It exists in my awareness only because it stands apart. Yet the truth flows deeper. The forest consists of branches like this, yet each also exists, beautiful in this fleeting moment of morning light. Standing with. Standing apart. Both truths at once.
When shadows shift, and petals fall, nothing truly ends. The canopy remains whole, green, and breathing; these marked moments simply fold back into the greater life.
Existing and consisting—these separations live only in our thoughts. Beyond our naming and dividing, everything is—simultaneously becoming and being, flowing and standing, appearing and disappearing, like the forest manifesting in all its countless forms yet always remaining itself.