The Best Hike Today!

I had the best hike today, filled with unexpected wild encounters! Every day that I hike I swear I will take my camera, and this is one of those days I am kicking myself for forgetting. Here's why...

So I started off with one of my favorite sections of trail, one of those secluded, quiet ones off the beaten path that mountain bikes have made. I wasn't more than 5 minutes along when I tripped over a branch along the path, and, when I caught my footing (hey, I can't be graceful all the time), there hopping in front of me was a little frog (toad?)! The first one I have seen this season! I knelt down and she hopped into my hand and we had a little chat about life. Then she had to go and hopped off- she had a meeting. So I moved on, feeling light...

Not even 5 minutes later, suddenly to my left I heard a huge movement and a heavy thump like hooves and sensed something at the corner of my eye. I gasped in surprise when I saw what it was- leaping away from me was a gorgeous deer! She was so beautiful and elegant. She stopped a few hundred feet from me and turned around and just watched me, and I said hello. I slowly continued along the trail stopping every few feet to take her in, until finally I stood totally still, meeting her gaze. We stood like that for what seemed like minutes, looking into one another's eyes, before I left her in peace and moved on. I had to go- I had a meeting.

THEN, on my way out of the forest, I was crossing a stream bed that was more muck than water despite the weekend's rain, and came across another frog! This one was just like the other but smaller and chubbier. So cute! I knelt down, and she hopped into my hand so we could chat about life. Then she said she had to go- and peed on me. lol














I love these tiny flowers that grow in the woods. It's the little joys...

There just seemed to be so much life and energy in the woods today. Everywhere there was rustling and movement. Everywhere there was lushness and expression and beauty and color. So many little details to awe me. I swear that when it seems I am down to the last bit of light I have inside, Earth offers just what I need to fill back up, to sustain me. I feel so blessed by that, so blessed to have the awareness and gratitude and love to take that in.

It's doubly frustrating and enraging, then, to see people who don't have that respect for Earth and life and who don't, can't, or won't see the tremendous, essential gifts the planet has to share with us and sustain us. To see human beings take it all for granted, strip it, abuse and neglect it, degrade and and destroy it is heart-wrenching. WHY? Why isn't the entire race outraged and doing everything it can to protect our Earth?! While on my hike, I couldn't help but think of the oil spill and the terror and destruction the ocean and the life in and around it are going through. I've been feeling so helpless to stop it, to do something, and I want to scream "STOP!" Just... stop.

But instead I do what I can and soak up the amazing experience I had on my hike and just *exhale*.