Forest Realisations

Camping in the woods.
There are so many feelings that come to the forefront when camping in a forest. Observations that would never occur in the hustle bustle of city/society.
Can you list the notable impressions you gain from forest camping?

I have many but will just put the one for now:

When night falls in the woods around you, you feel the space behind the tree-trunks gain a presence. At first this is frightening if you're the paranoid kind. But, after a while, when you've got used to the forest environment. It is extremely comforting. A blanket of nature wrapped around your subconscious.

Any more?
~

 

hey kev

i like the fact that you realise there is so much more above and below there normally levels of living, so much more to explore within the forest its untrue and there is no concrete to prevent you exploration and uncovering of beauty. Forest's hold a mysticism that bewilders me, yes it can be scary, but when you are in good company and realise the lucky posistion you have put yourself in all becomes good once more.

i love your comments man they really hit home!!!

hope you are well

love peace and smiles
jx

 

i love being in the woods. that night in the woods where it rained and we didnt get wet coz of the trees overhead and we didnt get cold coz of the fire and we didnt get blown around coz we were sitting in a big dip......just goes to show how well nature can really look after us.

i am not doing a very good job of explaining how i feel about it all, (on account of doing a night shift and not going to bed!) so i may come back and expand later on!

peace and love
stardust
xxx

p.s. hope lifes treating you well kev *hugs*

 

hello peeps, thanks for adding love ya lots!
I thought i'd drop another observation in, this one about sound.

Deep in the forest when on your own there is, at first, a silence that’s hits you with an imperceptibly low and empty thud against the eardrums. This announces the fact that you have not been listening. It changes one’s immediate environ from what is presumed to be wrapt in quietude to a cacophony of noise in relation. I like to just stand there, alert to the wonderful and extensive multiformity of the tiniest sounds. A loud and lonely creak of a tree in the distance is the first instrument to begin this orchestral influx upon my senses. Then I can hear creatures moving. The clack of a bird’s feet against a thin branch as it lands. An inhalation of air through a small rodent’s nose as it smells around. The rustled scurrying of countless unidentifiable insects. I listen further and from behind these initial sounds rises a melody of whispers from all the plant life. Their movement through the flowing atmosphere with the subtle twitches and expansions of growth build up in volume with increased awareness of the breath of life coursing throughout the arboreal cathedral. A crescendo of being drives a force that causes me to beam with the biggest grin as I listen to the forest inhaling and exhaling with symphonic harmony under the constant tuning from radiation, convection and conduction amongst the disproportionate expansions via shafts of sunlight radiating upon opposing sections of bark or ice crystals. The interrelation of particles suffusing all around me and within me tingles the hairs on the back of my neck and forearms. One’s mind loses its imagined confines to experience the living entity that is; universe.

I have some more thoughts on the matter, but don't want to go on. Maybe next time

 

Also at night you move into a region of you're brain that opens you up to night vision that just can't be experienced in the city. It can take a while but it puts you back to the animal state. There's also a lovely glow to the night vision sense, from the blood in your cornea that makes everything feel warm.

 

I love the forest when its near water. I like the lakes in the Shield areas where you can sit on the edge of the lake against the trees and look out on to the still water just as dusk falls and the lake looks like glass.\

Id have to say the best thing ive seen the the forest was at my friend's camp by Kenora. It was about two in the morning and we got up and went down to the dock. There were NO lights visible except the stars and then the Northern Lights came out. At first it was like a ripply white line accross the sky, but then it rotated and the whole sky was lit up so bright that it seemed like an overcast day. We hopped in the canoe and went out into the middle of the lake (calm, of course) and we could see Mars on the horizon while the lights moved around. I've never felt more at peace or more connected to another human being. We were alone on the lake in the middle of virtually untouched nature in the middle of the night and you could see forever. They lasted almost an hour and we spent the whole time watching them froma canoe with pillows.

hope to see some more replies, its great to hear how much other people feel about being out in the woods

 

you described this beautifully. so true.

Late summer, i was down in the santa cruz mountains. There was a moment when the moonlight fell through the trees. It lit up the grey haze of the evening mist. There was something almost haunting about the presence that i felt at that moment. i always go back to that one spot, but i am always dissapointed when i realize that it will never happen again. it really is beautiful up there.

 

First, I agree to what has already been said, especially the part about having lakes or water around. There's a sort of magic about being in the woods near a lake or river, I can't explain it, it just feels good.

Anyways, one will notice, when you get away to a real stretch of woods, away from highways and campgrounds (or if you're in a tiny campground, like I was in august, with only 9 sites, half full), that it becomes a travesty, a crime, to speak or make noise. The forest is a place of silence so alien to the city. Not true silence, with the birds, wind, trees, and so forth, but it's so much more a subtle noise; not harsh and loud like traffic, the radio, tv, or human speech. You take on a different tone in the woods when you speak, and you realize that so often, back in the city, you are really yelling when you talk. The silence, the peace of the woods is astounding to me, so conditioned to the city noise.

Another thing is the night sky. I had a tent with me but couldn't bear to use it, I had to sleep under the sky, because it was so startling to me. Here in the city you can't see too many stars and certainly not the milky way, but in the forest, when I saw it, I cried. It was so much more amazing to me than I would have thought, after a life in the city, and after having spent the previous 3 years without even leaving the metro area to where the stars can shine and the trees can speak. The way the trees bordered the brilliant sky...the campground was on a lake, so I walked down from my site, down the steep banks to the narrow shore and just stood and stared. The reflections on the glassy lake made it so much better. I could go on and on, but I'll leave it here.

 

you just feel so connected into the energy of everything surrounding you. It almost takes on a life of its own.

 

yehman
All these posts are lovely.
I can totally envisage each one.
They're beautiful.


I'll add another:

'Hill Running'

There are various terrains to do a good hill run down. Forest slopes are one of the most hazardous and so consequently more invigorating when you finally make it down to the bottom.
A long, steep hillside with many trees jutting out all along its (usually concave) surface. There are fallen logs, set holes; be they rabbit, badger or fox, low branches and hidden rocks everywhere.
There is a point on a run down hill where you think: 'Ok, time to stop and make an effort to check my momentum, this is going out of control.'
This has to be ignored! Its dangerous but only if you think so. In fact, if you think of anything at all you could make one false move past this point and end up really hurting.
There's a certain detachment that washes over your senses. As tree trunks and low branches fly toward you there's ducking and diving. The ground a totally random rush of shapes. Rock, hole, hump, bog, log, sturdy or not? It gets faster and faster. Proportionately the passage of outside time slows as your senses quicken for survival.

I remember a particular one in a forest last Autumn. I'll relay an account:

The speed of my descent increased more and yet more, my limbs ached but there was no bailing out now. It seemed the need to analyse the placement of my feet decreased proportionately. Every obstacle was unique in the required reaction my body had to provide in order to traverse it. And yet, as any plan to my thoughts seemed to disappear, information increased its flow into my senses making the ever-quickening pace to my downward negotiation of the forest slope all the more facilitated.
I soon forgot my name and whom/what I was as I hurtled down the hill, bouncing, jumping, sidestepping and even twirling as I started to use my hands and then my feet against the sides of trees. Their boughs became a handy scaffold of random steps jutting horizontally from the wall of the forest floor. I gradually became aware of myself laughing, like a distant echo of joy overheard in the wilderness. Everything was so easy. I waltzed with glee through thickets, lollopped over moss carpeted rocks and danced along fallen trees as my velocity increased exponentially.
All became, not so much as a blur, but more of a memory of past interactions even before I made contact with the facets of my environ. My body contorted and flailed about under its steady suspension of my head in much the same way the edges of a web touch reality in the craziest of patterns whilst its centre remains uniform and perfect. Such is the path from the myriad of sensations through subjective realities to the calm truth of ego destruction. Ironically, at the very instance I elevated my sub-conscious to invoke such a thought of smugness at my ability, my foot caught the side of a fallen tree and I was catapulted toward the sky. My body was totally in line with the horizontal vector of my new direction in the air as I braced myself for a distinctly ugly looking impact.
It then occurred to me that time was still rather slowed down in my sublime state. Enough for me to notice that I was not about to crash into something but was still flying as the ground was falling away from me downhill. I righted myself in midair and re-engaged my galloping pace downward as soon as the arc of my fall came to its neat bisection of the slope. A few more leaps and bounds and I found myself running backwards whilst still moving forwards along the forest fringe of detritus in order to finally come to a halt at the bottom.
A blast. Only now did certain memories flood back. Dodging out of the way of a spiked branched at the last millisecond as it veered toward my right eye. Countering a slide by slapping off a trunk with my palm to shift my weight. Last second leaps over pitfalls and suspicious hillocks. The rush of wind past my ears and the jolt of each leg interfacing with the ground and shuddering up through my body.
The forest is neutral. There was no danger for a ready human.

~
Taken one misty morning when camping at new year:

 

I saw the northern lights once, in northern Quebec, sleeping outside of my tent in a very wild and unspoiled forest. It made me feel comfortable, that some things in the world don't change, no matter how many years pass, and some parts of the world are still as they used to be. It's like being a part of the greater, four dimentional scheme of things, where time is not a barrier.

 

wow this is such a truely beautiful thread! nice work man.
peace Vibes.

 

In the late afternoon, before sundown, forest birds become very active. Its best to stop cooking or whatever to observe. Its challenging to try and interpert the calls. To try to identify the bird.

I've really enjoyed reading all the comments.

 

Being in the bush or forest really makes me come alive. You can sense all the animals, where they sleep and journey to, and I can point out their tracks to waterholes and food sourses. It's nice to be in there domain and it's a good feeling being under there ever watchful eyes. The transition from dusk to nightfall is always met with excitement and preparation by all. I love busying myself collecting firewood for the night. I went camping on the weekend and was joined at dusk by a large group of sulphur crested cockatoos who came to rest above me in the highest branches and watch the smoke drift up from my fire.

peace

August xx


Morgan's Beach Campground Feb 2005

 

but people like to ruin a good thread and i feel it fits here

Living with Mother Nature
i just wanted to say i love my life and what is more beautiful than falling asleep to the sounds of a stream flowing next to your tent all the animals coming out to exoplore there surroundings traveling to the woods guided by the moon light
never scared just a warm blanket of love by the earth with you to lay your head upon an meeting new and beautiful people a lifestyle of any other to me just couldnt compare
i just wanted to share my feeling
love and light

 

hello humans! its just incredible how most of the planet don't ever spend a few days in the wild.
silence is the loudest thing ever! it really hits. there was this big fear i had that vanished in the scope of something immensely bigger, understnading., Yesterday this thought plagued me so much..that we're capable of so much! and don't even know that! we could do anything. clear world debthungerstrife, with just a simple totally honist look at oursleves and a conversation.

 

Much of the time I've gone wilderness camping, I've gone with an informal group, there was a lot of talking and a lot of times a tape-player with bootlegs, concerts, jam sessions and all. I really did not get to experience real sound on this trip. We were so loud, we had to walk way deep into the woods for privacy and so not to betray our position.

But Wait !, lets all be Quiet. I'll turn this tape player down.

what do we hear:
>
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The deep base sounds of fire-pit construction from an assembled pile of stones
each stone with its individual tone and resonance.
Assembled, the stones act as one for a safe fire pit.
>
>
The healthy sound of an axe biting into fine, dry hardwood.
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The sweet sound of a bow-saw ripping through branches as a downed tree is partitioned. The saw-team rocking it back and forth.
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The melodious prucussion of logs being stacked on to the wood-pile, each log with its own length and thickness emiting its individual tone. The sum total of all the logs assembled transmits a audible as well as visual inventory of tonights firewood.
>
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The wonderous Snap Crackel and Pop of the campfire. As you rest, your eyes follow the burning sparks upward. carried on a current of warm air. As your eyes look up, you notice that the illumination on the leaves is not from the sunlight above , but from the fire below.
>
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The fizz...Pop as you crack open that cold can of Bud.
>
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The crinkel-zip of rolling papers, snapped out and in motion.
.
>
The sulfurous "Snap" of a wooden kitchen match as you spark up.

Ah Camping. By the way, has anyone heard any wild life ?

 

Are they as fast as it's always shown on the telly? I am sure they speed the film up. I'd love to see them at my own natural rate of perception! I may have seen a big green hazy stripe not moving in the Norwegian sky once. Not sure.

Oh yes. I'm with you there.
Reality exists outside our metabolic rate. A fly can see you in slow motion, a tortoise sees you run past quickly when you're actually walking.
The trees about us may seem still in our time frame. They're actually bursting upward and battling each other in theirs.
How are we percieved, fourth dimension wise, in relation to the grand cosmos scheme of things?
When questioning time, why not size relation too? It's all relative. I've written something about scale in a post below. Another forest realisation.

It's at once haunting and yet also comforting this element of being alone in the woods. The sound of animals, going about their business invokes a longing in me that I can't quantify. But it also soothes a part of me I can't identify.
Birdsong is especially powerful, I agree piney.

Ever investigated the art of 'Zen' within your sentiment?
When the act of doing reveals more to oneself than sitting discussing all the aspects.

That blanket, i know it too. It kicks into your subconscious after a good day fixing up the camp as you lie back and relax and soak it all in.

yeh!! have you read post 4 on the first page? I completely agree!

yehman. It all gets put into perspective when you leave the pressured and braindead urban environment. Change is achievable if people only knew it was. Some time alone in nature definately wakes us up to it all. The BIG picture.

aye. Amplified music does not belong, in my humble opinion.
Good to sit and listen to what is already there, not what you brought with you. indeed.

~

 

I have another observation / emotional understanding from being alone in the woodland. It's a little story from when I was hiking:

I struck out toward a forest that, from one impression, seemed sparse due to the grand dimensions between the tall trunks but, from another impression, seemed very dense due to its immeasurable total volume stretching far past my visual horizon.
The tall, snow clad canopy was intershot with the darkest evergreen foliage held up by pillars of light orange-brown bark encrusting the ancient tree-trunks throughout the splendid vision approaching me with every step.
Once enveloped I could now see that the nature of the land covered by the forest was a giant slow rolling hillside and so had to lean further into my stride up through the soft moss covered ridges and hillocks that defined the surface of the incline. Patches of snow formed a parquetry across the dank orange forest carpet of fallen needles as I made my way further inward.

When I found myself deep within the forest I was plunged into total isolation. I felt the stillness of the place engulf me. The presence of that void surrounding the uppermost shell of our flimsy canopy named as the sky with its small inner layer of sustaining air, suddenly made itself known to me. This altered my relative judgment toward my immediate location. I was no longer just crossing the ground of this forest. I felt the awareness of my insignificant wandering across the surface of a giant sphere's thin soil shell covering thick rock encircling its yolk of super heated lava whilst spinning its white whisped blue and green beauty through the flying time and space of elliptical dances around a cosmic fusion ball travelling its own secret path in turn orbiting a central core that calls out its song to the star and its brethren guiding them to shape an almighty spiral structured discus rotating and transposing itself ever increasingly distant from all kindred entities deeper into the infinitely expanding abyss of the utter void and stillness now permeating my consciousness via the presence of this immaculate local environment.

Suffice to say, I went cosmic.... maaan.

I like those moments. I get more and more of them through a personal regime of not bowing to the pressures of peers and society that want me to forget what I am. A mortal and unique pattern in the flow of the entropy cycle of the universe... among other things.

~
walking down to the river in the morning to get some water

 

<shameless bump>

~
ooh, a link! Scheihallion Beltane Cloud hike