"Mother Earth will swallow you... lay your body down..." ~ lyrics by Crosby, Stills & Nash
Those lyrics have literally saved my a$$ hundreds of times. Somehow as a child, I knew that my body came from the Earth and that she and it understood one another.
One day when I was about 9 years old. I was hiking in the woods with one of my sisters and my Dad. We lived on the edge of a ridge that dropped, sometimes gently, sometimes sharply, to a creek a few hundred feet below.
The woods were my refuge, the trees my best friends. The two silver birches on the edge of the hill outside my second story window, my timeless, intimate, trusted confidantes. The other thing I knew was that nature understood me better than people did. Some things don't change... {probably quoting The Matrix here...}
On this day, the woods were fresh and green, the creek swollen to a rushing river by the meltwaters of the end of winter. I don't remember there being any snow left under the trees, only its sharp cold lingering breath that freshened my senses even while the afternoon sun softened the new green overhead.
I used to laugh at telling direction by 'the moss grows on the north side of the tree.' Moss grew on ALL sides of ALL trees in my childhood woodlands, though I did learn later that in such cases it allegedly grows thickest on the northernmost side. Live and learn.
We walked through 'our woods' that day, the acre and a half or so that lay downhill and under the trees, mostly to see what trail maintenance my Dad might need to start on when things dried out a bit, and to generally suss things out on the banks of the creek that now sported its river configuration.
We stood on the edge of the rushing currents, the water lapping over the banks that I typically had to climb down in other seasons.
"Stand well back" my Dad ordered us both, as he waded up to the edge and looked up and down stream. The sodde bank began to give way under his feet when he jumped back, just in time, nodding over his shoulder. "See?"
"I don't think you two should play near the creek till the melt is over," he added, as we headed up into the trees.
I had always wanted to jump in with the rubber dingy wrapped around me, sure I would land in mid-stream and have the ride of my life. Dad's admonishment didn't exactly squelch that fantasy... more like made me tick the box that said 'only when he's not home.' But then most adventures fell into that category... or the other column... 'what they don't know won't hurt me...'
Today we hiked across hunt club property to what the locals simply called 'the cliffs.' Here, the creek was a bit deeper. Over time it, or its floodplain parents, (there was only meadow on the other side) had carved red clay outcroppings into the land on one side. On a spare bit of cardboard or the soles of your trainers and the bum of your jeans, this made for a great ride. Soft enough and slippery, the red clay-shale mix made the perfect slide. Another thing no one knew about, and I made sure to change out of my red-stained clothes on the way to the soaking tub in the basement.
Luckily for me, my sister was too young to know about this game and luckily again, there was no one about this particular afternoon. Dad commented on how slippery and dangerous it was along that bit of trail and herded us back into the woods toward home.
The cliffs and trees were chuchling along with me as I relived countless breath-taking descents down those same 'dangerous bits'. Then the smells and sounds of the deep woods overcame my thoughts and I lost my memories in the fullness of the presence of stillness under the trees.
A few minutes later I noticed that I was alone on the trail. It was only a deer track, really, one that only a few knew of. Where were my Dad and my sister? I had a moment of 'cool!' as I spent hours in these woods all alone and had no more fear of them than I did of being in my own bed at home.
"Hey! Up here! Catch up! Your Mum will have lunch ready by now!" There they were, on the next trail up. It ran along the hill like this one, the difference being that it led straight home.
"How did you get up there?" I knew how to do it through the tree branches but figured my Dad wouldn't approve.
"We climbed up over there..." he pointed to an opening between the trees several yards behind me. Huffing a little, I re-traced my steps and looked for the best way to scale the vertical slope. The sodden, slightly-frosted ground was a mixture of clay and deep forest loam. Not the best for sure footing even though I noticed a few friendly rocks and branches along the way.
"Oh come on! You're not scared are you?" He was kidding, right? You live behind a desk. I live in these woods... but okay, whatever.
"I'm coming..." I started up the slope without listening as I usually would have done. I didn't stop to ask the Earth where to put my feet or the trees if they minded me grabbing onto them. I knew enough not to put my feet where my Dad's size-thirteen boots had made slidey-holes in the fragrant earth. I had only my Keds. No tread to speak of. Had I been on my own, I would have removed them and slung them over my shoulder, using toes as leverage and to better feel the mood of the hill I was climbing.
"Come on up!" Dad was getting impatient. Probably hungry, he told my sister to go on and run for the house. He started off in that direction when it happened.
With my attention fixed on not irritating him, I was not paying attention to the earth beneath my hands and feet. It was loose and letting go. Digging my compromised toes the best I could, straining for leverage, I scratched deep into the loam, past fallen leaves and needles, under the moss and through the lichen... until the dirt under my nails threatened to bend them back entirely.
"Dad!" The scream burst from my lips before I could stop it. "I'm slipping!" The thoughts running through my head were more like 'shit! stupid stupid stupid... what next?' It wasn't as though I hadn't fallen down this hill a few times. This time, though, I would be in for it and I knew it.
He was already a hundred yards or so down the trail. "Dad!" I yelled again, as my soft, stubby nails buckled and I began to slide. "Help!" I pressed my cheek and chest into the slope as well, trying for friction at the very least. My thoughts ran on a mile a minute. It isn't all that steep. The ground is soft. I won't fall too fast. This won't be too bad... he's going to kill me...'
I noticed a sapling a foot or so to my left. Maybe if I angled toward it and jumped... It looked as though its roots would hold... "no!" I heard it loud and clear. Then I saw. The young tree's roots looped over a rock stickin out of the hillside. too shallow. It would give way.
"Okay, I'm listening. I'm sorry," I said to my friends, the earth and the trees. I felt, more than heard or saw, another rock wedged into the hillside, offering purchase to my floundering right foot. I slid my rubber sole onto it and felt it stabilize my ankle. "Thank you" I whispered to it, grateful for the reprieve.
Back in my element, I took a deep breath. At that moment, I felt my Dad's firm grasp around my wrist, his strength lifting and swinging me out of the slippery morass into the space between two trees where I could grab hold and finish my climb. "Gotcha!" he shouted, as he swung, waiting for me to join him on the trail above.
Mud to the eyes, I stood on the trail next to him, waiting for a dressing down that never came. Instead, he looked over my sorry state and chuckled. "We won't tell your Mother about this, okay?"
I shook my head in silence, daring to look him in the eyes. He was smiling. "I'm proud of you honey," he whispered. "You didn't panic. You didn't scream. You knew what to do."
He leaned back, scratching his head with one of the rough leather work gloves he wore for log-cutting. "You know you scare your Mother when you climb trees... and that obstacle course you run across the hill behind the house?..."
He laughed at my look of surprise. "When the trees lose their leaves you can see everything, right down to the water. Haven't you ever looked?" I had, but hadn't put two and two together. She had been watching.
"You know that big fallen tree I took down last year? The one with no bark and the bouncey branches at the end?"
I nodded guiltily. I loved to bounce on those branches and was convinced he'd cut them 'just so' to facilitate that activity. Or someone had.
"I'll bet we could make a big pile of leaves right at the end there for you to jump into... and next time she walks down with us we could show her how safe it is..."
That was when it hit me. He loved these woods as I did. I spent the kind of time in them that he wished he could. I looked him in the eyes again, this time with a grin on my face as I nodded in conspiratorial glee.
The iron dinnerbell began to clang as Dad turned to trail-sprint for the house. "That's my job! I'm going to catch it!" he tossed back over his shoulder. It was true. He always rang the bell to call me in from my wanderings. If Mum called, one was tempted to dally but when Dad rang the bell or, heaven forbid, whistled.... only this time he was running the way I did when I knew I had only just so much time to make it back before the scolding began.
I don't remember what we had for lunch. I remember the scent of fresh loam still in my nostrils and reminding myself to hide my ruined-for-school Keds when Mum went upstairs for her nap.
A shared love of nature is priceless.
When you don't think you can trust your body, trust the earth beneath it. Trust nature. They are of the same stuff and support is always present. As the lyrics run... "lay your body down..."