Context
Alrighty, first, for context, I’ve been attending a couple of forest bathing exercises in the park. Which are essentially ways for people to come and spend time in the forest, disconnect from technology and ground themselves in nature. It’s a phenomenal program ran by the Pittsburgh Parks Conservatory that I actually stumbled upon one day in the park. I wouldn’t have known about if I hadn’t asked somebody what the hell was going on (I did in fact wait until the terminus as to not intrude on what looked to be the most peaceful of experiences.) I’m really glad I did ask because I’ve since attended most of them that have taken place in Riverview Park. Just today I branched out a little bit and went to one in Frick Park. This forest bathing was even more different than the rest because not only was there forest bathing invitations but also writing prompts: exercises in generative writing. Obviously as I write this upon my blog, I’m into that. I’m “into” writing. I’m also quite “into” nature. For some reason I haven’t spent all too much time combining the two (granted if you notice on a couple of my earlier blog posts this year you’ll see that I wrote some of the posts in nature). I actually think those are some of my better posts this year. Nature is a great place for ingenuity and inspiration. Today we had a few different invitations coupled with a few different writing prompts. I figured why not post them here, with minor editing.
Invitation and Prompt 1
The first prompt was quite general: to write about internal and external spaces. Prior to writing we had an invitation. I noticed a couple of things: one was the fact that the forest was full of chipmunks. Cute little squirrel rats running around living their life under the small plant cover, jumping from log to log, running up and down trees. As is tradition, I collected a friend. An acorn. When gathering this acorn a felled tree caught my eye. Twas a particularly gnarly tree, it’s bark wrinkly. The tree was long dead but there was something so beautiful about this texture and pattern that compelled me to take a moment. To touch and feel the wrinkles of death.
[Excerpt 1]
The body feels like an internal space. It feels closed off. I think of breathing, how sometimes it feels as if my lungs are trapped within me. It’s strange how people go outside to get “fresh air”. Almost as if the body can open itself best when met with external stimuli. I noticed the different ages of the trees again and wondered: does our interior space becomes less or more open as we age? Stress plays a key role in how this openness translates to others. So then perhaps the internal/external feeling of oneself has less to do with age and more to do with, peace. Are you at peace?
[Excerpt 1]
Invitation and Prompt 2
The second invitation had me thinking about that dead tree again. Perhaps the dead tree had found its ultimate peace? When I was inspecting a seperate very large downed tree there were a couple of things I had noticed. One was the fact that growth was still coming from the tree. It wasn’t the actual tree itself growing, but other life. A mushroom or three that me and another person had caught eye of. Alongside other small greenery growing from beneath and atop this very large downed tree. I pressed on a part of old growth with my hand and noticed the lumber was soft, obviously rotting. It couldn’t take any of my weight. Yet when I moved to a different part of the tree, a younger yet still dead part, it could hold my weight. I was actually sitting on it. The second thing I noticed was that there was a younger tree that this old growth had brought down with it when it fell. There was something tragic about the death of this younger tree. It all felt as if there were layers of death. The second prompt had us thinking about what our roles in society would be if the more common jobs were not a thing, in society where language itself was the ultimate fundamental.
[Excerpt 2]
Two roles in this newfound society: shepherd of death and maker of new worlds, new words. Words don’t necessarily die, but people do. From their deaths new worlds arise and thus new words arise. For each death, plenty of life comes. My role is to bring life from the death. When one finds their ultimate peace, I am there to bring in the new life. To bring in new words for those around to use to explain how they lived, how they felt. These new words were for others to enjoy and experience. Death dictionary, dictator of diction dedicated to delivery of dying.
[Excerpt 2]
Invitation and Prompt 3
The 3rd and final invitation had me thinking about how leaves falling from the trees in a way is them falling to their ultimate peace. Pieces of peace. I thought about how gravity and the wind bring these pieces of peace to the earth as a sacrifice to the growth of future organisms. Then I noticed as I was sitting there watching the leaves fall that each one of them had a different pace of death. The third and final writing prompt was about burrowing, getting deep within this new environment. Digging into this new world.
[Excerpt 3]
Seed. Noun and verb. Alive or dead? Strong, but weak. To bring about life one must give a part of themselves. Sacrifice, for the future. In a way, each leaf that falls is a sacrifice for the future. These seeds need to grow from the life force of their parent – their kin. Without it growth is stunted, challenged much greater. Sometimes that breeds strength and greatness. Whereas other times it only leads to hardship. For each death I ask from kin a sacrifice, so may new words and worlds grow.
[Excerpt 3]
Afterthoughts
When I was walking back to the car I noticed that there were a couple of living trees with their treetops particularly twisted. It made me think about how I mentioned that these pieces of sacrifice help life grow and without proper sacrifice growth can be difficult. Just like the twisted tree, our lives go through times of stress. These times of stress create those wrinkles that I saw on the dead tree in the beginning of the invitations. Then I was talking with another participant in the parking lot and they prompted another thought. The other community members in the forest, particularly the animals that eat the plants, are also death shepherds in their own way. As they feed off the forest they themselves fuel growth.
There was one quote from a song too that I have been listening to earlier in the day. It sort of tied a bow on the couple of thoughts I had written about. The quote’s from MF DOOM – That’s That. He breaks into song near the end and says, “Can it be I stayed away too long. Do you miss these rhymes when I was gone?” Yes DOOM, we did, and we still do.
