In the middle of October 2018 I took a short day trip to the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania. Like most of the photographs I’ve taken over the last 12 – 16 months, the photos I took that day have been curing in an airtight folder on my hard drive just begging to be illuminated by the pixel’s angelic glow. I kid, obviously. They couldn’t care less if they see the light, after all they’re just proxies for my ego’s childish desires.
Regardless, I love me some rhododendrons. If you throw in some hemlock and beech trees, plus a cold bubbling mountain stream, pssshhhh… you’d be witnessing one of my heavens. Unless of course the forest is so choked with undergrowth that you can’t move without a small colony of eager ticks hitching a rid on your inner thigh. I jest, but only slightly. It’s not usually a small colony of ticks, but a large colony. It’s bad enough that we have to deal with the gasholes in our state’s forest’s, throw in an army of lyme carrying, blood sucking ticks and you’ve got a recipe for a conundrum.
There is little in this world that heals me like the forest. It doesn’t matter how pissy I am when I enter the forest, I have always left it feeling better than when I entered. The forest’s ability to mulch the denser energies our bodies and minds struggle with is a literal blessing of the highest quality, and for that I am eternally thankful.