Here's my forest

May 1 is a holiday in Germany. It's the traditional May Day that's prevalent in Europe, plus it's Labor Day in much of the world. I know people put up May poles (they tie trees to the top of tall poles) because I've seen them long after May Day, but I've never actually seen it in action. The thing that people do tend to do around here is all go hiking on that day. Villages, church congregations, clubs, etc. will have traditional Wandertagen (hiking days) when they all go somewhere together. Our local congregation is the same. Last time we lived here we went on an all-day hike in the middle of steep nowhere, and looked at animals at a reserve. This time, whoever is in charge thought it would be nice to have a get-together this evening (a ward family home evening). Meet at the parking lot of a forest, walk in, look at the wild horses, and have a nice evening together. We actually live close enough to walk, so we loaded up the stroller and went into the woods. We never found the group, and we never saw any horses. We did, however, see a lot of trees. Tall, golden-skinned pines stretched over us, birch leaves glittered green against their zebra bark, and six-inch layers of moss carpeted the ground. The oak leaves were just coming out; spiky and shiny, tender green, like new-hatched dragon wings. And the forest had a distinctive smell, something I've smelled in Idaho (NOT cow manure), although I don't thing the two landscapes are at all similar.

I commented on melissa_writing's blog that the feeling of being in nature that is much larger than myself is very comforting. To be small in the arms of a forest, or on the shoulder of a mountain, means that there are bigger things than me. If the world were up to me, things would fall apart very quickly. But I'm not in charge, and like the Rilke poem says, "there is one who holds all of this falling endlessly gently in his hands." I feel very, very peaceful to know that I have a place in this universe, and that I'm also not in charge of it.