Wild Chapel

By Tory Walker

The forest trees tower above me, giants full of life sap, eaten through by parasites and home to creatures silken-furred and sleek-scaled. My unholy footsteps defile such majesty, their leaden thumps dampened by the slippery brushed needle floor. I slide and stumble, tripping over displaced rocks and bared, gnarled roots. My humanity is gross and unrefined next to the regality of ancient growth; my clumsiness is blaring in the peaceful silence of these masters in waiting. Here, time stretches on infinitely, the link to the past as clear to the now as it will be to the when.

My soul is exhausted from the hurting that goes with living. I present my weakened heart for the purification of the trees, cleansing my toxins, my toxicity, my toxic. Stripping me down to my buds and bark, roots and shoots, teaching me to rebuild and regrow, tall and strong.

Spires of pine and tremendous oak boughs form a living place of worship, a study in stillness. I am a study in impatience, of a body in flight, and I come here to learn how to be slow and steady. I reach out with anxious, shaking hands and rest them with reverence on the trunks I pass, bathing my mind in their calm.

There is a natural hush among trees, every bit as sacred as the ones that pass from mother’s lips to infant’s ears; it is an absence of rush and fuss and panic. Such tranquility is shattered in a million tiny ways, as the denizens of the wood make their desires known through calls and rustles, all blending into a chorus that seems to shout, “You are here, you are alive, you must live!”

In the wild chapel, I pull the choking, strangling leaves away from the bright green shoots struggling out of the ground. I scoop dirt back onto bared tree roots, excavated by careless parishioners seeking treasure until there is nothing left but rope and vein struggling for breath and purchase.

Sacred is the earth and her creatures, and I am but a congregant at the altar of her divinity. Slam on the brakes to pull that turtle, dog, or human off the road. Slow to miss a raccoon, possum, or kid with neck bent to their phone. In the wild chapel, there is no meaningless chatter. Even the staccato tocks of the woodpecker are filled with purpose; the buzz of the ever-curious bees shows there are always more questions, especially in the answers.