Why I Walk

Yesterday I took a walk. They tell us that a storm will move in from the north and we will get cold rain all weekend. So I wanted to go for a walk before the rain.
We only have two flat places on our property: One is where the house and surrounding areas are and the other is a knoll up the road where we have a small orchard, the septic mound and where Maggie is buried.

The rest is lots of up and down, steep ravines and old mining roads that follow the easiest routes to the places that use to be occupied by tents and folks looking for gold. You can find a few old shacks. mine shafts, rusty pieces of equipment and stone foundations, if you look hard enough, hiding beneath old dead oak trees and grass but mostly there's the beauty of untouched land that gives me courage to walk by myself on our property and our neighbor's land above us. I never run into anyone on my hikes. It is a place empty of people.
I love these walks. Time to think and look for the true inhabitants of these foothills who usually disappear into what Mary Oliver calls the "impossible trees" when I'm there. I know they watch me from a safe distance.... The crazy, noisy human who smells dangerous and carries a black contraption around her neck that makes a click. How would they know it's not a rifle or a gun. It's best that they hide. Others are not shooting with a camera. Others, as I hear a shot in the distance, would aim and fire death.
So I travel over to the other flat area on our property....

past the burn barrels and the Minnesota mound ( our very expensive septic system that was required before we could build a house here.).....

and the Fox den.....

and down into the grove of Manzanita that feeds my soul. The twisted trunks of red. The sinuous serpent branches of this beautiful tree always gives me a feeling that I'm not alone at all, just a different DNA, a structure of a different sort that has more mobility. I feel like Dorothy in the apple orchard waiting for the trees to come to life and being surprised when they start talking to me..... reprimand me for taking some of their bark and capturing their souls in my little black box that clicks.

"Excuse me, but you dropped these on the ground and I only want a few. Please don't be angry. I will leave you a gift in exchange......"

"It's a strange expression that , in human language, represents greeting and well-wishing. A word that says... hello you lovely trees, bushes and leaf covered ground. I have been here today. I will come back soon. Take care of the others who come here. Let them see my sign and not be afraid. I will not speak loudly or take what isn't mine. I only want to be a part of this. I only need to know that this is here."
As I walked back up onto the road near the orchard I heard a rustle in the trees. Could it be that after I left, all the little animals came out of their hiding places to see what the human wrote in the leaves. Do you suppose they all gathered in a circle around my word and talked about it?..... Do you think the Manzanita told them that I was all right.... that I would come again? That the word was an offering of love? I hope so....