For the second Christmas in a row, I set out to go hiking in the woods by my house.

I guess it's very Thoreau of me, but I feel going out in the woods gives me access to a kind of peace and perspective I can't find otherwise. It's something I used to enjoy regularly -- I spent a good deal of my growing up either in local forests or in the wilderness elsewhere -- but now when I come to it, the contrast from my day-to-day city life is so great it seems to make the experience far more profound.

Finding the Path

After spending the morning and early afternoon alternately sleeping, eating and watching cable, I set out for a walk, just to, you know, do something, break up the boredom. My plan was to walk over to a neighborhood not too far off full of these rather striking 1950s Modern houses and then take pictures of them, but as it turned out, as I was nearing the turn to the main road they're on, I noticed a "Town of Andover Conservation Area" sign and I heard the woods call to me.

The area I went into is one I've gone through a few times before but oddly, not one I spent much time at all exploring while growing up here. Mainly this is because the land does not adjoin my family's land and it was also held privately at that time, with no signs and no real point of access. Things have changed now, since the old woman who owned it willed it over to the town, and it truly is a blessing and a gift because this particular tract of land is spectacular.

I entered the land off of Ballardvale Road and after couple hundred yards, the road was behind me, and I was in the forest. The trees, I should mention, are mainly white pines and oak, along with a bit of birch. The weather's been extremely mild lately, in the 50s, so while there was snow on the ground, it was melting and the ground was mainly covered in wet oak leaves and pine needles, plus thick undergrowth of low blueberry bushes and brambles. There were a lot of fallen trees, fallen from snow and storms, with twisted broken trunks and logs littering the way. Vines and growths of red-berried thorns filled up the hollows. The air in the forest was clean and cool, with a faint wind fluttering about the bare branches of the oaks. It is not like forests anywhere else I have been and I would always know the woods of my town from a wood in Germany or Vermont or Georgia. It smells and feels like home to me, as comfortable as an old shoe or snug sofa.

The path was wide, I think originally an old farm road, and it led me on, beckoned me. I felt I had been meant all along to take that turn and that the Modern houses were nothing but a ploy, and my real mission would be to see something away from architecture and creations of humanity. As I came to the first obstacle, a point where the path was cut off by a wide stream grown wider with the water of melting snow, I knew I couldn't turn back. I cut around through some dryer, if still muddy, bits of the wood, walking right through brambles and thorns -- they didn't stick to me and wasn't afraid at all. It seemed the most natural thing, just as it has since I was small, always going off into the woods (the one one, incidentally, where I hardly ever get lost).

Stones

I should talk about the stones now. First there are the old stone walls. New England is of course known for these -- long straight rows of stones, laid out across the landscape, marking property lines that for the most part no longer mean anything. Sometimes they're found in fields, sometimes (as was the case here) in forests that a century or two ago, used to be fields. The stone walls here criss-crossed the land, up and down ridges, across streams, up hills, down into hollows. They were green with moss and lichen, like gnarled green snakes.

The other stones were the boulders. The area near my home is an edge for activity of the ancient glaciers. Where my house is, the ground is entirely sand, 400 feet down, they say, all ground up by the glaciers. In the woods where I was walking, and in the area all in that direction, however, the glaciers made ridges and deposited large boulders, so big that if one is romantic you can easily call them "great as dragons" or attach fond names. I'm sure whatever Native American tribe once inhabited this area had names for these particular boulders. They're some sort of granite, I think, great and greyish green, with skins of many kinds of moss and lichen. To me they seem alive, like great creatures who watch everything that goes on, but never speak. I felt them watching me as I hiked along.

After I'd jumped a couple more streams, I noticed there were some other footprints in the snow and mud -- a man's and a deer's -- and I really felt like I was on some kind of quest and that people who go walking in that forest are almost called to be there, for some special reason. No doubt I'm being influenced by all the fantasy books I've been reading lately, but I did feel like there was some special reason I was there. And those giant boulders couldn't be ignored. So I ran up one of the ridges to the biggest boulder and climbed on top of it to survey. The sky was mainly white with cloud, and the trees were bare -- even the pines were bare nearly to their tops. The ground was littered with all kinds of green grey rocks and boulders. At the bottom of the hill was a stream and a marsh. And beyond the edges of the forest I could see the backs of some houses, here and there; fortunately they were far enough away to ignore.

Reiki

While up on the boulder, I decided I really had to do a ritual of some kind. Since I've been reading a Reiki book and wanting to revisit and warm up my skills, I decided on a Reiki ritual. I sat down on town of the mountain of rock, in a clear spot covered with lichen and moss, legs straight out, and breathed in the air. I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. I closed my eyes, and as I breathed I could see my breath, eyes clothes. I breathed in the goodness of the forest, the white winter sun shining through the clouds, the smell of the dead leaves, the pine, the mosses, and I was swallowing light. When I exhaled, I could see my breath escaping like smoke, foulness traveling away from me.

Finally, when my heart had stopped beating so hard (from climbing the boulder) and I was calm, I laid my hands palm-up on my thighs and called Reiki to flow into me through my hands. Then I thought of the top of my head and invited Reiki to enter there too. My palms grew hot and tingling, like pins and needles, and I imagined in my head the Reiki power coming into my head, and I could see it around my eyes like a sun. I followed it down my head into my throat and bent my head as it went into my stomach and joined my own energy. When everything was connected, my hands went to my stomach and I sat there and tried to enjoy the life I could be given from the forest. I remembered how my stomach has not hurt me since I first received Reiki last May, but how I'd been sick with stomach flu and anyway Reiki would go from my stomach towards any places in me needing healing or other help.

When I felt I was done with the Reiki, I brushed myself off and went down the boulder onto the path again. I had to open my coat, I was so hot. My cheeks were burning like coals and the lethargy that had been on me all day was gone. I was determined to keep on going down the path. I walked and walked, on flat and hill, up to explore a few more bolders, over some more streams and swamps. At last I was in a pine forest, flat with a carpet of needles, and grew eerie there, with a low fog from the warm air and the snow on the ground. I began to wonder where the trail led. But I kept on following the path. At one point I was in an area where it looked like children or teenagers had piled wood, made forts, had fires, but it was empty and I kept on walking. I came to some fields and noticed houses nearer and nearer. I wondered if I would know where I was when I came out the other end. I decided if I didn't know, I'd head back how I'd come.

Back to the "Real World"

I was in a field, which seemed familiar, reminding me of someplace else, when I heard a human sound, the slam of an SUV door, I think. Walking onward, I spotted a yellow and red fire hydrant -- in a field, it seemed. I walked up to it and found it was on a paved path, covered with snow, and up a hill I saw a gate and a sign -- the other access point! I know it's not like I was Indiana Jones escaping that Well of Souls place, but I was excited to have made it through.

What was quite surreal was coming out of those woods through the gates and finding myself coming out a path between two tacky $400-500K'ish McMansions on a suburban cul-de-sac!!!!! I felt quite intrepid and goofy tramping out down that street. Probably nobody noticed me, though I did stand out a bit! I kept on walking until I got to a main road, which had no name. I had expected to come out in one nearby McMansion neighborhood but it wasn't that, it was somewhere else.

Luckily I happened to walk the right way and immediately spotted a very familiar landmark -- the waterfall dam at the end of Foster's Pond. That's a bit of a hairpin turn and nasty to walk on, but I made it around and from there kept on walking. I was a couple miles from my house by foot and I guess had walked a couple miles through the woods. I felt so proud of myself, exhilerated. Cars drove by me and probably the though was "Who's this wild-haired lady in the bedraggled skirt staggering down the road?" but I was so happy. The sun was making everything golden, including the pretty cattail marshes. A chemical test would have found me full of endorphins, I'm sure.

Anyhow, that was my Thoreau-like experience for today. In all this desciption, I think I've missed it, but basically I felt the whole time that the forest was something beautiful and precious, that it has a power and peace it can grant us that we can't get from any environment we can build ourselves. I also felt strongly that those particular acres are a place where I'm at home, comfortable and happy. I am sure to go back!