We spend all of our lives living on the planet known as Earth, as well as all of the days that we are dead. Yet some will never have a second thought about its purpose nor the role that it plays in our lives. An hour is not enough time to fully appreciate the environment and its power. There will never be enough time in one’s life to entirely explore the riches and beauty of nature. However, in an attempt to reconnect with the earth I spent an hour near a forest lakeside located in Pinawa, Manitoba. Here is the retelling of my experience:
The weekend of January 13th 2018 was warmer for a country who was currently in the middle of a deep freeze, as the sun struggled to come out from underneath a heavy pocket of dark clouds. After walking off the beaten path, I had taken my last step as the tip of my boot touched the rocky lake shoreline. Silence enveloped the clearing, much like what the glistening white snow had done to the underbrush. Sitting down, I let the snow absorb me like the beautiful blanket that it was. The crystals within the snow beside me gleamed and reflected the dying sun’s light onto the dark bark of the trees. Following the length of the tree with my eyes, I gazed at the scraggly and thin tips of its branches and at the grey hazy sky above. A bird sung a brief and fleeting song, but it lingered within the clearing. A gust of wind blew thousands of delicate flakes across my face and caused me to sit up and swipe it away. Glancing towards the seemingly superficial ice, the sun had a much larger albedo effect and the lake radiated a golden glow. The chilling wind which swept across the Earth with a vicious roar, caused my nose to grow numb and had begun to twirl the falling snow on the surface of the frozen lake into a beautiful yet dangerous dance. As I blinked away falling snowflakes, I watched the world turn white like a cleared canvas. As the chill had begun to settle in my bones, I walked away from this pristine place of captivating beauty.
Photo courtesy of Julia Kozak 2018
Surprisingly, this activity is not a new one for me. I frequently feel the pull of nature and wonder if it is because both of my parents were born in an extremely small, almost non-existent villages in Poland. I wonder because both lived in homes inside of a vibrant forest, as I saw for myself when I visited my family. To sit in a forest for an hour is not long enough to observe the millions of lives within it. The beauty of nature is not just its beauty, but its ability to cause one to feel so irrelevant yet purposeful. You are just one life among millions, yet it is your one life that could save them. Speaking with regards to insects, animals, plants and other organisms of such nature.
Photo of the Holy spring water which comes from a pipe and turns into a stream deep in the forest behind my grandparents' home, Rudziczka, Poland.
Lately it has been rare for me to spend time outside in winter, but this activity has reopened my eyes and reminded me why I love to sit alongside mother nature. Winter is my favourite month because even though all some people see is snow, to me it is the time when the elements are most alive.
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