Illustration by Guinevere von Sneeden
• If you go longer than a week without visiting the woods, you start to fade and pine, whether it’s the hottest day of summer or icicles are dripping from the trees.
• When you spy a mushroom, you know fairies are nearby. When you see a fern, you imagine how beautiful the fronds would be woven into your hair.
• You wonder why everyone hikes in the woods as if they had some other place they had to be. Wander. Sit. Observe. Be.
• If someone asked you to list some of your tree friends, you could answer in an instant with specific names and descriptions.
• You would never dare travel in the forest without gifts in your pockets for the fairies, for the trees, for the wildflowers and squirrels.
• You wear practical shoes and flowing dresses in the forest. Yes, the skirts get tangled and torn, but don’t they look even more beautiful laced with thorns and leaves?
• Seeing an animal in the woods, whether it be a bird or squirrel, deer or fox, leaves you with a sense of wonder and beautythat lasts for days or longer.
• Your favorite word is Waldeinsamkeit, German for “a feeling of being alone in the woods, completely surrounded by nature.”
• You can’t pass a patch of moss without touching it or considering a nap.
• You enter the forest bareheaded and leave with a crown of flowers and fallen leaves.
• You have a story for every dried flower, pressed leaf, and pebble you display in your cabinets at home.
• …But is it really your home?
The forest beckons you.
