I stood with my eyes closed and felt myself sink into the landscape. It was as if  I was being absorbed and had become part of it, along with the trees and the grass. The song of the birds filled my ears, drawing me in further and filling my head with their notes. My feet became part of the ground, the grass surrounded each foot as if it had grown up around them. I felt the age in the trees that stood beside me, the scars of the seasons etched into their bark and felt their roots as they stretched out and sought new soil underground.

A myriad of noises filled my head, from the rustle and squeak of the mice and the voles, to the rasp and scrape of the insects as they chewed their way through dead wood and rotting leaves. The dead and dying supporting the living as, in my mind, I could see the vast expance of the fungal web as it criss crossed through the soil, connecting all which was contained within it.  As a breeze passed through the leaves high up in the canopy, the sound lead my eyes up toward the sky. I was mesmerised by the subtle changes in the light and the alternating shades of green as the leaves stirred gently in the movement of the air.

Never before had I been more engaged with the landscape around me. I had walked through these woods so many times, but I had never encountered it quite like this before. I had stopped and listened to the bird song before but never before had I truly experienced it as I did now. I had seen the trees, but not really felt their presence as I did at this moment.

As I breathed in, the scent of the wood filled my senses. As the breath seeped through me I experience the urgency of a million fleeting movements pass me by. This somehow mixed with an overwhelming sense of calm and stillness as if from the trees and the rocks, as they stood witness to the passing of aeons of time.