Life is so awe-inspiring!
Congrats! You made it through the ramblings of my first ever blog! Your reward of course, is this, my second ever blog post! Lol!
Today I want to talk about my experience in the West Coast. In Washington there is a rainforest within the Olympia National Park called the Hoh rainforest (and it’s pronounced like hoe so you best believe there was a never-ending stream of jokes about hoes). This was the most pristine, secluded and preserved piece of nature I have ever seen. Those of you who have ever met me know that I am a talker… but this place quieted me right down, it seemed an affront to its majesty to be too chatty! I learned a lot while I was out there communing with nature, and my favorite thing was Nurse Trees. For those of you not in the know, the rainforest ground is very densely covered in foliage, making it near impossible for new baby trees to grow. So when an older tree falls over and dies, it becomes a host to these new baby trees, “nursing” them by giving them a place to grow. The baby tree roots work their way through the nurse tree and into the ground, so as the original tree decays and disappears, the new trees now appear to be up on stilted roots. If you ever find a row of trees in the wild, in a seemingly straight line, it is because they grew upon another tree.
Now, that is just a neat fact, not all that awe inspiring right? The epic part is that I saw rows of these trees that were DECADES older than me… so to think of how old that nurse tree was before it died to fill its purpose, and to think that tree might have once been on a nurse tree of its own… *mindblown* We talk about how old things are and how old the earth is and how long all these things have been around, but its another thing to see something natural just doing its thing, untouched in all its ancient glory. I grew up in the country surrounded by woodlands, so nature isn’t exactly new to me. This was a whole new ballgame. I seriously encourage you to go and check out this rainforest, I promise you won’t regret it.
All this majesty and history got me thinking about my own place in the world. I’m not a tree, and I plan on being cremated when I die (my friend Sasha has also planted the seed of a traditional viking death by putting me out to sea and lighting the boat on fire… that also seems cool) so my body won’t really be much good for nurturing in that way. But what I CAN do is use my time here to nurture others. Encourage love, both self love and love for others. This world is way older than any of us and it will continue going even after all of us are dead. Now that may seem like a morbid thought, but I choose to look at in a different light. Instead of, “my life doesn’t matter, everything happens anyway” I want to look at it like, “my life DOES matter, everything happens and I can make a positive impact on the world just by being nurturing and supportive, because life goes on after I’m gone and I want that life to be great!” There is the philosophical question: If a tree falls in the wood and no one is there to hear it… does it make a sound? Turns out it doesn’t matter if it makes a sound, it just matters that it is still contributing to the world around it.
In my last blog entry I mentioned that I hear weird phrases every day that I didn’t anticipate. I’ve decided to include one in each entry. Today’s quote is, “Yup, but that’s like, a celestial existential glitter.” … That was in reference to our souls. So I leave this entry on that note: go use the celestial existential glitter of your soul to nurture others today!
