Walking through the forest as, I have often done before I notice that I am not familiar with my surroundings. I identify the path, the direction out I know the landscape, but I do not know the names of the trees, plants, and insects that inhabit the land. The environment that I have spent so much time in is now a mystery to me. I stand a stranger in a place that I frequent.
This wakefulness brings me to the contemplation: what else do I embrace myself in that is a mystery to me? To many times I have stumble through life avoiding awareness consciously. The forest has been a second home; I go there for serenely to think to meditate to walk my dog to share conversations with my wife to introduce my daughter to the wilderness.
In the end - the understandings of what is in your intellect is equally important as the understandings of the soil underneath your feet.
