Remember when the tornado dropped Dorothy and her house in the middle of Oz? There was all this loud mayhem and whirling and detritus flying through the air, and suddenly the big thud of a landing. Then there was quiet. An eerie profound stillness and silence that momentarily made you wonder if you’d gone deaf or been struck dumb. Slowly, you came to a consciousness both literally and figuratively, waking and walking into a brave new world that was as colorful and grand as it was dangerous and deceptive.
We tentatively stepped outside after our recent storm, to examine the damage (nothing major) and find our way in the altered landscape. This was a bend in the road, a place where the next part of our journey was still not fully seen, when mystery and unknown parts still waited just out of sight.
I walked in the space where the Eastern white pine and the Coral bark maple met the mighty oak – a triangular convergence that formed one somewhat secretive corner of our yard where no one ever goes. It is a sacred space made for special summer days when company is expected or those fall afternoons when you need a little shaft of secret sunlight to make everything feel right again even when everything is wrong. It is utouched by human footsteps in the winter; only the squirrels and birds enjoy its beauty then.
