There is a difference between being alone, and isolation. In the company of trees, even in the silence of Winter, we experience the presence of the natural elements as kin, as friends, and as inspiration.

Once a friend of mine suggested lying down in the forest, to absorb the quiet of a Winter’s day. It was several years before I took this advice and found myself prone on a bed of moss which I had cleared from snow with a mittened hand. I lay on my back with my eyes open, seeing the untouched white of snow on laden branches, and the crown of blue sky. I became aware of the wool of my cap scratching around my ears, and the weight of my insulated parka pressing me against the firm earth. I lay still.

It was a matter of a few minutes before a rustling to my right made me turn my head. There stood a doe, her wet nose twitching as she tried to identify the creature she had encountered. Slowly I sat up and held out a hand; she looked at me with huge black eyes, turned and scampered off.

The sun was low as I made my way back to my home on the edge of the woods. That evening, it was all I could do to describe the softness of the woods, the chance encounter with an animal far wiser than I, and the subtle stillness of her habitat. Determined to venture out again the following day, my eyes closed in satisfying sleep as soon as I lay into the chilly pillow of a winter bed.