Life’s Lesson: A Journal From Johnson’s Woods

Nature does not shrink from its deceased.  She does not fear the inevitable. That which dies is not frantically covered or removed.  It is recognized, and it remains.  Of course, this has a great deal to do with nature’s inability to grasp a shovel and dig a grave, her lack of will to pick up and settle elsewhere.  She cannot run away, so she must cope. And she does so with grace.  The dead become a part of the living.  Necessary for continuity and for balance.  Snags become hovels for woodpeckers and opossums.  Trees completely fallen provide shelter for ground-dwellers and food for beetles.  There is a great juxtaposition, then, of the thriving and decaying.  All cycles and stages of life are commemorated in the world untouched by man.  And I think we have something to learn.