Spirit of the Jungle
What the Sumatran Rainforest told me . . .
The air is velvet. Humid, green, cricket shuddering. The forest breathes around me. Mosses and lichens, lianas, towering figs, fungied chalices.
I’m being watched.
It is impossible to not be still and reverent in this place. The act of walking, a prayer. Of course, I have always known this, walking Songlines as I have, all my life, each footfall, a lovemaking of listening to earth. But here? Here in the forest of Northern Sumatra, the air is different. It distills and attenuates everything. It drips with presence.
It is the cathedral of Sacred.
I am here to make images. That’s my task, at the eco resort where I’m volunteering for a month. On the rim of the largest crater lake in the world; Lake Toba. A simple job; walk in the forest, make pictures.
I’d be doing that anyway; it’s how I breathe.
But I wasn’t quite expecting this. This holiness. This community of Beings all in intimate interweaving with one another. Wholeness, itself. Thrumming around me, as alive as earth. As alive as Spirit.
It is real.
And then I hear them: gibbons! They fly over me and past me. Some lingering, high up, their gravity as they observe me, holding and witness to, something much greater than any of us, as One. I forget my camera.
I am awe.
I am joy.
I am electrified.
I am wordless.
Humbled.
Later, there will be the compelling imperative, as I ride a ferry across the Lake, and hear: the Spirits of Forest are speaking. Direct, imperative. Imploring.
Tell them! Show them who we are!
So, I am.
Are you listening?
I made a small Film, so that you might walk a little with me.
In the Jungle of Sumatra.
Come!!
I’m Narelle. I slow travel, make images and write words.
I commune with the land and bear witness to that.
I am a walker of Songlines.
You can find out more about that here.
