The forest is my muse.

Solitary morning walks with a plaid flannel jacket on. No one knows who the jackets original owner was but it doesn’t matter now because it has become a part of me. The pattern enmeshed with my soul now. A comfort beyond comforts.

I walk, the leaves and pine needles crunch beneath my boots, the crisp air reminds me to breathe as deep as possible and with as much gratitude as my heart can hold. It is expanding daily.

You see, my life has offered me this peace in the past, I have lived this simple life in the woods but my unfulfilled, inexperienced, and youthful ignorance would not accept this kind of quiet morning peace. I used to feel bored in the forest.

I had to move through almost 2 decades of chaos and extreme pain to teach myself that the beauty of life is in the inspiration, the gratitude, the quiet spaces of precious presence. It’s in the knowledge of self and the rejection of all the lies I used to believe about myself.

The forest waited for me like a wife waits for her husband to come home from war. Open arms and restoration.

Unconditional love contained deep beneath the forest floor, resting in the roots of the mother who has always been there for me.

The forest is my muse. In the pain and in the beauty, the forest has been here ready to offer a silent peace for the parts of me that are willing to connect. The more I can open, the more I am given.

The forest is my muse.