ON PATHFINDING

As a child, I knew the fastest, most joyful path through the forest. I would run along almost invisible trails and jump from mossy log to rock knowing exactly where to place my feet. Knowing. 

I practiced. I knew I might fall. I found it worth it, worth the risk. Part of it, even. 

With this practice of footprint, mind and forest, I drew connections. The sensation of new paths forming as synaptic map imprints in my brain. 

Intelligent child covered in nerve endings.

This embodied memory of soles of feet merged with the body of mossy log. A human child loving with the forest.

I was nature.

We are nature.