Yesterday I hiked through an old-growth redwood forest. The trail was difficult, mostly because of exposed tree roots and the 80% humidity, but the experience was . . . immense. When there were no other people around with their non-stop chatter, the silence was profound. In spots, a screeching bird or gurgling brook rang clear, and the sound of my footsteps always accompanied me but otherwise . . . silence. And when I stopped to listen, nothing seemed to exist except that soundless forest, not even me.
I felt as if I were walking back into time, and of course, I was — the forest is thousands of years old. At one point I was reminded of Ray Bradbury’s story “The Butterfly Effect,” and I wondered if the world would be different when I emerged from the forest, but then, I’d be different too, so how would I know?
The oddest thing about my little adventure is I barely remember it. My aching body tells me I was there, but my memory of the experience is distant, as if it happened a long time ago. Maybe those four hours spent hiking in that primeval forest were so inconceivable that my brain couldn’t register it. Maybe I was so caught up in the immediacy of every awe-filled moment that I didn’t capture the feeling of the whole thing. Maybe I was subsumed into the forest — became, for all those hours, not me but a part of a greater whole.
Or maybe I really did walk back in time, and my adventure happened many years ago. In such an incredible and incredibly ancient place, anything is possible.