There is something well beyond our consciousness that stirs within us, like a communal primordial memory handed down timelessly through genetic memory that briefly awakens and rises to the surface when we walk through a forest. Both a strangeness and a familiarity greet our eyes as we gaze upon the trees in a forest and all growing and living things within. There is a spirit of community and companionability, a brief recognition that glimmers and glows, then becomes once again deeply submerged in unconscious recollection.

One can only suppose this to be another instance of what most people believe to be spirituality, although others could argue it is a basic acknowledgement that we are of the Earth and an integral albeit infinitesimally minute part of Nature's great plan and experiment that we call existence. This is a deeply philosophical conundrum for many, since most people never go deeper than skimming the surface of our existence. There are, after all, too many other imponderables that we cannot even begin to grasp the meaning and connections of.

But our basic instincts when confronting the interior of a forest are usually peace and relaxation. To be fair, the natural world that our ancestors struggled to survive in must have seemed to them to be anything but peaceful and relaxing; their immediate concerns were shelter, protection from the elements and roaming carnivores, and the acquisition of food, water, and that wondrous element we know as fire; controlled fires that offered warmth, a shield of threat to keep flesh-foraging beasts at bay, and a means to process the meat of hunted prey.

For present-day humans fortunate enough to live in countries that are islands of peace and security in an otherwise violently troubled world, who have the leisure and the compulsion to approach raw nature from time to time, the natural world is a marvel to wonder at, explore and treasure. For us, briefly travelling through the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire, it is the sight of trees thriving in forests with the backdrop of magnificent mountains sending streams of runoff down their slopes and into the forests that is so compelling.

The forests, moist and cool, sheltering all manner of flora and fauna seen and unseen, and delighting us with the sight of tiny oases of life; a pond with aquatic plants and insects and creatures whose habitat it is; butterflies weaving their languid way through the trees, birds singing loftily from the canopy, and vegetation delightful to observe in their seasonal finery.