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Writer's picturePaul Grove

Hike in 99

It is absolutely magical. A mystical island in a world grown content with

television, traffic, and the stock market. Impossible that such a place as

this could exist anymore. Fairies live here, and elves, too. They must.

Where else would they go, or COULD they go? A feeling of utter serenity

washes my senses as I lean on the massive tree trunk and try to capture this

feeling and hold it, remember it. It's too massive for the senses, yet so

subtle it could have easily been missed and lost. A perfect moment worth a

lifetime of searching and a lifetime of remembering.



The sunshine is piercing through the haze, the rays plainly visible like a

giant benevolent hand holding the Earth is its grip. The very distant rumble

of the ocean belies the gentle breeze stirring the thistle seeds in lazy

circles above my head. The huge, cottony tufts dance in tremendous

circles, weaving fantastically about, sometimes hovering, other times

dashing towards some unseen goal. Moths flicker about as well, busy with their moth

duties. One lands on my chest, displaying more colors of the shade brown

than I had in any box of crayons I ever had growing up. Hummingbirds

display their aerial acrobatics in a blur of beak and wings, while a steady

"wup wup" of a woodpecker drones on off to the right. The panorama of the

mountains surrounding this flat floodplain turned farmland channel the sound

of the distant Pacific, filtering it down to a rumble almost below hearing

range, but still felt in a deeper, more primitive sense. The ocean breeze

has been tamed from a salty onshore roar to a soft curl of warm air, a

playground for butterflies and blue jays, thoughtfully watched over by the

faithful red tailed hawk.



There IS magic here. You can feel it in the soft, salt-tinged air, in the

gentle push of the sun, in the sounds of the birds in the trees and in the

creatures crawling in the grass at my feet, in the three-dimensional dance

of the thistles as far as my eyes can see. A patient, nurturing power; old,

old magic, the magic of life, the magic of cycles and wind and rain and

tides. A magic so intimate and personal, yet infused with a power beyond

imagination. This is life, this is the reason behind it all.



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