Hi everyone,
Through the year I’ve really enjoyed visiting Centennial Woods, particularly a patch of coniferous forest right by a stream bank. The carpet of golden pine needles and smattering of cones along with the trickle of the stream has always been a great place to unwind and decompress while listening to bird calls and thinking. Even in the winter, without the trickle of the stream and with snow covering any pine needles, the beauty of fresh white snow on dark green American Pine and Eastern Hemlock is unparalleled. What makes this place even more beautiful is the beauty of nature and culture represented together. Today Centennial Woods is a popular place for hiking and picnics but used to be used as farm land. Families used to depend on this land for food, sustenance and production, calling it home. The thought of that is incredible to me, imagining what the land might have looked like in the mid 19th century. Culture plays a role in why I chose this spot too. Idyllic evergreen trees are featured in classic New England art and the idea of a mythical, dense forest with vast trees with roots that extend outward, and trees that filter the sunlight so achieve a radiant glow at a certain hour, is what attracted me to the site. The culture I have consumed in art and literature is what makes this place so meaningful to me. While I am not physically part of the landscape because I leave only footprints behind, I feel I have a presence there. This presence may be invisible to others, but when I visit I see the fallen log that I sit on every time as I listen to birds and try and identify the vegetation on the forest floor. I have visited this site in many different states of being throughout the year, under different circumstances and when I visit each time is recalled to mind. I know I will be returning to this spot, even if I won’t be posting about it here. It’s grown very meaningful to me over the year.