Apparition, Forest

We pass through so many scenes in a day. We are confronted by wonders and images that are sometimes difficult to believe. Often, we discount them. Sometimes, we see them,  but they do not register in our consciousness, only to be recycled as we sleep and as we dream. Yet, from time to time, we are confronted by things that we just cannot dismiss or ignore or just explain away. I had one of these happenings just the other day.

Morning Devotional Run

I try to run every morning. It is good for my health, and as you have heard before, it is essential to my devotional practice. As I run through the forest, I do my morning devotionals, all watched over by the Spirits of Nature. There are many trails in the forest, just like there are many pathways in life, and the paths that we take DO make a difference in our lives and in our outlooks.

The path is the choice

When I run through some of the inner trails, I am much further from the roads, and I feel more immersed in the forest. It surrounds me, it protects me, it draws me in. While the path is not as level as other paths in the forest, it is the one to which I am drawn towards most often these days. I see the sun stream through the trees. I see evidence of Cernunnos on the trails as I run. There is life all around.

The path into the forest

There are several parking areas in this park. In one of them, a wooden walkway was constructed to go from a parking lot, through the trees, onto a forest trail. The walkway was entirely wooden and blended nicely with the surroundings, as it transitioned from concrete to wooded area, to trail. It led to a particular trail that I take on occasion, but not very often. Every day as I drove through the park, I would pass that area and look to the walkway, just in passing.

Apparition

One day, as I was deciding which trail to take (today it would be a flatter, outer trail, a little bit noisier, but more even ground), I glanced at the walkway, and I could not believe my eyes. There, on the trail, was this apparition which caused to me to stop my vehicle and look again. It was this beautiful woman; she was walking eastward on the trail. Given the time of day, she was walking into the morning sun. The sun not only illuminated her but radiated from her. She had long dark hair and was wearing dark, brown clothes, the colour of the forest. She was walking slowly, like she was moving forward in slow-motion. I looked around at everything else in the scene and it was moving as the real world usually does, and a “normal” pace. Everything else was in “my” time, but she continued to walk into the forest, slowly, very slowly, and the sun still radiated from her and around her.

A goddess appears!

I had the sudden understanding that this must be a goddess. I could only see her from the back, walking into the forest. I could not see her face. She was not dressed as someone who runs in the forest or walks the trails or any of the about. There was something separate and distinct from not only herself, but the space that she moved through. This was a goddess!

To see for myself

I did what anyone in my position would do (or so I believe to be the case), I pulled to the next place that I could park and went into the forest to see if I could get a glimpse of her. Within no time, I was on that trail. There was no way that she could have left the way I came in, nor was in possible for her to have gone back the way that she came. I stood there, speechless and dumbfounded because I wanted to see the goddess, up close and personal.  

The search, the journey

At that point, I decided to run, not walk, into the forest to see if I could catch a glimpse of her, even if from a distance. The other-worldly character of her radiance and her movement were not only hypnotic but called to me in the most profound way. I ran at my usual pace, through the trails, running, praying, hoping that I would see her once again. As I neared the end of the great loop that I was running, I saw someone coming the other way on the trail and as I rounded the corner, I saw the person approaching and it wasn’t the same person at all. I smiled, said hello, and continued my way through the forest.

Reflection

When I finished running, I drove back to the point where I had initially seen her and there was no sign of her. No vehicles, no radiance, no slow movement of time. There was just the trail, silence, and the memory of an apparition, a gift of the forest, given to me that morning in time. I hope I never forget that vision, and I will cherish it for a very long time.