The forest is a place of shadows and mystery of unseen eyes that watch in silence any interlopers who enters its domain. I'm always a bit unsure of myself when I enter the forest. Even a wonderland can seem a bit aloof.

My favorite place is on the summit of a hill overlooking a verdant valley, wide open to the sky cupping sunlight in all of its hallows. I feel at home under an open sky in a place where I can stretch my arms out wide and stand on tip toe as I reach to touch the sky.

My psyche expands as it opens itself up to the changing light and pushes the limits of the far horizon.

My eyes trace the spiral of a raptors flight. I am captivated by the effortless flight of the raptors as they hover far above me, their great wings supported by the warm currents of air lifting aloft. There is a dream like quality evident in a summer afternoon spent here on this hillside listening to the slow respirations of the earth and wondering just what the summer wind would look like if he were ever to drop his cloak of invisibility.

The drone of the bees induces a sense of somnambulist in anyone who listens, and time itself goes AWOL. In these blessed hours I touch the being of eternity.

How remote and unreal seems the world of commerce and politics, lost as it were in some confusing maze. Far more real to me is the hum of the bees and the flight of the raptor and the sweet fragrance of summer. Even the fragile butterflies have more substance to them than the frantic world I left behind me (was it only this morning?), I stand and stretch until I become like the mythical world tree that joins heaven to earth. I am younger now than when I left home this morning and lighter too as though I were spun out of light and air.

Somewhere beyond this hillside the world I left behind awaits my return. I hear it calling from a long way off and presently I shall answer its summons but for now, for just a bit longer, I will be a participant in the sacred rituals of summer time and forget all about the world others call reality.