Walking early this morning, I encountered almost no bicycle riders other than one intense woman who pedaled furiously down the path, but other than that the woods were relatively silent. I love the smell of the woods, the dampness, the warm earthy scent of decay and new life. I took a photograph of some hepatica on the path. It had a deep perfume, heady and fragrant. The kind that makes you want to dive into it and get lost. I did a lot of imagining on this walk. Looking through the dense brush, I thought I saw the outline of my cabin there. Perhaps I would have been starting breakfast and coffee would be boiling. Then I thought of the difficulties people in the past had when cutting their way through the wilderness. Those trees we admire today were just another impediment to progress for them. They were everywhere and if you wanted to settle down and make a home and a farm, they would have to be dealt with and soon. Each day in those long ago woods would bring unexpected challenges from Indians, from the weather, from animals, from accident, and from disease. No wonder their faith was strong and ever present. There was no idle reflecting on the possibility of God or of your own place in His universe. God and the transience of this earthly life was a given as is attested to by the sentiment on gravestones everywhere from that time. I also thought of all these pretty flowers I encounter on my walk. All these wildflowers had a medicinal purpose in the past. The Hepatica was known as a healer of the liver, hence its name in the vernacular, liverwort. Last night, I found one of my old herbalist books that I used to consult. Reading through it, I found this passage for a long life written in a far away century by someone who "was continually in health". His name was Cornaro and some 300 years ago he wrote, "Treatise on temperance and sobriety" where he says at 83 of age, " I am not weary of life which I pass with great delight. I confer often with worthy men, excelling in wit, learning, behavior and other virtues. When I cannot have their company, I give myself to the reading of some learned book, and afterwards in writing; making it my aim in all things , how I may help others to the furthest of my power." A powerful vision of life's purpose, I think.

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18Erin Fish, Lucy Booker Roper and 16 others

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