Serendipity

From the dawn of time humankind has centered on a common purpose: to seek sanctuary. The Vikings, for example, sought peace in their afterlife in the divine hall of Valhalla. Skipping ahead to the modern age, reveals the emergence of a free society in which people’s aims shift from survival to serenity. Thus, humanity’s hunt became one for a homely place, to surrender their minds to absolute felicity. Most forsake their pursuit, and may never find sanctuary until death puts them to rest. I, however, have found mine. My happy place was revealed in the forest, where I learned to find sunshine on even my darkest days. Before this place could become my sanctuary, I had to overcome three difficult seasons: shame, fear, and doubt. 

When I first found her, I was a young, doe-eyed girl, my steps gawky over uneven ground. This naive creature who meandered into the unknown was oblivious to the threats ahead. I could not fear death for I had already fallen prey to the vexations of a juvenile mind. I felt a pounding in my chest for all the reasons I did not belong. Shame muddied my judgement and pushed me onward through twisting roots and clawing branches. The wind whispered at my gracelessness, and the trees screeched at my languidness, but the greatest mockery of all was my dream to be a great writer. When the path presented me with a fork-shaped foe, indecision became too much to bear, so I crumbled in tears onto a weed-entangled bench. 

Laying my head back, I saw that majestic forest canopy dangling upwards into the clouds. I saw her tendril arms embrace the earth, and suddenly my problems were a blade of grass beneath it all. The forest was revealed to me then, as she first budded into herself. A gust of spring air rushed through me with sweet ecstasy and stirred a fresh, rich scent from the waking soil. Chicks chirped in their nests, and rosy wildflowers pushed through dried strands of underbrush. I realized the forest was no more certain of the changing seasons than I; yet, even under her gleaned imperfections, she did not waver. No matter if the beauty of her virtue went unnoticed, the forest would continue growing into herself: and so could I. 

The second time I returned to the forest, my expectations grew into something wild and untamed. My aspirations to be a novelist persisted, but my dreams sprouted new limbs that unfurled into the world of paramedicine. I had the compassion necessary for healthcare, but my fears were vaster and more intimidating. The internet shaped my terror in the form of journal articles that explained the impact of high-stress work on health decline and dissatisfaction (Johnson et al. 2005). These surveys pointed to emergency medicine as the catalyst for serious psychological conditions, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression (Hruska and Marley 2020). I was a statistic before my journey began; my map already lined with prickly, poisonous, and predacious perils. I hiked onward as the yellow rays baked my skin. It was all the sweat could do to escape my trepidation but roll in beads off my back. Struggling through dense growth, I nearly missed that bench, hiding in the emerald foliage. 

Once in the shade, I wept at my reprieve from the torrid summer air. Each surging breeze stole traces of my anxiety away until my body surrendered in tune with the rustling leaves. In this second meeting, the forest flaunted ravishing flora and humming, bustling, and flitting fauna. Her trim, towering trunks displayed an unparalleled strength to remain rooted by sheer willpower alone. My ripe and vivacious forest radiated pride for cultivating such a mighty woodland. She was a bold lioness who roared in the face of adversity and achieved greatness no matter the odds: and so would I.          

When I last saw the forest, regret had entrenched itself deeper in me than the roots of her proudest pines. I had yet to sew any idea of significance in my years of writing, so my floundering prospects exemplified my low esteem. Even my highest achievements in flight paramedicine could not rid me of those notorious feelings of dissatisfaction. Within me, a doubt had festered until I became the embodiment of all my criticisms. Despite my hopes, it seemed, I had not been cut from the fine cloth of prominence after all. Whereas youth inspired me to sow seeds for a better world, adulthood doused my dreams in skepticism and harvested my spirit to its last grain. 

Desperate to fill the void with her maternal guidance, I revisited my beloved woodland. But she had been waging a war with Time, and the loss had cost her a hundred years. Fall had stripped the trees bare, leaving rutted spines exposed to the biting air. I smelled her perfume on the autumn breeze: a scent of decaying flowers and rotten leaves. She was dying, but even in her most fragile state, I sensed the prowess of that ancient forest. Physical beauty is fleeting, but her wisdom is a celestial thing that transcends all the loveliest forests in the world. No matter the strife, nature offers one certain solace: impermanence. Mortality allowed her to cherish the burden, beauty, and naïveté of her youth and discard the parts she deemed unnecessary. With clarity, the forest shed the past as an elegant renewal for her coming seasons—sure to be evermore magnificent: and so shall I. 

Years have elapsed since I last sought my forest sanctuary, since she revealed the artificial nature of my former path. Trying to fit into society’s mold of “excellence,” I had conformed like a lion impersonating a housecat. My critics were right, after all, I was not meant for paramedicine because I was meant for prominence of another kind. The forest inspired me to carve a truer path, so I went to university to find my compass. Empathy guided me into psychology, but a splash of courage drove me to an English minor.

Academia has a way of pulling scientific questions out of mystical things, mine being: how did the forest affect me in those profound ways? My research uncovered how walking in the natural environment can significantly improve psychological conditions, as it is an effective tool for balancing difficult emotions (Brooks et al. 2017). Many systemic reviews, including the one by Roberts et al. (2019), nod to the long-standing “attention restoration theory” and “stress reduction theory” to support the analysis that forest exposure has a positive influence on mental well-being. Attention Restoration Theory suggests that limited stimulus in nature reduces mental exhaustion and inattention, while Stress Reduction Theory explains how nature offers a mental recovery period away from arduous environments (Ulrich, et al. 1991; Kaplan 1995). Consequently, each systemic review added a layer of cold hard fact to my majestic forest, so I gave up my search before her magic turned entirely to ice. 

Some might say the forest is neither a consoling maiden, encouraging mother, nor clairvoyant crone, but instead the imaginations of an aggrieved mind. Nevertheless, without the forest, I would not have grown from that compassionate kitten into the courageous and conscientious woman I am. My sanctuary in the forest and the serenity I felt there, in moments when she paused the world under heavy falling snow, will never escape me. This so-called fabrication allowed me to freeze time and find serendipity through even my bitterest seasons; only a fool would fail to see the magic in that.

Works Cited

Brooks, Aeliesha M., et al. “Nature-Related Mood Effects: Season and Type of Nature Contact.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 54, Dec. 2017, pp. 91-102. ScienceDirect, http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2017.10.004. 

Hruska, Bryce, and Marley S. Barduhn. “Dynamic psychosocial risk and protective factors associated with mental health in Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel.” Journal of Affective Disorders, vol. 282, Dec. 2020, pp. 9-17. ScienceDirect, http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.12.130. 

Johnson, Sheena, et al. “The Experience of Work-Related Stress across Occupations.” Journal of Managerial Psychology, vol. 20, no. 2, Mar. 2005, pp. 178-87. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940510579803.

Kaplan, Stephen. “The Restorative Benefits of Nature: Toward an Integrative Framework.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 15, no. 3, Sep. 1995, pp. 169-82. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/0272-4944(95)90001-2. 

Roberts, Hannah, et al. “The Effect of Short-Term Exposure to the Natural Environment on Depressive Mood: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Environmental Research, vol. 177, Oct. 2019, pp. 1-14. ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2019.108606.

Ulrich, Roger S., et al. “Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 11, no. 3, Sep. 1991, pp. 201-30, ScienceDirect, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0272-4944(05)80184-7. 

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Written by Alexis Halloran, the author of The Nyctophilia Diaries.

This post was edited by the very talented Greg Litschke.

Check out the blog Masculiminal, wherein Litschke bares a new light on manhood in a world charged against the merits of masculinity: https://masculiminal.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=substack_profile.