๐๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ ๐จ ๐๐จ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ญ๐จ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฐ๐จ๐จ๐๐ฌโฆ
I was in the Forest on the 10th of February, a few days ago, as normal, on a Tuesday. There is always something to be seen, to be observed, to be witnessed there, and that without walking the paths, the drรจves, you remain unknowing.
I had decided to look closely at a favourite path, now known as Chemin de Saut de Loup. It has not always borne this name, but that is something for another day.
I walked, pausing, internalising, rejoicing in being alone yet at one.
At the end I turned right, into the Drรจve des Puits, walking out of the Haras. This too is an old path. Here bluebells come early in the damp valley bottom. I know this place well. It is my patch.
Very soon I noticed a colour change, something uncertain. The forest can be deceptive, casting odd shadows in familiar places. A beech had fallen across the path a couple of years ago and, as is normal practice, the section blocking the drรจve had been removed, leaving a passage between the two parts of the windfall. I know this place.
And yet there was a patch of black. A dark pooling of shadow. It was unfamiliar. It lay right at the junction of path and fallen tree. Right there.
I approached slowly, curiously. At first there was only the suggestion of a gathering, shapes like black raincoats, like cormorants at rest. As I came closer, the shapes resolved themselves into a group of nuns.
They stood to the side of the path, perhaps a dozen of them, being led in prayer, forest facing. An elder read from a prayer book. As I passed, two of the sisters offered a half-smile, a quiet acknowledgement of my presence. I nodded slightly in return. Public prayer is public, yet private.
I felt honoured to have been there at that moment, a witness. Trees, horses, religion, nobility. Shapers of our Forest.
When I got home I looked to see if the date was significant. It was. Feast of St. Scholastica.