To Breathe with a Forest

A short reflection on the early aromas of spring — in collaboration with Seven Senses here on Substack.

The ever creative Sabrina Y. Smith of Kensho Studio asked me to write a reflection on smell for her Substack called

Seven Senses

— a journey each full moon among and beyond awareness and perception. As a biologist, I don’t smell the world enough; sight and sound tend to be my primary senses in nature, which is why I accepted Sabrina’s assignment. Plus, this short dispatch may be as close as I get to writing poetry (which probably isn’t very close at all). In other news, I’ve posted Lecture 4: Macrophotography to our Practical Nature Photography Seminar Classroom. Onward.

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THE PROMISE OF SPRING is the breathing of dirt. In the naked woods of home, before the eruption of wildflowers and warblers, before the carnal meets the vernal, soil sends forth the aromas of a new season.

Here in Vermont, where we enjoy more than four seasons, it is mud season. Our dirt roads, rutted and soft, can seize your truck to its axels. But in the woods it is a season of mud giving, of leaf litter nourishing, of trees pledging — a forest releasing all that it held in trust through winter.