In the forest of rain, during the last days of the eleventh month of the year twenty-twenty, the first seeds of hope gently fell to earth, lightly brushing my shoulders on the way. So weightless was the touch, the genesis remained hidden for a time.
As many can attest, the year twenty-twenty was one in which the concept of hope was severely challenged. For myself, for the first time in my life, I experienced the loss of this faithful companion. Hope had stood behind me when tempest flared, held my hand when hardship fell, propped me up when the weight of life became too hard to bear. When the foundation of my world was annihilated during twenty-twenty, hope was shattered alongside. This loss, within the year of loss, was barely possible to withstand. For who can live without hope?
Within the ancient forest where time began, the majestic trees stand silent and sure. Nothofagus, the Antarctic beech, that evolutionary pillar of Southern Hemisphere forests, holds the secrets of the land, of time itself. Surrounded by these nascent trees, courted by the stunning bright yellow and black regent bowerbird, serenaded by the melodious whip bird, my darkened earth tilted, ever so slightly, towards the dawn. Softly, with unseen hands, the woodland sprites sought to return my soul to me.
Over a lifespan of 300 million years, the mountain landscape has changed, forming and re-forming, enduring events in geological time that boggle our mortal minds. These mountains, a perfect analogy of cataclysmic transformation, strangely did not dwarf my personal telluric reshaping, instead gifting the endurance of time.
