isobelmtl

Here a forest comes down to the shore. The forest is alive and also dying all the time. Life is being nourished by dead organisms all around me.

nourish new saplings. Moss is everywhere

When I go on my usual walk beside the shallow but swift-flowing Oyster River, I am acutely aware of how it surrenders, is overcome by what seems like a minor arm of salt water, a still sound with no great waves or huge tides. It remains, however, part of the Pacific Ocean. That seems hardly believable to me. On the west side of the Island, in the town of Tofino, for example, people look out to the vastness of the biggest ocean on earth. On “ our” side we are protected by the sight of ranges of mountains on the mainland, just over the water.

But back to the life and death theme…one feeds the other, right?

It makes me realize the vastness of things and, I know it sounds corny, the interconnected feeling of nature all around me. Somehow, I don’t get that feeling in Montreal.