A walk in the forest...

Looking at the forest I am reminded that we are reflections of nature.  We are constantly changing,   constantly growing and constantly the topology of our inner wilderness grows and changes as well.  Even when faced with a serious trauma, the forest is not defeated.  If burned to the ground a forest does not lose the option of regeneration and new growth.  Sometimes this growth is painful and stunted but eventually the forest of self rises up from its own ashes and on the surface it may even appear that no fire ever occurred but a careful eye will still uncover evidence of the wound.

Any forest is a diverse collection of organisms, all surviving interdependently upon one another and as such is similar to our own nature.  Remove a piece of what makes you who you are and the topology of the forest of self changes drastically.  Each of these different organisms is a piece of what makes us “us”.  Like the forest, the self is a highly complex and intricate system made from an interdependent combination of our experiences, emotions, feelings and knowledge. 

The search for self is a walk through the forest.  The forest is, like the human mind, much more than what it appears to be at the outer edges.  It is the deeper recesses of the forest that hold the character of it;  the places where a spring fed stream feeds the bushes and meadow grasses, the places where lightning has scorched the Maple, the places where howling winds have blown down dead and dying trees.  The places where the earth is laid bare to the ledge from some long ago event.

There are places where the deer munch slowly on clover and alfalfa while the insects buzz around them in lazy circles and the mighty pine trees grow upon boulders left behind after the great glaciers receded.  The character of the forest is defined by the life that experiences these recesses just as the forest of the self is defined by its own experiences.  The journey into self is not an effort to cover up the scars of ancient fires or move away the dead trees.  The journey into self is about experiencing the intricate weave of nature and identity and learning to appreciate the value of cause and effect as it travels throughout a complex system.

There is a difference between those who have information and those who understand that this complex forest of self reveals motivation.  Those who have information fail to understand the living nature of the forest.  To them, it is all about simple cause to simple effect.  1+1=2.  Those who see the forest of self as that which reveals motivation understand that people are more complicated than their actions.

Those who understand the latter often fill the role of guides because they have, at least in part, begun exploring the wilderness within themselves and discovering how interconnected and complex their experience is to their actions.  Such people often become guides to others.  Guides in this sense are more often those people who have seen the forest of the self in its complexity and learned methods of understanding those relationships.  They know people and understand that there are no simple equations that define the self.  They relate their own experiences and hope that in all of that information there may be something that someone else can use to interpret the complex relationships of their own forest of self. 

The journey of self-discovery is a walk in the forest that leads us deeper in to find true meaning.  That true meaning; that which we truly are and wish to be, is the sum of our experience, knowledge, wisdom and emotion.  It does not sit at the center of our forest; it is the sum of all its parts; That sum is our true identity.