They stand guard, tall presence, evanescent permanence. Centuries, and decades, carried them through storms and heat, snow, and hail. A haphazardly thrown together wood pigeon nest visible now that the canape of leaves is thinning. I can feel their hum, soundtrack of a silent silver-lighted evening. Maple, birch, beech, elm, ash, rowan. Scots pine with her gnarly branches towers over hawthorns’ crooked and knotted bodies, arms reaching to shape elder futhark runes. Othala holds all. Twisted limps, adorned by thorns and blood red pearls. Unlike the elder striving up and out as straight as can be, the last of their night-sky velvet booty beckons the tentative forager. Elfen ears such bright spots of orange early in the year, are floppy dachshund shaped and coloured now—just not as fluffy.

I breathe-in autumn and the ever present pulse, breathing out tension and arrhythmia. Step by step by step. Breath, by breath, by breath. Pause. Exhale more. And more, until the last of this breath is gone. I gulp, swallow, drink the humid terpene laden air, the smell of petrichor heavy on my tongue, my lungs expand deeper, wider. Don’t pant against the tightness, just exhale—even further—until nought is left. And then trust, trust your body as the reflex demands expansion, of lungs, chest, diaphragm. Trust the breath of life, trust the guardians—producing oxygen on exhale—trust in your feed moving forward. Step, by step, by step. Breath, by breath, by breath.

*Elfen ears are mushrooms not sure what their actual name is this is the name I know them by
** There is indeed a hawthorn whose branches are shaped like the rune Othala along the path