The Clearest Way into the Universe

The clearest way into the universe, Thoreau once wrote, was through a forest wilderness. 

Sadly, for we Scots, most of our forests have long been felled, and what remains of them is surely not a forest but a remnant, and vestigial limbs of a once tree-covered land. Yet, I know what Thoreau means. One of my greatest and most profound epiphanies (see The Map is not the Territory post) occurred whilst wandering through a forest in the Suwalki region of north-eastern Poland. In the forest city of Warsaw, where I lived and wandered freely for three whole years, I had many magical moments in the primeval las and pusczca of Bielanski, Kampinoski, Mazoviecki, Slupecka, and even in the rather regimented Las Kabacki. Indeed, even in the elegantly ornamented Royal Lazieki Park, where the old growth trees encouraged and enabled a greater spread of bird and general wildlife (from deer to boar and foxes), I could recognize, without too  much effort, the universe in front of me. 

It was the entanglement that did it.

This entanglement, though not so readily available in forest format in Scotland, is available in other ways. I, personally, get it from the tops of hills, from being enclosed not by a canopy of trees and their various inhabitants, but from being enveloped (or maybe, embraced) by the biosphere and its elements, the often cloud-laden sky, and those sledgehammer panoramas. I get it through gazing upon the vast landscapes that peel away before me and those bare-faced vistas. To be sure, I still yearn for forests - real forests that are so large that getting lost can often mean getting dead, and not a few trees clumped together as some sort of pitiful monument to the fallen and felled - but so long as I am in Scotland, I will have to make do with the hills, which to my cosmic mind are Poland's wonderfully enchanted forests.

The Polish capital Warsaw from Siekerki Bridge...

The cultural capital of Scotland (where culture is defined in terms of nature and not tourism), Glasgow, from the Kilpatrick Braes (an angle that is just not possible in Warsaw unless you climb the few artificial tells (or the rubbish dump!) that are dotted around the city.