Noland Trail - Emily Aquilina

The world around us speaks to us in many ways; the question is whether or not we're listening. As our group made its way down the trail, we stopped at several points to discuss particular parts of the scenery and the things that these things were trying to convey to us.This is what I found...
An old tree slowly rots from the inside out and, eventually, finds it can no longer support itself. Heavy winds forces it to the ground during a storm where it lays hallow and decaying. Despite the end of its growth and the beginning of its death, it continues to play a role in the beauty of the woods. Squirrels play tag around the log and small white flowers decorate its now fading bark. These creatures find a way to take advantage of the death of a tree in order to survive and thrive and it is in this way that the tree continues to play a vital role in the world that it inhabits. This phenomenon represents the hope that we often try to associate with death of all kinds.
When someone we care about dies we tell our children that they're not really gone, that they've simply moved on to a better place. These people, we say, will never truly die because they live in the hearts of those that love them.
In a small way, the life and death of all things in nature prove significant in some way to another living thing, even if it is just through the simple death of a tree and the subsequent birth of a rabbit in the hole it left behind.