At the far end of Riverside Park is a walking trail. It loops down by the bayou, then around through the forest. I guess it’s about a mile long. This is a special place. It’s rare nowadays to find somewhere you can walk in a forest. This is important to me because I love to soak in the light filtering through the trees. Forest light is a soul tonic!
The power of light to bring health and healing to the human soul and body is something the mystics have explored for thousands of years. I don’t underestimate it. The typical lifestyle of a person today makes it more difficult to experience natural light as often as we should. We’re all inside, in offices, cubicles, stores, and our own homes, rarely in the light God made for us. There’s a whole teaching by lot of the doctors today on how bad the sun is. I don’t believe it. Don’t fry yourself, of course, but to think the sunlight is not good for you is to miss one of the great gifts of life. The sun gives energy, lifts depression, hands us a sense of space and well-being. Unfortunately, natural light is not part of most of our routines. We have to actually go out and seek it.
Green light, the light of the forest, has a particular power to enhance a sense of well-being and dispel depression, according to the sages. The Japanese have a word for this light, Komorebi, they call it, meaning “the scattered light that filters through when sunlight shines through trees.” I love that. I am working on filling my living room full of green light–green furniture, some dividers with trees painted on them, a green tile table and lamp. It turns the space into an oasis that people find restful and encouraging. I believe light can heal. So I try to get more light into my home and into my life, particularly green, but there is nothing like the real, natural light of nature to bring us close to our own soul and provide relief from the busyness of living. Riverside Park is a playground for the light lover because it is so very green, especially now after some rain, and because of the magnificent old trees. The back walking trail is a mecca for that special kind of light made by old trees, tangled with vines and the deep, earth colors only found in the forest. Reflections of the trees and their light in the stillness of the bayou are transporting. As a lifelong park lover, I’ve been to a lot of them, and Riverside is just a gem. It gives those of us who don’t live in a forested place a chance to experience a forest, to listen to it and breathe it in, to feel the deep life that is there, and maybe find something like that on our own inside as well.
I think of this walking trail as a ‘light tonic’. It’s also free, and right here in Brownwood. Light is healing, beautiful and powerful. I take my teenager back there too. He doesn’t want to geek out like his mom over how wonderful this place is, but he asks if we’re going. Kids need the light as much as we do. Take them along the trails, let them roam and feel the quiet of a forest. Try it out while we still have these last few days of green out there!
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Diane Adams is a local journalist whose columns appear Thursdays on BrownwoodNews.com
