Presence of Greatness
Nine hundred feet above sea level isn’t very high. The earth’s highest point is over thirty two times higher than where I currently sit atop England Mountain. But at the moment, 900 is a pretty nice high. It’s been a beautifully crisp morning spent outdoors on what seems to be the transition where winter’s decay gives way to spring anew. There’s a chill in the air. The ground is covered in dry, brown leaves. Above, branches abound with translucent green sprouts of warmth’s resurrection. I sit in the presence greatness. Amid a sea of survivors. Trees that have outreached the competition, whose roots firmly grip the pristine mountaintop soil, snaking finger-like around boulders and competing roots squeezing a tight hold on the earth. They are survival victors; pillars of the forest and provide the canopy under which I’ve been exploring all morning. In their immobility is their greatness. Patient and deliberate, tree...