Into the shadow
Sometimes the best map will not guide you,
You can’t see what’s round the bend.
Sometimes the road leads though dark places,
Sometimes the darkness is your friend.
— Bruce Cockburn, Pacing The Cage
This is part of the boardwalk along the Nuu-Chah-Nulth trail in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve near Tofino. The trail winds in and out of shadowy and windswept Sitka spruce and shorepine. All along you are within earshot of the roaring white noise of the breakers rolling in off the North Pacific. Every time the trail ducks into the forest a cathedral of space opens up, and when it emerges again into bog, one feels enclosed by the surrounding forest and walls of salmonberries, salal and Nootka rose. To walk the trail as a meditation is to breath between these two paradoxes.
Sometimes the darkness has more openness than the light.
So lush and full of life, even in winter! I’ve wondered before whether islanders like yourself are as blown away by Tofino as inland folks like us.
The west coast is very different from the inner coast and the Salish Sea. The rhythms are longer and more intense, everything is a magnitude wilder and there are fewer spaces in which human will is triumphant on the landscape.
Makes sense. And you’ve described the difference beautifully — writing more poetry lately, perhaps…
🙂
I’ve share this clip with several friends. I love the damp west and east coasts, although one is more lush and the other spare. I really miss those water spaces. Thank you.