Walking in the woods, I see a field of pink phlox. A giant swallowtail butterfly pumps her wings beside a stream. As I swat mosquitos, signs along the path encourage me to consider this landscape in geological time, its current form molded by the glacier sheet that retreated some 12,000 years ago.

Time to contemplate time: 12,000 years, a moment to our 4.5-billion-year-old planet, yet an unfathomable ocean compared to my few droplets of decades.

I am visiting Louhelen Bahá’í Center of Learning in eastern Michigan. Twenty-five years ago, my family lived here for a time—about a year and a half, fourth grade and half of fifth for me. That seems no time at all from my adult perspective, when years tear past all too fast. (Already my nephew is nearly a year and a half old, and I find myself astounded at the disappearance of the chubby babe and appearance of a bold toddler who, when tired of walking, now can utter his first full sentence, naturally in the imperative: “Up!”) But in childhood, days felt long, and years endless, so the time at Louhelen became an Era. 

A quarter century later, the Era remains bright in my mind, both for the oddity of our lodging, as, with all staff houses already occupied, four dorm rooms became the family home, and for the sense of independence made possible by living on campus—Jasmine and I were allowed to wander and explore with the other resident kids as long as we kept our walkie-talkies on.

Visiting a place hewn in memory can be jarring, because things have inevitably changed during one’s absence. Murals in the classrooms were painted over years ago, which seems a too-easy metaphor. The huge wooden playset where we passed joyful hours rotted and was torn down.  

Nearly everything else looks the same, though. The twin oaks representing Lou and Helen Eggleston, the founders, remain, spreading an enormous sheltering canopy. The woods. The meadows.

Beside one of the meadows, I laid a blanket so I could stretch out and read. My sister and brother-in-law had given me You Are a Cosmic Tree by Misha Maynerick Blaise for my birthday. A friend in Indy had recommended The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness by Sarah Ramey. And I had bought myself Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer. In very different voices, the three authors conjure a life that integrates material and spiritual realms. These wise women, along with the red-winged blackbirds, formed my conversation partners for the day. 

What a pleasure to have a day to read under pines with a balmy June breeze wafting (and the occasional caterpillar falling onto me). 

Kimmerer’s work resonates with me as a devotee of Kingdom Plantae. In an essay on peat bogs, she explains that the living sphagnum moss at the surface rests upon layers accreted over millennia, evoking our ancestors’ support of us. Her analogy makes me think also of the eras of my own life upon which this present moment depends.

“The soft peat below responds to my step, compressing with the downbeat and springing back. It too is dancing deep beneath me, sending its energy up to the surface. Dancing on the Sphagnum, buoyant on the surface of the peat, I feel the power of connection with what has come before, the deep peat of memory holding me up.” (Gathering Moss, p. 119)