Woodlands, Chilcren's Story    

"The woodlands are mostly gone now, you see." Old Naha told the children; "There was a time when the woods were anywhere there was a stream of water. Today, miles and miles stretching out across the horizon, there are wheatfields.    

The old women's eyes were weak and she could only see the sight of the woods in her mind. Still, her gaze seemed to be at some point and place so far away. The children waited with anticipation for the old women to pick her threat of winding up a story telling for them.     

"What were the woodlands like?" One of the children asked. 

"Oh my! They were beautiful and frightening at the same time. Everything was still and so quiet; If you didn't make noise and didn't talk soon a squirrel might be heard as it jumped from branch to branch of one of the very old, tall,  pecan trees. It felt like a giant bubble was over the whole place and somehow everything there was protected and  away from the rest of the world." 

"Have you ever been in a church? Did you look up and around you? How did you feel? Well, my children, this is the way the woodlands are, something like a church, only far more sacred in its way. The ground is noisy when you walk over it. Crunching of leaves that have  never been disturbed for, maybe years, make a sound so different than walking over anything else. The  woods can make you feel almost afraid; It seems everything is louder and stronger; Maybe a pecan will fall and you can hear that, too.  There is a swish, swishing of the wind up high in the tall trees.  The sound seems to be warning.     "Go carefully, human. I'm here to see that you do no harm to my  place; the wind must be saying this; because, again we stop and look around to make sure all is well"    

"Then a new understanding comes to your mind and  suddenly, there is a belief; that, somehow, you have come under the protection of this quiet world. When the time comes to leave, the memory of the woodlands will stay with you forever. I was a girl and  my mother told me the old ones came to the woods to pray.  Mother said they sat quietly, in one place, and did not move,  I remember imagining I could see them, there in these strange and mysterious woodlands.