Fall Back

Today involved a walk through the woods. What I was thinking about during that walk is that very little has changed since the Leni-Lenape occupied that land 400 years ago. On this first day of Standard Time, I've also been thinking about ways of marking time, first as darkness and light, eventually changes in the moon, seasons, years. What did the Leni-Lenape think about as they wandered the places I did today, when they weren't addressing immediate survival? Was a colorful leaf something to celebrate? Was it a gift of the gods? It's these small ideas that connect us, because almost all of our life is so different from that era. But nature lets us go back, lets us remember. That need to connect to the past is about more than just a fear of repeating it. It's primal, and we're better for having it.