Why I Keep Coming Back to the Woods

I didn’t grow up taking vacations to Disney or the beach. We went camping. Rough River, Big Sandy, Axtel. Campgrounds all over Kentucky and Tennessee.

We didn’t have a lot of money, but we had tents and trees and that was enough. I fell in love with being outside. The quiet. The simplicity. The freedom of it. It wasn’t silent, but it was peaceful. It wasn’t still, but it was grounding. And best of all, it was free.

Now, when I step into the woods, I still feel that same connection. However, it runs deeper. All my friends are there, the birds, the wind, the roots, the creeks. The forest isn’t lifeless. It’s alive in a way the world often forgets how to be. There’s a patience in the woods. No one’s rushing to meet a deadline. No one’s pretending to be something they’re not.

The strange thing is, when I’ve been away from it too long, I don’t even notice what I’m missing. Not until I’m back. Only then do I realize how much I needed to come home. To touch the earth again. To stop performing and just be.

If someone tells me they don’t feel connected to nature, I don’t try to convince them. I ask them to tell me about their past experiences, because it’s rarely nature that failed them. It was usually the conditions around it.

Nature is home. We are made of it, from it, for it. It’s not something we visit. It’s something we return to.

The woods aren’t just a backdrop for The Tranquil Path, they’re the foundation. We are rooted in the earth. We gather in nature, we learn from it, we protect it. Everything we do begins there; in the stillness, the rustle, the moss-covered truth of it all.

That’s why I keep coming back. Not to escape life. But to remember how to live it.

Michael Croley

Steward of Harmony