After spending close to a month in New Mexico, I have finally crossed the border into Colorado. Nestled in the Rockies among conifers, sitting close to 9,000 feet, I write from the San Juan National Forest. The views and oxygen levels make this area, well, breathtaking. I just spent a full month in New Mexico, experiencing the Southern and Northern parts of the State. It was difficult to leave as the mountainous desert grabbed my heart and filled me with contentment. However, I had a calling to return to wooded land. Growing up in a very rural town without stores or stoplights, being in the woods, feels like home to me. Any wildness speaks to me, but being in the forest with creatures who prowl day and night, is seemingly where I feel most settled. My hometown, Heath, Massachusetts, is mostly comprised of deciduous forest and has more lushness then is offered by the conifers that surround me today, but the woods regardless of the tree species, always finds my soul. When I lived in cities, I never felt settled, even after being there for long periods of time. The loud noises and the intense energy people have as a byproduct of capitalism, disoriented me–I felt as though I was floating, untethered from the Universe. As a child, the woods were my freedom. Behind my house sat thousands of acres of contiguous forest. I spent all of my free time–of which I had plenty–playing outside. As an adult, I play less, but feel a similar sense of freedom among the trees that I did as a child. For years in adulthood, I was not free–in fact, I was shackled–depression and alcoholism had me chained me to a rusty fence where I was left to face the elements–but today, the freedom of the little child who explored the woods has returned. As I sit and write, I hear birds sing and I watch the trees sway to the music. This trip has in large part been a learning experience about what allows me to feel content, settled, and with the cosmos. Locations, scenery, and people all contribute to these feelings. Today is today, and now is now–and right now I sit among the conifers with clean crisp air, feeling settled and free.