Decay Loves u Like It Loves me

Decay Loves u Like It Loves me 

By Rowan Willow 

Headwaters of the Rio Grande 

September 18, 2018 

The thing about the Headwaters of the Rio Grande is that it’s so full of life you can’t help but notice it’s so full of death. The river babbles, coyotes howl, and one time as I was walking back to my tent I turned around a tree and was greeted by a seven-foot-tall moose in front of my face. Still, the first thing that truly struck me about the site was the many piles of bones nestled within the forest.  

The bones were chaotically placed, yet calm. All the vertebrae of one animal would be separate and laying many feet apart from each other. Decomposition is peaceful, it is slow, but it is passionate. We are just voyeurs who do not understand the whole story. 

We couldn’t help but wonder about all the pines that had been destroyed by beetles. We knew it wasn’t the fault of the beetles, but fallen trees were just as prominent as live ones. Destruction can be good, but it’s hard to cope with the knowledge that while death is an important part of life, our human actions cause a destruction that’s hard to justify with the idea that things are always as they should be.  

Decay is The Wheel of Fortune in the tarot, the end of one cycle and the announcement of the next. Decay is necessary, if you don’t offer your body to the nourishment of the forest, you cannot transcend into the next cycle. We fear decay, but it cherishes us. Decay is like a lover making you a pot of warm soup when you are sick.  

The forest only shows you what it wants to show you, and not what you are looking for.