I ask you all, are these the end times?

The forest has been foreboding as of late. Have you noticed? Have you seen signs? I’ve seen things, puzzling, horrible, and splendid things that make me question the balance of the world, what the future may hold, and mankind’s place in it or apart from it. I’m frightened, and yet I yearn for the meaning, the reckoning of these portents.

Are the things I’m seeing mean the end is coming?

I seen a bear delicately and carefully pull the bones from a salmon while humming a growling tune. I seen hundreds of acorns arranged in a spiral at the center of a circle of some bioluminescent mushrooms. I seen a full set of camp cookware, that is a pan, fork, knife, spoon, and cup, embedded in the center of a freshly split log. I seen a man, naked and silent, walk into the lake until he was fully submerged and walk just as calmly out the other side but as a woman. I seen ants, millions of ants, covering the trees and stones and ground all moving as one like a living, black void. I seen my tent shrink into nothing as I approached from the river as if depth perspective did not apply only to turn around and see that mighty river was nothing but a trickling stream. I seen ghostly figures wander the woods searching for camps to warm their cold, lost souls and share the morbid tales of their demise. I seen two wolves standing on their hind legs having a deep conversation about life and love. I seen acres of forests grow and die and grow again rapidly and endlessly. I seen Cernunnos, the True Cernunnos, walk the glens with his giant erection guiding the eager deer and elk. I seen an owl turn itself inside out and hoot backwards. I seen the river turn pink and frothy during the salmon disintegration. I seen a rat the size of a man have sexual congress with a living mass of moss and rock. I seen the moon shift red, beckoning the old forest gods to emerge and right the wrongs of modern society. I seen the sun split and the everlasting day begin, feeding the forest, and bathing all its creatures in healing warmth.

You must’ve felt it, even so far removed.

Every time I return from the forest and tell folk what I’ve witnessed, they scoff, they laugh, or worse yet, they outright ignore me as if I’m not even real. I scream in the streets begging to be heard, to be seen!

Surely, you believe me, right? You’ll venture into the verdant deep with me and see things not meant for the eyes of man, won’t you?

Therein lies salvation, transcendence, apotheosis. I feel it. Feel me. Feel my skin. There’s hope in the forest. Please come with me. Convince anyone you can to come to the forest and let the old gods reclaim us all.