We are just back from ten days on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, a place I have been to before with students from Elon University. We stay at Campanario, which is a biological reserve that is off the grid except for the solar panel running the fridge. It has always been magical, but this time, in lieu of all the noise in the world, it was a respite from the clamor, drama, and endless onslaught of news. It was indeed an eddy out of the turbulent times in which we live.
One of the many lessons learned there is how little we actually need to have quite a lovely life. The big advantage of course is that it’s warm (Vermont was -12 when we left.) It is also remote as there are, for now at least, no roads in. We get there by taking a boat down the Sierepe river and then out to sea and down the coast. The boat drivers are magicians and skilled beyond measure. They patiently wait until there is a break in the surf or the wind shifts enough to spin around and surf backwards toward the shore. We all jump out, grab our gear, and wade in. We take only what we can lift over our heads. At my age that isn’t much.
Life at the reserve slows way down. It is easy to stay present, especially as field binocs are part of the wardrobe. The wildlife is everywhere—tiny birds to Pumas to Morpho butterflies. There is something about the rainforest that seems to cheer on color and strength; one is not necessarily exclusive of the other. Vines are bigger than elsewhere. Walking palms only grow in primary forests and need a canopy. Strangle trees encase huge banyans until the inside tree itself dies and only the strangle tree remains. There is a seemingly neverending stream of bugs, birds, and plants to look at and a terrain that is not all that forgiving.
Even the sounds scoop you into a world apart from the one you left. Howler monkeys let you know if there is danger or disturbance at 4 AM. Squirrel monkeys crash around in the tree tops and upon occasion hurl something down at an unsuspecting person. The Macaw has a smoker's cry that is in startling opposition to the bird’s stunning beauty. Big cats wander by, oblivious to you as you are just a mere mortal in his world, not worthy of a sideways glance.
Little by little, those lucky enough to be there shed the complexities of daily life to settle into a different rhythm, one that is governed largely by light and sound rather than events. For my traveling companions, no longer having access to the internet was beyond unsettling even though the world, in all of its chaos and drama, will go on without us paying attention. Perhaps our vigilance is not as vital as we’d once thought. It’s easy to replace the headlines with dawn arriving and the forest waking up, full of buzzing and rustling. It is rare that we get a chance to live inside and alongside life itself. There is a meditation hidden in the rain forest, one that is fragile, hard to hang onto, and precious.
Now we are back in Vermont. A foot of snow fell last night and we are getting ready for syrup season. The gang went out to the sugar house, put up the stack on the arch, and dragged 125 buckets down from storage. Tomorrow we tap and wait for the trees to wake up and the sap to run. We lack the vitality of the rainforest, of course, but there is something similar in this sense of being present as spring creeps in and the light comes back to the deep woods.
-Bird Jones