I discovered something pretty important about myself when I moved to the country. Actually I discovered a lot of things about myself but there's one central truth, and it took a while to even begin to admit it, then find the words to describe it.

There is something inside me that corresponds to the environment in which I live now, which is a good definition of peace. Where I came from, the world was forced into being homogenous. Bulldozers scraping away the top soil, bunches of men coming in with their big machines, erecting huge, unlovely, behemoth-like houses that sold for obscene amounts of money, and yes, they were all "ticky tacky and they all looked just the same." (Thank you, Pete Seeger.) No more wildflowers, trees were knocked down, no interesting little alleys. My neighbor commented that she was seeing more birds than was usual, but nobody thought that was good. The tangle of trees and bushes at the end of our street had been bulldozed and the birds were homeless. Small, individually run businesses were having a hard time surviving. A huge Staples store forced Media Office Supply out of business, which broke my heart. You could go into Media Office Supply and buy one pencil or an eraser. As these de-humanizing forces closed in on me, something inside me began to die. I became obsessed with wildflowers and when I was driving anywhere I'd look all around me for indigenous growth.

Then the realization that we were suffocating, and the move to Orangeville, PA.

And now what do I see? Mountains, forests, lakes, creeks, streams, acres of flowers and trees that belong here, that just grew here with no help from the outside. Yes, there is a tiny bit of "development" around Bloomsburg but it's miniscule. And because my heart was open I began to receive messages from what I call "the other world." They were: one day when I was driving home from work, five young male turkeys crossed the road, walking in an absurd line; another day driving home from work I saw a mother bear with her three cubs; my husband told me he saw a rainbow trout in our creek; one day while taking a walk we saw two cedar waxwings; a great horned owl lives on our mountain and sometimes at dusk we can hear it; it really does say "hoo, hoo."

What does this add up to? Am I some kind of wild woman? A woman who "runs with the wolves?" Possibly. All I can say for sure is: a voice inside me was crying and mourning the loss of the natural world and that voice, which I believe is a collective voice, is at peace now.