Mist clawed its way through the undergrowth while the leaves of the giant tree ferns dripped with the water that they were catching and funnelling down through their trunks and into the earth. The silence was deafening and only broken by the occasional bird call from deep within this primeval forest. From somewhere far into the centre of the forest came a soft beating much like the sound a baby hears when first placed next to its mother. It is the sound of life, the steady beat of a heart with its comforting thump, thump, thump which is, in its self, reassuring to all that take the time to listen.
Occasionally, from the corner of the eye, you would catch an explosion of colour as a butterfly fluttered from one tropical flower to another through a shaft of daylight that the forest had allowed to penetrate through its canopy and reach the floor, as if to try and encourage a new generation of growth. Lizards scampered over the remains of forest giants who, as they had grown older, had given their lives and fallen to the floor of the forest in an effort to replenish the earth as their ancestors had done for millions of years past. And still the steady thump thump drew me even further towards the centre. Over fallen trees, across crystal clear streams of ice cold water which, when drank, tasted of such purity that it was as though, through its DNA, the forest was offering up memories of a simpler way of life so that the memory would be retained for all time in the mind of man.

After many hours of walking through this oasis I finally broke through into the centre. For what seemed like minutes I was unable to breath for the beauty that reached out in front of me overpowered the senses. In a clearing which measured no more than a couple of hundred meters in diameter were wild flowers of every colour. Standing amongst them was a family of deer while all around them iridescent birds and butterflies flew in and out of the trees gathering food. The buck lifted his head and looked in my direction with his soft, sad, brown eyes. It was as if he was pleading with me to help save his family from what he knew was coming. My heart ached as I looked deep into those velvet eyes and I became one with the forest. As if in some long lost synchronicity, our hearts beat as one in the steady thump, thump, thump which had , up to that time, only been a veiled memory in the recesses of my mind and, we were joined by the life force of every living thing within the forest. To this day I am not sure how long I stayed in that magical place as it may have been hours or, it may have been days but when I eventually started to make my way across the clearing and through to the other side of the forest my thoughts were filled with the beauty and my soul was at peace.

As I broke through the undergrowth to the other side of the forest I was confronted by the sound of machinery and, spread out in front of me, over mud caked hills was what was left of that section of forest. Men were lighting fires to remove all evidence of what had stood and what they considered waste while others used chain saws to attack even more of the majestic trees and I realised what the forest had been trying to tell me. That it was the last of its kind as mans greed had removed the rest.

As I stood there and watched the sensless destruction tears filled my eyes and, as if once more I had became one with the forest………… my heart screamed.