The Loon
by Angela Neilans
For my soul walk project, I decided to paint a Loon. I love to paint with watercolors, and as soon as I read about the Soul Walk Project, I knew I would be submitting a painting.
While at Medomak, I had multiple experiences I would call “synchronicities” or even categorize as “mystic”. I live for these moments and all these wonderful threads of connection that appear throughout my life–always as beautiful little surprises.
On the last night of the retreat, I was exiting the dining hall after our lobster dinner when I noticed the sun was setting. It was a beautiful orange glow through the trees. I decided to make a quick dash down to the lake to catch this final sunset. The light was amazing. I recently learned of the japanese word, “komorebi”, which means “sunlight filtered through the leaves of trees”. As I rushed down the trail, the warm komorebi was all around me. I found myself alone on the dock watching the sun go down on the final day of an amazing, transformative week.
As I stood there, soaking it all in, I heard a splash directly in front of me. A loon had surfaced about ten feet off the dock. It was so much larger up close, and the moment felt sacred. All week I loved hearing their eerie calls from my cabin and I felt so honored to be in the presence of one. After a few moments, the loon dove under the water again and was gone.
I did a little research into loon symbology and was struck, but not really surprised, by the results: wildness, solitude, reawakening, dreams, and tranquility. These are some of the themes I am exploring in my personal life and many of them carry over to my journey to forest therapy. Learning about these symbols (some indigenous) made the moment even more meaningful and made for a perfect and fitting capstone to my week at Medomak.
I feel so much gratitude for the experience and hope to use it as motivation to share this work with others.
The Loon is the Soul Walk Project created by Angela Nielans, FTS Certified Forest Therapy Guide, Medomak 2024 cohort.