There is something quite spiritual about a walk in the woods.  In these days of urban sprawl I find it’s truly difficult to really remove yourself from society & just listen to the sounds, observe the colors, sense the scents of nature.  So often when you try, you discover the sound of a nearby highway or a high flying jet overhead leaving its mark in the sky. Walking in the Ballochbuie Forest you are able remove yourself from all the urban distractions & hear only the breeze in the trees, smell nothing but fresh clean air, see nothing but clear skies overhead. No matter if you are an author, accountant, photographer, or monarch it’s so easy to get distracted by all we are trying to get done & forget about what we truly are.  Over one hundred and fifty years ago Henry David Thoreau escaped to Walden & wrote: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” At the same time across the Atlantic, Queen Victoria was building her place in the Highlands of Scotland to escape to the woods. The need to experience nature is universal. We all need to protect these places that allow us to return. For those that don’t have the resources to own a 50,000 acre estate & open it to the public, (thank you Queen Elizabeth),  consider contributing what you can to an organization such as the Sierra Club in America that helps to balance our ‘progress’ & protect our wild places.