Experiencing Nature in Warren County, Indiana 2

When I was in high school, my family lived a couple of miles southeast of Pine Village, Indiana. Across the gravel road were open fields, but a small group of trees broke the level line of the horizon. I yearned to investigate them, yet I felt constrained by the sense that I might be trespassing on neighbor Agnes Moore’s farm. If I were to ask her permission to walk among the trees, she would wonder why I asked. I kept denying myself the opportunity to visit the copse, until a day arrived when I indulged my curiosity.

At the Entrance to the Copse

Drawing by H. Bolton Jones (1848–1927)

Engraved by Robert Hoskin (1842–?)

In The Closing Scene

Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1887

Sneaking across the road, down through the shallow ditch, and over the freshly plowed surface of the field, I nervously glanced from side to side. Neighbors could be seeing me, it seemed—when, in all likelihood, no one saw me. The nearest of our neighbors occupied farmhouses spread far apart along the road. Out of breath from the exertion of scurrying through plowed ground, I dashed through the verge of last year’s weedy growth and plunged into the darkness of the wooded area.

It was as circular as if measured by a surveyor. It sloped ever so gently toward the middle and may have been a ten-acre sinkhole or, at least, a damp saucer-shaped depression formed by an underground spring. The trees were a mixture of willows and cottonwoods. A few of the latter variety boasted enormous trunks. The limbs formed only a partial shade, as they were just leafing out. The tiny wildflowers called “spring beauties” carpeted the ground among the roots.

Then I came upon a circle of cardinal feathers. They may have been left by a farm cat, but they formed such an exact circle with every feather perfectly placed! I felt a sense of awe. It was as if I were seeing a symbol left where nobody would see it, yet I had stumbled upon it. What was its meaning? The experience was spiritual, although I cannot define what I mean by “spiritual,” no matter how “spiritual” it indeed was. The red tufts fairly glowed among the willows.

I quietly withdrew. Long after my moment in the woods, I regarded the spot from afar and considered it an example of the Creator’s attention to detail.