The sun peaked over the eastern mountains, its first few rays scouting out the valley before it sent an army of light pouring through the trees and into the heart of the mountainous land. The sunlight was born on waves of wind and its invasive forces tried to find every inch, every corner of clear land.

Deep in the forested valley a man stood behind his cabin, rhythmically chopping wood for his fire. Chop...Chop...stack. Chop...Chop...Stack. He stopped and turned to see the invader come pouring into his clearing, bathing the cabin and all that surrounded it in burnished gold, creating a world of brilliance. His nostrils flared as he tried to take in the wonderful smell of wild and clear places, the cent of pine and oak and ceder, and the musty smell of a dead and growing vegetation. This was the life he loved, what he wanted since his earliest childhood.

The city he had grown up in was beautiful, or so he was told. It was a small city with lots of 'stuff' to do, but he had never loved it. It was so busy, everyone running around as if today were the last day of their lives, everyone in such a hurry to have fun that they were always tired, always weary. He had always longed for something different, to live in the rhythm and pattern of nature. Just as the chopping of wood had a pattern, a natural beat, so to did the life he now lived.

It is true, he did feel bad for his family...he had not had the heart to tell them what he was doing, so instead he had just walked away. He had sent them a post-card from New Brunswick, but that was the last time he had been anywhere near a post office, since then he had simply wandered the forest until he arrived here, at a place he could call home. Here there was silence, he could listen to the quite of for hours, and hear in it the voice of God. He could live in the rhythms of life that were meant to be followed, not rushing to much, yet doing what was needed in its time and season.

"God put man in the garden of Eden!" he liked to say, "not the metropolis of Edenville. If we were supposed to hide from nature in worlds made of wood and stone we would have been put in a world of stone and concrete." It was this philosophy that lead him, this that drew him from the city he had spent his life in and pulled him...no dragged him...out here, into the wilds of Canada.