Where to look among the garbage and the flowers ...

These days, I practice intensely with the GPS. In a few weeks I will hike through totally unknown terrain, and I must be able to handle this machine. Today, I walked ca. 15 kilometres (a day's travel), following a track with the GPS that I had created on the computer before.

It led through the woods, underbrush and thicket, and without the device I certainly would not have known anymore where to find back and front, up and down.

Well, I still didn't know, but all was well as long as the blue arrow on the display followed the pink line.

The tour went through the forests that are so typical for the Vosgues area. Some of the paths looked like this:

A less pleasant discovery was this one:

It really pisses me off. Who dares to dispose of their car parts in the forest? There are professional scrapyards everywhere. It is definitely not more bothersome (much likely, less) to drive a scrap car there, instead of throwing the parts into nature.

But as Leonard Cohen described in his song "Suzanne", one must know where to look among the garbage and the flowers. And at the end of a path, just before a crossroad, my gaze was softly directed:

To the ground, where I found a small deer antler. I was so excited! I have always desired to find one. And in some nights I have dreamt that it has happened.

I picked it up, when I saw one ... no, TWO more!

It was like a fairy tale. An intensive moment of happiness. Quietly and strongly, magic had hit me.

Three antlers - but why three? Oh yes: one for Aldo, one for JFK, and one for myself. We are on the right track, nature talks to us, with us, and through us.

I pocketed the antlers and walked on with ease. I did not get lost even once. Everything is in a state of flow.