The Hoh Rain Forest: The Sacredness of Connection

There are places we visit.
And then there are places that seem to invite us into another way of being.

Today, the Hoh Rainforest was such a place for me.

Don and I left Port Angeles, Washington before six in the morning, traveling in the quiet morning light toward Olympic National Park. By shortly after eight, we were stepping onto the Hall of Mosses Trail.

Almost immediately, I noticed the stillness.

It was different from the magnificent, vibrant beauty we had experienced the day before along the trail to Sol Duc Falls in Olympic National Forest. There, rushing water had filled the forest with movement and sound.

Here, the forest seemed to whisper.

Even the people walking the trail seemed quieter, as though we had collectively understood that we had entered someplace sacred.

We walked slowly.

We stopped to read the signs along the trail. We looked upward at enormous trees draped in moss and downward at the tiny plants emerging beneath them, and the ferns all around. We noticed fallen trees becoming nurse logs, giving themselves back to the forest and providing nourishment and a place for new life to begin.

Nothing seemed to exist entirely on its own.

Everything was participating in the life of something else.

As I walked, I found myself quietly repeating a mantra that has accompanied me through many years of my life. With each repetition, I seemed to settle more deeply into the stillness around me.

And yet, the longer I listened, the more I realized:

This forest wasn’t really still at all.

Beneath the quiet was an extraordinary community of life.

Growing.

Giving.

Receiving.

Dying.

Becoming.

Supporting.

Beginning again.

Later, we listened to Ranger Todd speak about the remarkable ecology of the temperate Hoh Rainforest and the scientists whose work has helped us understand more about what is happening beneath and around what we can see—the relationships among trees, mosses, nurse logs, roots, ferns, fungi, and countless other forms of life.

As I listened, something stirred within me.

I thought about The Connecting Place, the community we have recently created for our Women of Wisdom.

Perhaps because connection has been so much on my heart, I suddenly saw our little human community reflected in this ancient forest.

The rainforest thrives not because every tree stands independently.

It thrives through relationship.

The old nourishes the young.

What has fallen creates fertile ground for what is emerging.

Some offer shelter.

Some reach toward the light.

Some grow quietly beneath the canopy.

And all belong.

What might happen if we remembered that we humans are not so different?

What if our lives are not meant to be lived as isolated trees, struggling to grow entirely through our own strength?

What if we, too, are meant to become places where others can rest?

What if our stories can nourish someone else’s becoming?

What if wisdom gathered through decades of living can become fertile soil for those who follow?

What if sometimes our role is to reach toward the light—and sometimes simply to hold space while another person does?

After Ranger Todd’s talk, Don and I walked the Spruce Trail.

We were seeing the same forest.

And yet we were seeing it differently.

Now every fallen log, every strand of moss, every young tree seemed to carry another layer of meaning.

We allowed ourselves to become completely immersed in it.

Eventually, we found a bench and ate the chicken wraps we had brought with us.

Nothing elaborate.

Just two tired and happy travelers sitting together in an ancient rainforest, eating lunch beneath the trees.

And somehow, it felt holy.

We spent four hours in the Hoh Rain Forest today.

Savoring.

Wondering.

Wandering.

Listening.

And perhaps remembering something we have always known:

We were never meant to grow alone.

Like the forest, we flourish through connection—giving and receiving, holding and being held, sharing our wisdom and making room for new life to emerge.

Perhaps this is what a true connecting place really is.

Not simply somewhere we gather.

But a living community in which, through our presence and our care for one another,

we help each other grow toward the light.