Cathedral
written by: W. Glewicz
“We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
– Carl Sagan
Our destination is about fifteen minutes from the inn over a narrow two-lane road that twists with sharp drop-offs and unexpected turns. Homes are scattered through the hills, and I remember something my father said once when I was a boy. People live everywhere. Cities, towns, hillsides, the remotest parts of the world. I wasn’t sure then, and I’m not sure now if he meant it as an observation of mankind’s ingenuity or as something darker, that we find a way of taking over every bit of nature and turning it to our own ends.
Today, the first parking lot at Muir Woods is full, and we’re directed a few hundred feet to the next one. Our windows are rolled down, and we hear the couple in the car in front of us talking to the parking attendant. They don’t have a reservation—Did they not see all the notices on the website? The signs all along the road on the way up? Did they somehow think these things didn’t apply to them?—and the parking attendant is directing them to move on, return to town where there’s cell service, get a reservation—today’s sold out, but they might have luck for tomorrow—and return then. More back and forth before they give up, drive on.
We pull up, show the attendant our timed reservation, and he directs us to a space. So easy with just a little planning and courtesy. As we enter the park, the wind picks up a bit, and I’m glad we wore layers. I sense my mother looking down, smiling.
We walk past the Visitor’s Center entrance to an open-air brick courtyard called the Founder’s Grove. In one corner rests a cutaway of the trunk of a redwood. At its very center is a marker. 909 A.D. Tree Is Born. Other markers in ever-expanding circles point to various historical events—1492 Columbus, 1620 Jamestown—all leading up to 1930 Tree Falls. At some point, someone had scratched—what? their name? some random scrawl?—into the wood, marring its otherwise smooth surface. It might have happened last week or a hundred years ago. A senseless defacement.
A boy pushes in front of me for a closer look, father tagging right behind. The boy asks his father how old it was. With no hesitation, the father says one hundred years. I feel the immediate urge to do the precise math and say something, but the boy is already scampering down the path toward the next thing that catches his eye. The father probably could have said five years or a million, and the boy would have been equally uninterested, and unawed, by the answer.
Our timing is fortunate because a ranger is about to begin one of two daily introductions to the park. Eighty or so of us visitors gather around, some on benches, some sitting on the red brick, but most of us standing in a half circle. The ranger, a woman in her mid-twenties with the energy and enthusiasm of a community theater performer, begins with a question. “Where are you all from?” Answers come in accented English. Tokyo. Boston. Seoul. Liverpool. Dallas. Copenhagen. Johannesburg. Her eyes land on me. “Seattle,” I call out. Close enough.
She asks everyone to close their eyes. Do you hear the birds? The water flowing from the stream down the way? Take a deep breath. Hold it. Exhale. Open your eyes. You are a tree. Feel your legs, the soles of your feet, your roots firmly planted in the ground for generation upon generation. Slowly raise your arms over your head. Feel your branches reach for the sky. Take a deep breath. Another. Look around. You are from all over the world. You are all here. Now, you are all one.
The ranger steps forward, says she’s learned to begin her talk this way. She’s seen too many people race through the park, without seeing, listening, experiencing. I’m grateful for the reminder and tell myself—OK, some pictures, but don’t forget to put the damn camera away and just be.
Among the things we then learn from her: Coastal redwoods are the tallest living things on the planet. The ratio of the height of a man to a redwood is roughly equivalent to that of a mouse to a man. They thrive only along the Pacific Northwest coast. With the dry summers, the short needle-like leaves along the upper branches have evolved to absorb moisture from the fog, taking in roughly half of the tree’s annual water needs. Leaves along the lower branches are longer to better capture whatever sunlight might find its way to the forest floor. A mature redwood can produce up to 100,000 seeds each year, but most redwoods sprout from the roots of an existing tree, thereby essentially cloning itself. It’s not uncommon to see family circles, small groupings of redwood trees that thrive around a central, often ancient, stump.
Cathedral Grove lies a few hundred feet into the main trail. The towering trees unquestionably bring to mind a sacred space, a church, its center aisle flanked by tall columns that reach to the heavens. For those who need things to be explicit, a sign at the entrance to the grove requests that people refrain from speaking in that part of the park. Many, probably most, heed the call, but others feel the insistent, overpowering need to talk to their fellow travelers about whatever randomly floats into their minds, uncomfortable or having forgotten what it is to just be silent.
The main trail is paved and flat. For the more adventurous, markers for side trails point off in other directions into the hills. At the end of the main trail, we decide to take the Hillside Trail back. It lives up to its name, a narrow path with a steep drop off into a canyon and stream. Hikers of all ages and abilities pass, or we pass them. We all just smile and nod to each other. Silence is a precious thing.
At trail’s end, we’re both hungry and thirsty, and we stop at the park’s café for a quick bite. Afterwards, not wanting to leave, we return to the central courtyard and sit together on a bench. The people are fewer now. A comforting hush envelopes us.
I take in the giant redwood that towers before me. Its roots stretch along the ground like gnarled fingers. The bark of its massive trunk, now in partial shadow, reveals an intricate pattern of ridges and crevices. Further up, a single black scar speaks of some long-ago fire and the tree’s determination to outlast it. Further up, its branches rise, and I imagine the short needles sipping moisture from the incoming fog. Further up, the canopy shocks, bright green in the sunlight. I squint. Just beyond floats an inch of blue sky. I take a breath. How small we are. How fleeting. I take another breath and think how connected we are to something bigger, something longer lasting. Maybe, perhaps, even to something eternal. Star-stuff, everywhere you turn.
- Cathedral - November 15, 2025
- Circadia - September 11, 2025
- The Hatter’s Tale - May 3, 2025
