The horticultural genius, thespian and somewhat volatile seer Alan Chadwick used the word Sylvan, given an acute accent on the ‘a’ according to his style of gallicising words to give them a more specific meaning, to describe a sort of mystical distilled essence of forest enchantment.
In general there seems to be a correlation between de-forestation and the diminuishing capability to read our enworldment as a poem; an inability to know myth and fact as simultaneously co-existing truths. It’s as if the gradual decline of forest and woodland is much much more than the cutting down of trees. Perhaps as each forest decreases, as each piece of woodland is developed upon, our collective perceptual band-width narrows just a little bit more. As sylvania recedes outside, that sylvan drop inside our hearts, that distilled essence of forest enchantment within us, somehow seems to evaporate away too.
Photos by author.