First of all, you must begin with stillness. I don’t mean the absence of motion, but the quieting of your inner compass. That little voice that consistently reminds you of your next step, demanding you to keep moving. Feel the cool air, thick with the scent of damp earth and bruised greenery, and let it settle on your skin. Notice how it carries the whispers of unseen things: decaying leaves, hidden fungi, little stones cooling under the shade. This air is the first breath of your walk. Inhale it deeply, letting it displace that nagging atmosphere of anticipation you carried in. These woods existed before your arrival and will exist equally after your departure. Remember that your presence is just one note briefly joining in the song.

Resist the calling of the beaten path. Every well-worn trail, clear and accessible, promises ease in your journey. Step away from it. Let your feet find the yielding softness of untouched moss, the uneven terrain beneath the fallen leaves of the previous season. Understand that a tangle of thorny vines is not a barrier intentionally placed for your frustration, it's simply a thicket living its own narrative. Go around its edges, feeling the snag of a bramble on your sleeve. This, too, is a tactile reminder of your otherness. Or do push through, if you wish, snapping the dry twigs to create your own sounds in the quiet. Just remember that neither choice you make here is a success nor a detour. It is merely your movement within the open space.

Now, listen to the sounds of silence. You may hear the soft rattle of the oak leaves clinging to a high branch, the tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker, or the sudden explosion of bird wings startled by your footsteps. These sounds are not omens to decipher, because they do not exist for your understanding. They are the sounds of the woods existing freely. Here, you should try to let the spaces between them fill your own quiet, now that the voice of your inner compass is finally calm. You can do this if you hold the silence with care, recognising that it is not made of emptiness, but of a gently hidden presence that kindly welcomes you into its own home, completely trusting that you will treat it with its deserved reverence: do not disapoint it.

Your next challenge will be to deflect your searching gaze. In this day and age, your eyes are trained for seeking beautiful vistas and landmarks to be shared, and they will scan the canopy for this promised overlook. Instead, you should try to find the intricate hidden world at your feet: the frost-ferns etched onto a single brown leaf, already dissolving in a weak sunbeam. Pick up a river-smooth stone, cool and heavy, with its history written in water. Watch the dust motes dancing in a shaft of light that unexpectedly pierces through the gloom. These are not distractions from your journey, they should be the reasons you are making it in the first place.

By now, you should start feeling the weight you carried in with you slowly dissolving. Your invisible burdens: schedules, worries, the mental hastening of time, all cling to you like inconvenient cobwebs. These woods are not going to carry them for you, but they will help you shift your focus on the immediate: the softness of mud underfoot after it rained, the pine resin released as you brush a low branch, the cool dampness seeping through your clothes where you leaned against a mossy trunk. The weights don't disappear, but they become momentarily irrelevant when compared to the hereness of root, rock, and light.

Maybe it’s the opposite: you feel disoriented and overwhelmed. This, too, you should embrace. The trail blurs into a confusion of deer tracks. Shadows lengthen and twist the familiar trees into strange figures. The old voice of your inner compass whispers to you again and tightens your chest saying that you are lost. You really aren't. This is the threshold of your journey. Do not claw for the map, the phone, the lifeline to certainty. Stand still for a little bit. Breathe the air that smells of earth and moss. Look at everything around you without seeking an exit sign. Turn towards the sound of wind blowing through some branches you had not noticed before. Make peace with the idea of being the guest of an everchanging host.

The journey is nearing its closure. Release the expectation of finding a big revelation or philosophical epiphany at the end of the path. The walk itself is the lesson. The satisfying crunch of pine needles under your heel, the fleeting glimpse of a little fox's tail vanishing into green, the pleasant ache in your thighs from climbing a rise. These were not steps toward understanding a hidden meaning, they are complete sensations and they are sufficient within themselves. Maybe later you will turn this experience into beautiful art: a heartfelt prose, a beautiful painting, a solemn poem. Maybe you will not. Either way, the stream you found will still offer cool water for your hands and the sound of its own passage for your ears.

The return is simply a pivot. The path will unwind differently now, the previously strange shapes are more familiar as you make your way back. If you feel frightened again, you can now tell yourself that you have been here before. This will be a comforting thought. Carry back with you only tangible souvenirs: grit beneath your nails, the faint scent of cedar woven into your clothes, the memory of those cold river stones in your palm. The woods hope you will visit them again and for this they gift you footsteps unburdened by the weight of purpose. My final instruction is this: don't walk to find something, but to forget your own need for searching. By now, you must have understood that the time of your arrival on the other side is irrelevant. Your journey there and all the little things you will notice along the path are all that matters.