In the middle of the forest, I fell in love with ponderosa pines. For some years when I visited them each summer in the Black Forest at the Benet Hill Monastery (where I co-lead a spiritual writing retreat with Joy Roulier Sawyer), I felt like they were old friends. Plus, their bark smells like vanilla, toffee, rum, caramel or some combination of all, depending on the tree and your nose.This isn't the first time I've fallen hard for a tree. When I first went to the Rockies in 1983, I fell madly
