Magic In The Woods

By David Echelbarger

The author wrote this column for the Marinette, Mich., "Eagle-Star" after encountering juggler Joe Niedzialkowski of Milwaukee, Wise., last summer. It is reprinted here with the author's permission.

Peninsula State Park is a magical land. When there,  we listen to renaissance music because it seems to us a land lost in time. Walking through the woods I al­most expect to come upon a medieval village or meet a wizard on an urgent mission. This year was no exception.

Our family was winding our way through the bike trails. I slowed down as I neared my favorite place.     To the left is the bay where waves wash the rocks round and white.  To the right is a cedar swamp with some scattered dry land. 

Something in the deep green of the trees and the delicate ferns speaks to me. It is a spot secreted away, shaded in filtered sunlight born of another place and time.  Once we saw a doe with twin fawns there,  another time a pileated woodpecker. 

This time, as we rode by, deep in the trees some motion caught in my eye. I had to clear my head and look again. There in the wood was a juggler. He might as well have been an entertainer walking from one small 1400s enclave to another, just as they did in the old days. We stopped at a distance and watched him.

As our eyes adjusted to the light we saw a small audience, four children, materialize just above the mat of ferns. The trees formed a circle. He stood in the middle, the children all sat on a fallen log. The sun illuminated a host of spider webs still drip­ping with dew. They shimmered like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Birds called and wind moved the trees in a mystic chorus.

Like shy, creeping fawns crossing a trail, our two young ones finally joined the others on the log. The children looked to be about seven years old. There was a girl with bright red hair who rested her chin on her hands. A small blonde, with tight curls responding to the humidity, adjusted the red ribbon in her hair.

Both girls wore the latest fashion - pink plastic slippers. The two boys sat still in rapt attention. It was clear now that the juggler was practicing. Across the bike trail near the cool winds of the bay a woman sat reading a book. His wife? Over and over he threw any number of pins into the air and with an easy smile that could not mask his concentration.

Truly he was excellent - he had a number of pins going at once and then he'd quickly place one on his chin or forehead and keep juggling the rest, until finally gravity could be controlled no more and one by one the pins eluded his grasp. Then he'd start again. I have rarely seen children so quiet. Finally they decided that it was safe to ask him a question.

"Is that hard?"  "Oh, yes," he replied.

"Did you go to school to learn how to do this?"   "No. I watched other jugglers."

"Where did you buy the things you juggle?"    "From a special catalog just for jugglers."

While he was answering the pins continued to spin in lofty arcs, and his hand moved rhythmically, catching and tossing. The children had seen something in the woods and stopped to observe. They had decided to drink in the moment.

Stopping is the first part of experiencing the magic of life - breaking off the routine to live something new. The children were good at that. They were also tireless. They sat motionless while my adult senses of mission and purpose were tugging me along. This time I resisted. After all, it was vacation - nothing I absolutely had to do.

Again and again people rode by, towing their children on a predetermined path like pull toys. Parents who would have driven their kids 50 miles to see this in a circus would not take the natural opportunity here in the woods. I tell you that is tragic, for the children at his feet gained much, as did we who watched off to the side next to the pines. We observed each child's expression and delighted in their experience. "If you don't write about this, you're crazy," Christine whispered to me.

Quietly the juggler held the children in a spell of kindness and awe. He taught them about persistence.

"Were you born like this?" asked the redhead in the hot pink shoes.

"No, it's all practice. You have to practice every day, over and over again you must do it."  At this point, like a staged musical, my son broke into song, although he was some what muffled because his big sister clapped her hand over his mouth. Nevertheless we could still hear the words from his violin practice song: "Dr. Suzuki says never be lazy, just practice and practice until you go crazy!"

At last the juggler put on a show for them, tossing balls and other assorted things in the air. Finally now after some time the spell broke and children began scattering in all directions, like the pins that fell one by one. Our children still speak of it: the time they came across a marvelous experience and stopped to drink it in; the day a juggler stood in a ring of cedars and made a busy world stop; the day they were touched by magic in the woods.

David Echelbarger is a Lutheran pastor, writer, therapist and avid outdoorsman. He lives in Negaunee, Mich., with his wife, the Reverend Christine Thomas-Echelbarger, and their two children, ten-year-old Anna and seven-year-old David.