INTO THE WOODS

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

-Wendell Berry, "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front"

We haven't found many quiet places in Korea. Granted, we're limited to the spots we can access by subway, bus, or walking (like Beomeo-sa, pictured above). There may very well be a temple in the woods that is just as quiet as it was a few hundred years ago, but the ones we've visited have all been crawling with snack vendors and fashionable hikers. Still, if you fight past the sightseers and step off the path, it's possible to take refuge in "the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years."