You see movement on the ground beneath you, and when you look closer, there is a parade.  Small ants carry bits of green leaves, several times the size of the ants themselves, above their heads.  They are farmers, used to hard work.  They carry their prizes down the trunks of trees, along vines and branches, and across the earth to their underground chambers.  Here, they create gardens by injecting their leaf clippings with a fungal secretion, which digests the plant matter and turns it into a nutritious mushroom, which they use to feed ant larvae.  The adult ants thrive on leaf sap.  Older adults, who no longer tend to the gardens, collect waste to remove from the garden, putting it in a pile and moving it around to aid decomposition, composting like any true gardener.

The wind was strong when I went kayaking in Lake Arenal’s warm waters beneath the Arenal Volcano.  A large, dreamlike, lone tree with orange blossoms stood on the lakeshore.  With my kayak nestled between the wind and a marshy island, I was surprised to hear the familiar call of the Red-winged Blackbird.  I saw Great Egrets—angel white against the green grasses—and cormorants and aninghas, perched to dry their wings.  The sun rarely emerged—the sky was stormy and gray—but the water and the greenery stood out as if it were a bright and sunny day.

Here is the perfect place to rest after a day of travel.  The surrounding trees are filled with butterflies and birdsong; the Heliconia flowers attract hummingbirds.  From the hammock, it may be hard to concentrate on the book you brought, because the sunlight shining through the leaves shimmers and captures your attention.  The forest around you is busy, but your space on the porch is quiet and still.  There is much to explore, but for now, you choose this peaceful place to settle into the rainforest’s rhythms.