For some reason an excerpt of this poem sprang to mind as I posted this image. I think it's the impression, in part, of the sought out isolation and abandonment of the everyday life in favour of searching for something wild, yet also in tune, familiar and also little threatening. One of being exposed to the more raw elements.
“I was born to find goblins in their caves
and chase moonlight.
To see shadows and seek hidden rivers.
To hear the rain fall on dry leaves,
and chat a bit with death across foggy nights.”
― James Kavanaugh, Sunshine Days and Foggy Nights
The finding of a den tends to have that slightly uneasy mixture for me. You can't help but tend to wonder who made it, and what their particular experience was. I suppose in a sense, they are the sandcastles of the woods, and as such people tend to enthuse into them a small part of their dreams. Even though they know it will eventually crumble, it doesn't matter. It's the making of them in the first place that is often all that is desired and that they be left behind as markers in the landscape of the mind. Thinking about this, it then hit me that the same could be inferred for the making of dreams themselves and the lifetime of tides that meet them. Time may take some of them away, but it doesn't ever really stop the need of the building, and it never stops the belief in them as being necessary to the spirit.
I think that tree is saying 'Gather round and look at my den!"