In December, a storm brought down a 300-year-old beech tree in the woodland where my son and I take near-daily walks. The fallen tree was poised to become a nurse log nurturing new life yet to come. For the first time, we could bodily experience the expanse of such a tree, balancing along the length of its massive trunk.

Weeks later, it was removed for “safety and forest management.” In the video, I juxtapose footage of my son balancing on the fallen tree with footage of its absence, compressing them so he appears to walk on air. Here technology operates as both translation and rupture. The compression of two recordings produces an illusion, an “almost” experience that foregrounds the gap between embodied encounter and its technological reproduction. This tension reflects the ecological transition more broadly: as we lean on data, simulations, and digital infrastructures to understand the more-than-human world, there remains something irreducible in lived, bodily experience—walking, touching, balancing—that no image can replace. The work insists on this embodied dimension while also reluctantly acknowledging the role that technology might play in reframing how we perceive ecological change.