Arriving at the spot, the place where I and the machine part
was anticipated; it is a known junction, a place where we, as wild animals must
part with our creature comforts. Gliding through the grass down the short slope
to the edge of the trees, I couldn’t help but notice the dominance of noise coming
from the highway in front of me – a four lane of reasonable size, with reasonable
amounts of traffic on this, the Labor Day weekend holiday. So predominant was
the noise that I longed for the silence of the trees, the whispering of the
wind as it coalesced through moving branches, pleasantly disturbed leaves
hovering over solemn ground; dirt. Having experienced this trail before, I knew
ahead of me the wild noises of nature would again resume and that silence would
be an off-key to the ever-present noise of nature. Walking faster, I found
myself slowly sifting through the sound – able to channel the noise of the large
trees moving over the noise of the large trucks somewhere to my rear.
I am unaware of exactly the transition happens – and it’s
not like a faucet being shut off, but more of a downpour to a trickle to a
droplet – occurring but not exactly easily measurable. And at this point, I
found my speed decreasing, my need for a silently supportive space having come
into existence. For this blissful place, surrounded by green and earthen tones
on all sides, I was grateful. The trail continued to wind up into the range –
gaining elevation on the macro scale, though feeling more variance in the
undulations at present in the micro.
One reason I truly enjoy this trail, this getaway, is the
amount of water one crosses on their way deeper into the mountains. I like to
say that I’m a water baby, bound by the moon, and that the presence of certain
bodies of water have a swaying influence on me. I’ve also been called crazy
before, and the presence of this flowing medium always seems to bring me
back to my element; home. Pausing at one of these flowing side streams, I could
not resist the thirst that formed in my throat, and in bowing down to sip the
clearness below I found myself nearly flat against the ground, hovering through
muscular tension – the physical body – above the quaint but well-defined flow
of water. Finding immediate relief in its quick quenching, I rose, adjusted my
glasses back onto the bridge of my nose, and continued up the narrow path.
Walking in the woods, surrounded by the alive and breathing
beings of the forest I sometimes find myself to be in a moving meditation. While
my thoughts may need to surface and issue from my lips as I walk along, there
eventually comes a point when I exert mental influence over my thoughts and
cease to speak/process; instead, I find myself focused on everything, and
nothing at the same time – alert, oriented, eyes open – though not speaking –
just being. As if being shaken from a deep dream, one where you have imagined
things beyond the normalcy of life, I quickly detected a pulsing body of noise,
almost like an angry swarm of hornets approaching. What racket! Snapping back
to my comprehension of the world and all its encompassing things, I realized
the plight: a gang of leather and chrome bikers rumbling their way up the paved
grade, ground by machines hoping to exert a tameness to the wilds, on the
nearby Blue Ridge Parkway. Such nuisance to me in my semi-wilderness state.
However, this is a shared space on the overall, and as much as this audible
racket disturbed my senses, I acknowledged that that was how these riders of the obnoxious experienced
pleasure – call it their own form of moving mediation.
Thankful that the 15 seconds of silence-shattering noise had
passed, I continued on, across another larger drainage where the local trail
club had volunteered their time and efforts to build an impressive log bridge. Realizing
I had brought my rain jacket out of concern for the elements, as well as my
hat, I paused on the side of the trail to temporarily lighten my load. I wanted
to feel light, and carrying these
items sans pack was appealing to me. Carrying onward, free to let my arms and
hands swing in the gentle breeze, I found my focus once again to be in the
oversized world around me. Eventually, after a few off-slope traverses, past
another small drainage of water, running with a cool elementalness, I came to a
tall oak tree. It did not seem any more remarkable than the trees surrounding
it, however, it was larger, and therefore, in my perception, older than most in
this area. Pausing beneath its hulking mass I looked up the erect trunk, craning
my neck higher yet, and allowed my presence to be silent. In some part of my
subconscious I could hear the conversation of men, discussing the amount of
board feet a species of this size would produce; thoughts of another time –
perhaps not too distant. Acknowledging this observation at the level of my own consciousness,
I found, in focusing, that I did not see that same conclusion directly before
my eyes – instead, I found a long and tall, living and breathing being. Just as
alive as I, with, what I thought, an inherit right to be.
Waxing onward, past the romanticism of individual species
rights, I reached a point in my short journey to turn back. This is sometimes
the hardest part – just when I want to keep spiraling into the world of nature –
the wilds – I acknowledge the unprepared nature of my current state, and
silently promise to return. Reminding me of the little boy from The Giving Tree
(Shel Silverstein), who promises to return to the great giving tree.
Eventually, I wound my way back to where I’d come: the spot at the bottom of
the ridge where I’d left my belongings; the drainages with their liquid mediums
issuing downhill in a gravity-fed manner; the undulations in all their up and
down-ness; the quickening of my mind going from wilderness time to that more of
the artificial man-made sort. Thoughts of what time it could be drifted into my
thoughts, I had to work this afternoon and there were errands to run yet in town.
Surely in those thoughts, distracting in their nature, I missed something in
the present – a tree dancing, almost as if it was waving, greeting me, having
seen me walk past before. Only in this reflection can I acknowledge that I
missed something – though, I truly gained something as well; evidence in motion
through this written recollection.
For this space I am grateful. I am also grateful for the
ability to recall and share – to have been present in those moments,
experiencing something greater and grander than my creative consciousness
alone. For as much as I enjoy the marvels and comforts of the world of clocks and toilets, I feel far
more clear-headed in the world of the
wilds. So to you in your day, perhaps accessing the at-large through this
digital medium, I hope you are able to leave things behind for even just a
number of clarifying minutes or hours to embrace the natural world, arms wide,
chest and heart open, as it wishes to be. Grateful to be experiencing this life
in its current exactness.
Love and thanks to many and all,
Alan.