There’s an odd feeling when standing under the beating sun on an immensely hot day in a dry country. You find yourself irritated at times but at others pleasantly delighted in the sensation. A much better feeling than being drenched in what one would assume was a torrential downpour in wetter climates. THere’s also a magnificant feeling when you’re out nowhere looking at steepes and mesas or just the low hills that one finds in the desert regions. When the sun hits the perfect spot and coats your surroundings in red you can’t but help to delve quietly into your own head and wonder about the countless ages and people whose eyes and existences have touched what you’re seeing. It’s what I would assume Thoreau felt when he would took himself to Walden. It also conjures up Native American pow wow’s I have witnessed and taken part in as well as other ceremonies as such.
Always the introspection but also the comedy as well. The comedy of being separated from people by 30 feet and getting a kick from watching their fire flare up as more palm leaves were added on to keep them warm as they held a nightlong vigil. The comedy of watching chipmunks attempt to steal food out of our packs while our scoutmaster was lying there with a blow knee but cursing them and scaring them with pebbles and uttering how he wish he could smoke again. Or as we finish going through level 1 rapids, we watch in amusement as one of our buddies is tackled out of the boat by one of our guides after he made a wise-crack about her earlier on. All in good fun but all in areas and moments where introspection and light-heartedness collided.
It’s a feeling with awe and acceptance of being close to home when you throw your pack on your back and start trekking even though at times you’re going to hate everything but the beauty witnessed blows away the awe you felt at the beginning. All in the aesthetics and beauty of light playing with nature or light playing in forgotten small towns or loud roaring cities. Our feelings stir in the aesthetics. It is a philosophical ideology but it’s also psychological in the way it stirs a mix of appreciation for your smallness as well as a drawing of the strings of a more primal self that we shrug off, sometimes for lifetimes.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods…
For the Rest of Us... 