ONE STEP AT A TIME

Feeling the end of a quick and filled summer ...

I think the 9 day trip around Mt. Rainier would be the memory I most take away from it, even more than a trip half way around the World to Cape Town.

It isn't the physical journeys I take, but the mental ones that are the most memorable. The delving deep inside of who, and where, and why I am in this World. Breaking away to new places and cultures can often break me away from the staleness of the everyday, and awaken a new awareness, but I still must have time to live within and soak into that experience. Often the whirlwind of travel doesn't afford that. Something about the rhythmic plodding on trail, or glacier, or mountain, awakens a deep awareness of being that is can be lost in the blur of images of new experiences.

..... And being away from the electronic umbilical cord of modern life. To often, I find myself defining myself in terms of "the other". How my life plays upon someone else's stage. It is difficult to break far enough away, that I am able to stand alone, and say, "This is me".

Even when hiking, I will find myself in communion with another, discussing, arguing, loving, embracing. Only after several days of walking, plodding, climbing, descending, that do I begin to awaken into the moment of being. Apart, but connected to the eternal.

Robby and I took maybe our final hike on Mt. Hood for this year. It's one of my favorite trails, about 12-14 miles, up through forest, and then meadows, and finally the rocks hugging the side of the mountain.