Day 32. Part 1. April 1. Mile 417.1 to mile 432

Day 32. Part 1. April 1. Mile 417.1, elev 6006 ft. to mile 432, elev. 5158 ft. Walked 14.9 miles, 2596 up, 3339 down. Total grade  398.8 ft/mi. 

Dear Trail Friends,

The day began with a lot of fear. I was frightened that the repair to my air mattress might prove temporary. I was frightened by how cold I had felt during the night. I know the temperature was not below freezing because my water didn't freeze. But even with all my layers I felt cold. I was worried that most of the remaining hike will be at higher altitudes where temperatures could well dip into the 20s at night. I was scared I wouldn't be able to manage the cold. 

As I hiked - and I didn't get started until 6am - I worried again about how difficult the uphill hiking has become for me. I was aware of various pains - in my shoulder, my foot - and of the discomfort last night when I couldn't get warm enough despite all my stuff. I was also feeling ashamed. Of being slow, being dirty (staying clean on the trail just isn't a high priority for me but sometimes I feel ashamed of how dirty I become), for losing gear and failing to protect it from damage (as in the case of the air mattress), for needing so many items of gear sent to me by Chris and Amazon, ashamed of burdening resupply people (or the post office) with my ridiculous number of packages. 

So, I ask myself. Here I am walking up the trail consumed with difficulty, discomfort, fear and shame. How do I enjoy the trail?

And I waited. It occurred to me that part of what it means to walk through beauty is to be open to receiving beauty when it doesn't come easily or naturally. Fear and shame and difficulty and discomfort pretty much banish beauty from consciousness. I thought that in a way they are that fourth world of darkness the people have to emerge from to see, the Zuni origin myth associated with Ribbon Falls that is the goal of my pilgrimage. 

Maybe I can't make myself see beauty but maybe I can wait, walk through the difficulty and discomfort and shame and fear, willing to be shown beauty. 

Then I heard in my mind a Dory Previn line "They are not alone." Only in her song it is ironic ( about people celebrating vets who died in the war and imagining that their ceremony makes those dead boys not alone). But in my mind it was "I am not alone." I was thinking that everyone who reads this knows about difficulty and shame and fear and discomfort, knows how hard it is to enjoy and to see beauty in that state. 

And then I noticed a pine cone lodged in a cactus (photo 1). I thought of how different pine trees and cacti are, how surprising to find them in the same habitat. Like difficulty and joy. I thought of the way they are both designed with radial symmetry, and then I thought about atoms and galaxies, and wondered if the universe after the Big Bang spirals out and then spirals back in (like Milton the cyclist with his spiral tattoo that for him represents time winding down.) 

 

Then I noticed a fern growing close up against a cactus and once again thought of how for me ferns and cacti belong to different habitats. But here they are together (photo 2). 

 

And again I was struck by the similarity in form between these unlike beings and it gave me joy. 

And the joy began to eclipse the difficulty, discomfort, fear and shame. A moment later I looked up at a pastel rock formation and gasped (photo 3). 

 

I realized it was right beside the rocky ridge where I had planned a rest stop. As I sat and enjoyed my food, I gazed out at this really lovely rock ledge and then vast distances, wave after wave of mountains. 

 

But it was that Dory Previn line, converted to "I am not alone" and robbed of its irony, along with the awareness that all that fear, difficulty, shame and discomfort is part of our shared human condition just as much as the beauty is -- it was that awareness that opened me to seeing the beauty around me again. My moment of emergence. 

To be continued in Day 32, part 2.