The thing about out-and-back hikes is that you get to hike everything again in reverse. The landmarks are familiar and for better or worse, you know what’s coming. In this case, it’s a moderate downhill hike back to the crossing of Raven Fork. I was halfway into the day and I stopped for some lunch at the intersection of Enloe Creek and Hughes Ridge Trail. With cold stiff fingers, I tried to capture a few notes of what had happened today between bites of cheese, nuts, and fig bars.
It was two miles back down to Raven Fork and I wondered if my hiking companion would return. I am generally a fast hiker, which means I often catch up to others in front of me. I have startled my share of other hikers and knowing this, I usually try to rustle leaves with my feet or cough while I am still well behind those ahead of me. Once in a while this happens to me, where a trail runner or a really fast hiker silently catches me from behind and there is a split second between awareness of another close creature and that surprised jump we do when we are startled. But this was not the case today. In my thoughts, I realized I was not alone and said, “you’re back” to which came the reply, “I AM”, The Creator of the universe has a sense of humor.
When you walk with I AM, the conversation does not go linearly in a way one would write down as dialogue. Awareness of time suspends and you think about everything, or nothing all at once. Natural features in the landscape seem to communicate emotion and you notice things you missed, even though you may have just hiked the same trail and hour before. Underneath it all is just a simple awareness of presence. This happens when I am with others I am close to. The conversation pauses as both of you witness the moment in silence, sharing it together, aware of the other and just being there. Just being.
This 900 Miler map carries some routines for me that I am anxious to be rid of. I committed this time to capture as many milestones and landmarks of trails as I can and put them together in a databook showing hikers where the water crossings and campsites are. To do this, I take a lot of pictures and record a lot of voice memos. I have between one and three GPS devices to record mileage between landmarks and they are never in agreement so I mediate between their reports, constantly. In short, I bring a lot of technology from the world with me, which consumes my attention and often distracts me from the moment. On this return hike, the job was done and I was able to turn off my left brain and just take in the spaces, the sounds, the smells. The ford across Enloe Creek, with its cold and rapid moving water was a different experience since I wasn’t recording it as an objective landmark. The water was cold but it was alive. The full sound of the small rapids and the cold air felt good to be around. I noticed each rock where I placed my feet and there was no animus or resentment toward the water for making my feet wet. I was in the creation and the creation was a part of me. Balance. Wholeness.
“…that day that I really discovered what it means to be alive as another animal in a natural place. That changed my life.”
Gordon Hempton from a conversation with Krista Tippet on On Bieing
My mind checked back into real time when I got back to Campsite #47 at the bridge over Raven Fork. I took inventory of the campsite on my voice recorder, got out my journal and then scrambled the boulders to find a good perch for experiencing what is one of my favorite places in the Smokies. Gordon Hempton has taught me a lot about how to listen in silence. Raven Fork is anything but silent but in a way it is. That much water creates what sound techs call “white noise”, which is all audible frequencies combined in what we hear as loud static. As I sat on my perch I really started to listen to this choir of moving water. There was a drip nearby where a melting icicle was adding its contribution to the concert. There was an alto sound where a side stream split off the main channel and filled a small pool that overflowed back into the creek. The tenor section was the main flow over the rocks right below my boulder perch. There was a low rumble of basses where the water dropped into a deep hole between the rocks. That rumble caused a vibration I could feel through the rock boulder on which I was sitting. I could actually feel the music.
I opened my eyes and saw a row of icicles hanging along a log in the creek. They were arranged like a set of chimes with different lengths. There were massive tree trunks tangled in the rocks like someone played a game of pickup sticks with giant trees, a testament to the massive power of water in the mountains. One tree trunk was set vertically right in front of me and out of the end grew a young rhododendron shoot; new life out of passed life. The opposite side of the canyon was draped in rhododendron and laurel, bearing quiet evergreen witness in this deciduous winter landscape. Creation was alive and powerful, singing in full voice in praise of the Creator. The rocks really do cry out.
“The question you will ponder from this is did you just show up randomly or were you drawn here, to be here… at this precise moment?”
In this moment, I wondered, “was all this sent here just for me?” The arrogance and selfishness of the thought immediately hit when came the reply, “No. This space, this water, these rocks and and trees and plants, these sounds and smells, the vibration of life you feel – all was made at the moment when creation began. It was all set to be here at this moment., with or without you. The question you will ponder from this is did you just show up randomly or were you drawn here, to be here… at this precise moment?”
And that was the third blessing. The the clarity of an encounter with the Creator among the Creation. The Creation does not exist for humans. Rather, humans are part of Creation. Everything that happens in the wilderness, every sight, sound and smell was ordained to be where it is and exactly when it is. The Creator can always find you where you are but perhaps it is because you were supposed to be there anyway. I believe I was invited to be here and share this moment. I believe that because I was not going to come and I already had a plan B for abandoning the day. There was no compelling reason to be here with the cold, cloudy and damp weather and the obstacles to overcome. And I certainly did not come here expecting blessings. I was only out to check off some mileage for my 900 Miler map. But I came anyway, not against my will, but for some unknown reason that I just knew I should hike that day. You will find I AM when I AM chooses. For some reason, it tends to happen in the wilderness and not because you go there looking. I think it’s about leaving behind what distracts you in the real world, including time itself, taking only what you need with the understanding that your purpose in being there is just to be.
In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent learned how to fly, completely by mistake, which is the only way humans can fly. It happened because he threw himself at the ground from a height, expecting to die or at least incur severe injury. But in the last possible moment his attention was distracted from falling, or more importantly, landing in catastrophe. In that moment, he simply missed the ground and as long as he didn’t concern himself with the act of falling, he was able to fly. He was able to develop it into an art. This probably has nothing to do with encountering the Creator in the wilderness but maybe it does. The Creator finds you when you are not expecting it, distracted by other things. The question is whether one can develop it into an art. It is too soon to tell but I will enjoy trying to figure it out.
That is what I have to offer on Christmas Day, when we celebrate I AM coming to live among us.
Merry Christmas to my fellow humans. I hope to see you in the wilderness.
To be still, to cherish, to be grateful…
Copyright 2019 by Shawn A. Carson
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