view from the top

Here is the view from the fire tower at the summit of Overlook Mountain above Woodstock. This hike was probably one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. But after reflecting on it, I have come to realize the spiritual dimension of what I did. I was all alone that morning. When we reunite with Nature, we are really meeting ourselves, because we are part of Nature, not separate from it. This is a hackneyed saying, but experiencing something like this, or swimming in the mountain streams like I did, really makes you realize how estranged we are from our true selves. All the trappings of society are just false gods. I don’t just mean that our minds or our spirits are part of Nature. It’s our bodies mostly. Everything we are made of was once part of an exploding star. If we believe in evolution, then human life began with the organic materials that were found on our planet millions of year ago. We literally crawled out of the earth. Of course, civilization has its charms, and we all love our cell phones, coffee, and polyester underwear, but at the most basic level, we are star-stuff.

my disappearance

I have been absent lately. Maybe it’s the fact that I can’t tell how many people are reading my feed because WordPress discontinued their feed stats. Maybe it’s because I’ve been away, celebrating my 40th birthday in the woods, hiking and swimming in mountain streams, visiting Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and having run-ins with black bears. Maybe it’s because I’ve been too caught up in my reading (Hesse, Mann) and am living in my own mind, shutting out the outside world. I really can’t say. But here’s a picture of one of the places I swam while I was away, near Woodstock, NY. Enjoy.