A Limp in the Woods (Day 120)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 120: Monday, July 22nd, 2013
Big Branch Shelter to Clarendon Gorge = 16 miles
Miles to date: 1,680

Dear God No

As this trek-n-tell emerges from its bowels, and as I write all these words in a row--this properly embellished truth--I’ve come to the divine realization that the AT has finally taken a turn for the better. Although it’s true churches and Aryan Jesus Incorporated were more rampant in the Rust Belt, there is little doubt that God is more prevalent up here. Or was.(1) The Big Cheese clearly took Her time in these parts, as should I. As should I.

~~~~~~~~~~

A quick desultory slide: a faithful atheist, a devout anti-theist, I herewith present some favorite correlated sound bites. They come courtesy of five of my favorite wise guys (not so much the final five freaks). Conceived to spur thought (for those who believe in it), for those who refuse to infuse the godly Kool-Aid:

Edward Paul Abbey:
“How strange and wonderful is our home, our earth, with its swirling vaporous atmosphere, its flowing and frozen liquids, its trembling plants, its creeping, crawling, climbing creatures, the croaking things with wings that hang on rocks and soar through fog, the furry grass, the scaly seas… how utterly rich and wild… Yet some among us have the nerve, the insolence, the brass, the gall, to whine about the limitations of our earthbound fate and yearn for some more perfect world beyond the sky. We are none of us good enough for the world we have.”

Henry David Thoreau:
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

 Robert Nesta Marley:
“Most people think
Great God will come from the sky
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth...”

Hubert Reeves:
“Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.”

Henry Miller:
“I have found God, but he is insufficient.”

Funnybone:

“And on the first day God said, ‘Let there be evolution.’” 

 

Funnybone:
“Heaven can go to hell; I believe in Earth. As long as humans are present, utopia cannot be.”

Funnybone:
“The God Façade!”

 Funnybone:
“In God we bust.”

Funnybone:

“Eternity is a dumb line of thinking.

I mean, where’s it end?”

Then there’s Susan B. Anthony: “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”

Or, if you’re too lazy to read, watch Carlin’s take on similar subjects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IRxpjEZveQ (We swear to tell the truth with our hand on a book of lies!)

Enough impiety. We will not be discussing this. The power of illusion is strong, and it’s not mine to pick apart. (I really don’t mind Jesus; it’s his fan club that worries me.)

~~~~~~~~~~

 

After nearly a thousand and a half miles of treed tunneling and bisecting the dregs, the path now seeks higher, more heavenly ground on a semi-frequent basis. It’s about time! No more spiritual malnourishment! (Whatever your faith, time in Nature restores it. People ought to sit in Nature, not inside, to better understand God.) No more acedia!

Like most hikers, I favor the macrocosm over the micro. (It’d be odd to have a microcosm over a macrocosm; how would we ever see it?) I don’t know the percentage of path buried beneath treetops, but it’s too great. Not great. (Calling the AT a National Scenic Trail is a bit of an overstatement.) The trail could use a few forest fires. Massive mothers--VERDURE MURDER! Then might I make a connection to this holy land. Fire might also kill off the gnats and the mosquitoes.

Of course views (and forest fires) slow the hiker, for he becomes every bit as much a sitter when there’s reason to park himself. Big eye candy is a big reason. Hell, on a sunny summer day, on almost every peak or pass in my present home state of Colorado, you’ll find humans. They’re there for good reason. Or not…often they just want to check peaks off the list for bragging purposes. Bagging, bragging dirtbags.

There was more rain last night. But it had moved on when morning moved in. Though the chance of a forest fire was nil today, the opportunity for cooler hiking was high. And so we nudged our way north like the maddest of monks on the most quixotic of quests. Could fall be around the corner? I hope. They say Vermont in fall cannot be topped (except by snow) and I certainly fall for it, given the calendar pictures I’ve seen. But if I’m still here then, on foot, something’s amiss.

Tugboat pulled ahead soon after we started. We wouldn’t see him again--we weren’t being tugged. The dude hikes three times the rate of a normal gait; as a result, he’s gone lickety-split, immediately ahead by a country mile. (On the AT, they’re all country miles.) He’s afforded three times the rest, but today he didn’t rest. Or maybe he did, but Chickadee and I never caught up to him while he’d done so. It wasn’t that we were dragging--we’d do sixteen miles by day’s end--but that we’d’ve been dragging him. And, as everyone knows, tugboats should never be dragged! Drugged, maybe.

Anyway, Chickadee and I would hike lock-step almost the entire day. Her injured self is my healthiest self. But the terrain was forgiving and the cooler climes made it one of the nicest days yet, of the hundred plus we’ve been out. We were heedful to avoid squishing the plump, colorless slugs that’d taken over the trail. A slugfest. The slimy creatures looked as though they’d been dropped from another planet (how I feel about myself, incidentally), and the many crushed ones, lying lifelessly inside-out, proved that not all hikers before us were as vigilant. The sight crushed us. The trail is just another intrusion to those who call the woods home.

I continued to tune in to our surroundings. Chickadee, like so many others, tuned in to her iPhone, earphones plugged in like an IV (iV). Our ears ought to be something other than auxiliary input jacks, I thought to my lonesome, pondering why anyone would aim to escape or tune out of such a majestic milieu. iSolation.

Opting for the acoustic over the electronic, I was connected--tethered?--to the landscape, listening to birds, bees, breezes, and the breaking of branches beneath our fumbling feet. All magical. What was she attuned to? Digitized drum beats, synthesized bass and mechanized voices? The kids today (iCulture) are growing up in a different world, but much of it is their choice. “Leave your mind alone,” said Virgil Thomson, “and see what happens.” There’s no better place to disconnect (and reconnect) than in Nature. It is in our nature.

Heeding an addiction

For whatever reason I silently grew frustrated in this behavior, as though it was secondhand smoke, and we’d slowly drift apart. But then my friend would wait for me and we’d regroup. Whether she was scared alone, or bored alone, or missed my companionship, I cannot say. Ultimately, I think Chickadee, whose parents and stepparents know as Lauren--because that’s her name--detected my frustration. She shed her “noise-canceling” ear-buds. I was happy to have her company once more. (iHappy.) She’s quiet but thoughtful and intelligent, and I could use someone else’s thoughts. iThink.

Around lunchtime, or our first of many anyway, we came to a clearing in the woods near the White Rocks Cliff trail junction. Previous hikers--or aliens--had stacked rocks in all manners and designs. Treetops still obscured the pallid sky, but they were spaced apart, and all were of the needlecraft. Evergreens. Ever fragrant. Ever attractive. The scent was a case of Olfactory Overload, but it was the sight that stole our attention. Stolen or not, it was something to behold, a rocky Zen garden in what appeared to be a sculpted forest. The forest was au naturel; only the rocks had been sculpted, scripted, conscripted.

As we sat and ate as we had umpteen times before--alfresco, treetops for a rooftop--Chickadee joked that the whole AT was a rock garden. “A rock garden, a root garden, a rain garden, a bog garden, a bug garden...”

She paused.

“...and, I suppose to some, a Zen garden.”

“It’s all garden-variety,” I joked.

She didn’t laugh.

I let Chickadee leave before me, not because I assumed I’d catch her (I probably wouldn’t), but because I love knocking over cairns. There was much work to do. Why must humans leave their mark everywhere? Well, call me the restorer.

Late in the day, after I’d caught back up and we’d set our sights elsewhere, we closed in on Clarendon Gorge. There we’d gorge ourselves silly. Our Elsewhere Now behavior was hardly Zen-like, but we did forge ahead in a Zen-like manner. The goal was to hitchhike into nearby Rutland, if we reached the highway (VT 103) early enough. 

Frequent pit-stops put a stop to that notion, so we’d end up camping side-by-side above a raucous Mill River, setting up shop in the dark. Or mostly dark; a full moon ignites the night, even from behind cloud cover. We’d been told by other hikers that there were inviting swimming holes in the area, but the recent rains engulfed the entire corridor; all we could make out was a muddy mess headed elsewhere in a hurry. A muddy mess headed elsewhere in a hurry! A commonality we shared with the river.

Around (true) midnight Chickadee riled me.

“Hey, Funnybone. Can you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Something alive’s out there.”

“It’s probably just trees.”

“Alive, as in an animal.” She paused.

“A large animal with fangs.” She paused again.

“Or tusks.”

“It’s probably a mastodon. Does the sound sound nearer to your tent or mine?”

“Mine.”

“Oh, in that case, good night.”

"Fool"note 1: I think God committed suicide, no?