Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I try to turn most things into an exercise. Sometimes, I can't get a workout in, so I will do things like park further away at the grocery store or take the stairs. It may not be much, but I've convinced myself it does something. Mind over matter. Ha! But my regular workouts consist of hiking, Cardio Barre, and light weight training.
I was hiking a five-day loop - alone - in the Rocky Mountains when I rounded the switchback and saw a large body on the trail ahead. It had brown fur with a cinnamon tinge that was draped across dense, humped back muscle. A broad head lifted and I could see the dish-shaped muzzle was catching my scent. I knew bears. This was a grizzly.
The famous Zen parable about the master for whom, before his studies, mountains were only mountains, but during his studies mountains were no longer mountains, and afterward mountains were again mountains could be interpreted as an alleory about [the perpetual paradox that when one is closest to a destination one is also the farthest).
Shokaku is a crane of some kind.' 'For lifting things?' Will asked. 'For flying. A large bird type of crane,' she corrected him. 'In fact, as near I can Work it out, Shokaku means “a flying crane". 'Seems like a logical thing for a crane to do,' Halt mused. 'I suppose you wouldn't expect it to mean “a hiking crane" or “a waddling crane".'
For some reason, some of my best solutions and ideas are triggered in those dark theaters, usually totally unrelated to what's going on onscreen. I also enjoy hiking in the foothills and mountains close to Sacramento. I always have to bring a pen and paper to jot down sudden thoughts and ideas. So inspiration arises from countless sources.
My daughter lives in an apartment (hovel) in Brooklyn, so disgusting the roaches don't even bother hiking up the four flights of stairs to her door. Did I mention that she has a family of mice living under her stove? If she would promise to carry a weapon in her bag, I would never ask her to visit again. Best Mother's Day gift I could ask for!
I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh hour of four o'clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the daylight, have felt as if I had committed some sin to be atoned for.
With the first step, the number of shapes the walk might take is infinite, but then the walk begins to define itself as it goes along, though freedom remains total with each step: any tempting side road can be turned into an impulse, or any wild patch of woods can be explored. The pattern of the walk is to come true, is to be recognized, discovered.
Food is like a torture device because hiking 47 miles a day is hard enough. And then you're trying to get down 6,000 calories a day. Every hour, I needed a snack, every few hours I had to take in a meal and it's just not food, it's fuel. You're not enjoying it - you're seriously shoving it in your mouth and following it with water, juice or Gatorade.
Going down (descending), I realized, was like taking hold of the loose strand of yard on a sweater you'd just spent hours knitting and pulling it until the entire sweater unraveled into a pile of string. Hiking the PCT was the maddening effort of knitting that sweater and unraveling it over and over again. As if everything gained was inevitably lost.
Gardening is a long road, with many detours and way stations, and here we all are at one point or another. It's not a question of superior or inferior taste, merely a question of which detour we are on at the moment. Getting there (as they say) is not important; the wandering about in the wilderness or in the olive groves or in the bayous is the whole point.
And what exactly is nature walking? It's any and every kind of walking you can do in the natural world. The activity encompasses strolling, striding, sauntering, stepping, treading, tramping, traipsing, traversing, rambling, roving, roaming, racewalking, hiking, meandering, wandering, wending, pacing, peregrinating, perambulating ... in natural surroundings.
I wasn't in a position that some other memoirists are, dealing with families who fed them meth, or kidnapped them, or did something that would make the writer not want to see that family again. I wanted to see my family. I wanted to celebrate them. I was proud of who we were, in the wilderness, floating down rapids or hiking over glaciers, and everywhere else.
Simplicity in all things is the secret of the wilderness and one of its most valuable lessons. It is what we leave behind that is important. I think the matter of simplicity goes further than just food, equipment, and unnecessary gadgets; it goes into the matter of thoughts and objectives as well. When in the wilds, we must not carry our problems with us or the joy is lost.
I love a good wool suit, and I appreciate the fact that it's a natural fiber. I know where it comes from, and I know how it's bred. And it's built to last. It breathes and it feels good. A lot of my climbing and hiking gear is all wool, because I can wear it for a week straight and it doesn't smell. And when you get hot and sweaty in a cold temperature, it stays warm. So your body temperature stays at a good warmth rather than freezing your ass off.
Some mountaineers are proud of having done all their climbs without bivouac. How much they have missed ! And the same applies to those who enjoy only rock climbing, or only the ice climbs, onyl the ridges or faces. We should refuse none of the thousands and one joys that the mountains offer us at every turn. We should brush nothing aside, set no restrictions. We should experience hunger and thirst, be able to go fast, but also to go slowly and to contemplate.
Climbing is the lazy man's way to enlightenment. It forces you to pay attention, because if you don't, you won't succeed, which is minor - or you may get hurt, which is major. Instead of years of meditation, you have this activity that forces you to relax and monitor your breathing and tread that line between living and dying. When you climb, you always are confronted with the edge. Hey, if it was just like climbing a ladder, we all would have quit a long time ago.
The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage through a series of thoughts. The creates an odd consonance between internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and that walking is one way to traverse it. A new thought often seems like a feature of the landscape that was there all along, as though thinking were traveling rather than making.
Walking I am unbound, and find that precious unity of life and imagination, that silent outgoing self, which is so easy to loose, but which a high moments seems to start up again from the deepest rhythms of my own body. How often have I had this longing for an infinite walk - of going unimpeded, until the movement of my body as I walk fell into the flight of streets under my feet - until I in my body and the world in its skin of earth were blended into a single act of knowing.
In its outward manifestation, meditation appears to involve either stopping, by parking the body in a stillness that suspends activity, or giving oneself over to flowing movement. In either case, it is an embodiment of wise attention, an inward gesture undertaken for the most part in silence, a shift from doing to simply being. It is an act that may at first seem artificial but that we soon discover, if we keep at it, is ultimately one of pure love for the life unfolding within us and around us.
Until I understand where I am, I can’t get to where I am going. This is the value of a compass when we are out walking or hiking and need to know we’re going in the right direction. But we also have an internal North Star. It’s that little nudge that tells us if we are on the right path to fulfilling our potential, or on the wrong path wasting energy traveling somewhere we don’t need to go. So my advice to you is, pull out that compass every once in a while and make sure you are navigating in the right direction on your journey.
Hiking - I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike! Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, "A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them."
The rule of thumb for the old backpacking was that the weight of your pack should equal the weight of yourself and the kitchen range combined. Just a casual glance at the full pack sitting on the floor could give you a double hernia and fuse four vertebrae. After carrying the pack all day, you had to remember to tie one leg to a tree before you dropped it. Otherwise you would float off into space. The pack eliminated the need for any special kind of ground-gripping shoes, because your feet would sink a foot and a half into hard-packed earth, two inches into solid rock.
