"Me conmueven los jóvenes que se duermen con un libro debajo de la cabeza. Un libro es la mejor almohada que existe.”--Bolaño
In the tent, I was using two pillows--Gary Snyder's Practice of the Wild and Craig Romano's Backpacking Washington, the latter for pragmatic purposes and the former for spiritual reasons. Snyder's Buddhist-influenced ruminations on the wild were a perfect accompaniment to my dreams and our environs, so I will quote below:
"Wild is largely defined in our definitions by what --from a human standpoint--it is not. It cannot be seen by this approach for what it is. Turn it the other way:
Of animals--free agents, each with its own endowments, living within natural systems.
Of plants--self-propagating, self-maintaining, flourishing in accord with innate qualities.
Of land--a place where the original and potential vegetation and fauna are intact and in full interaction and the landforms ares entirely the result of nonhuman forces. Pristine."
He goes on...
Without a doubt, we were in a truly wild land, by Snyder's definition, walking the Horseshoe Basin in the Pasayten wilderness, north central Washington state just below the border with Canada. Wolf, coyote, cougar, bobcat scat abounded. Land was intact and the result of nonhuman forces.
When things are going well, music plays loudly in my head and while walking these snippets of songs accompanied me while rounding corners to impending snow and changing winds. Sunny Pass wasn't so sunny--a cold fog greeted us. All of these songs have kept me going through life and they kept us going through the weather and the terrain.
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| Icy sunrise and Windy Peak in the background |
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| Windy Peak through the Tripod forest fire of 2006. |
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| Multiple layers |
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| Waiting for the weather to turn |
"I was waiting on a moment
But that moment never came
All the billion other moments
Were just slipping all away..."
"As the dawn began to break
I had to surrender
The universe will have its way
Too powerful to master"
"Looking into space, it surrounds you
Love is the place that you're drawn to"
"Laugh in the sunshine
sing
cry in the dark
fly
through the night
Don't cry now
Don't you cry
Don't you cry
anymore
lalalada
Sleep
in the stars
don't you cry
dry your eyes
on the wind
lalalala
la........"
"Tell everybody
Waitin' for Superman
That they should try to
Hold on
Best they can
He hasn't dropped them
Forgot them
Or anything
It's just too heavy for Superman to lift"
