Contemplative Hiking

We’ve all had those days, haven’t we? Something bad happens, someone says something insensitive, and suddenly our good mood is gone. Someone offends us and we feel threatened, angry and resentful. It isn’t long before the toxic thoughts (“what a jerk!”) turn into toxic, body-felt emotions: headache, heartburn, tight shoulders and stomach, nausea and even [...]

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The best thing about having a regular contemplative practice in nature is that there’s always a place to go, literally or just in your mind, where you are taken out of your ego self and into a realm that holds beauty and timelessness.

Feeling burn out is a sign that you need time away to do something new and rejuvenating to your mind and body. If you’re a hiker and enjoy being out in nature, it’s a good time to find a trail in a new location—somewhere you’ve always wanted to go or a place with new scenery and landscapes. When even hiking doesn’t sound all that fun any more, you know it’s time to get out of your usual rut and go somewhere unfamiliar.

How mindful are you of your body? Can you tell when your energy tank is half-full, so have just about enough stamina to hike safely back to your car? Or do you become so distracted by the company you’re keeping, by your goal and by the scenery that you exhaust yourself and don’t realize it until it’s too late?

In winter, since we don’t spend as much time outdoors, we really cut ourselves off from the sights and (particularly) the sounds of nature. All we listen to most of the time are sounds that come from machines or other humans: the hum of the computer, the blare of television, the rumble of a car motor, the chatter of a co-worker.

Every time I go on a hike, I notice something new that I hadn’t noticed before: an oddly shaped tree, a bright green and fuzzy patch of moss that’s especially inviting, or a bird or animal that catches my attention. The same river is never the same river twice.

The feeling may have been fleeting. It may have lasted a few hours. It may have even jolted your perception of the world and your place in it. However long it lasted, it affected you. You suspect that for that brief moment in time, you had touched the Divine. Whether you call it God, Spirit, Universe, or simply Nature, you knew that you wanted to experience more of it.

When we think we know everything there is to know—about a person, a thing, an idea or a place—then we lose the ability to receive new information and experiences. When we close ourselves off from the world by judging it and then dismissing it, we actually shrink our lives.

But by the time we returned to within 45 minutes of the parking lot, at around 11:30 a.m., there were dozens and dozens of people enjoying the scenery. Families, babies, dogs, children, older folks, foreigners, tourists, you name it. It was the Disneyland of Hiking.