Contemplative Hiking

I wondered what the take-away message was from this hike and I decided there wasn’t really a message. I had stepped into the living (and dining) room of Burning Bear Creek, intruded on a lunch buffet, eavesdropped on afternoon gossip, and tromped through what may have been a period of bereavement or rest for a tribe of cows. It was regular life and death drama, going on as it does every day, every month, every year, whether humans see it (and hear it) or not.

If stars evolved into humans in order to be self-aware, what is our purpose as human beings in the Universe?

By slowing down even more, you can heighten your experience in ways that will stick in your memory for a long time. When you’re seeing something passively, you’re missing out on a lot.

During their time in the wilderness, there was symbolic meaning from things they observed from the weather, animals and the landscape that they interpreted in relationship to their own life. The “messages” they received told them of their purpose in life, revealed their special gifts and talents, and instructed them how to use those gifts to benefit their tribe when they returned.

Being in this landscape is an opportunity to contemplate the ways that our own lives are touched by the careless words and actions of others, by the wrong decision at the wrong time, by cruelty and abuse. It’s a way to consider what healing looks like and feels like, and the ways we often suffer more than we need to.

But can a tree communicate with a person through some sort of energetic or psychic capacity? You can try this game to find out.

Photos from a post-blizzard early spring hike at Chautauqua McClintock trail.

Does the experience of the land have anything to do with the feeling we get from it?

My resistance to the fact that it was still winter and that it was going to be several months more of bare trees and snow on the ground in the mountains was making me feel irritable. It was causing me to suffer when I didn’t have to. There’s a way to obtain relief from suffering and worry, resistance and anxiety. All you have to do is disassociate yourself from ego, get out of your head and snap right into the present moment. This contemplative activity is about doing just that.

In order to practice the skill of intuitive wisdom, you have to get away from all those distractions and stay completely present and open to hearing what you really feel and know in your heart. You can do this on solo walks, hikes or through mindful meditation at home. By cultivating this inner knowing you acknowledge that you have all the resources inside yourself already to solve or simply understand just about any problem or hardship that confronts you.