The Appalachian Trail in summer is sooo inviting! This part of the trail on Cold Mountain, in Virginia, could be sporting Maria VonTrapp singing ” the hills are alive with the sound of music!”
Feel the freshness of wind, drink in the fragrance of tall grass,breathe in, no DRINK in, crisp air and sunshine! That’s the AT! Come join me! I’m imagining all sorts of walks that could be done to rejuvenate, to reevaluate, to reeliven! To explore! To try something new!
Starting this fall, I’ll be offering short walks in the Atlanta, GA area, for tasting the wonders of walking in Nature. I’ll also start a series of online classes to entice potential long-distance hikers to the joys of staying out for one to ten days on the trails in Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. Stay tuned! If you’ve always wanted to get out hiking but didn’t know when, where, or how, this could be the program for you!
I love my job as a Ridgerunner for the Applachian Trail Conservancy! While doing my job, I get to walk on the wonderful, beautiful Appalachian Trail every day! And that’s not even the best part. The best part is that I get to meet people at trailheads who are just considering walking this path. They’re so eager and curious to explore this legendary path.
When I speak with them, all the memories of my months of hiking come back in a flood of grandeur. That feels great! Then, I encourage them to join me, keeping three things in mind:
For your first hike:
1. Make it EASY! Choose a path that’s simple to walk. Ask for a suggestion from another hiker, check a guidebook, or check a map with elevation information.
2. Make it SHORT! Go out for a couple of hours, then a day, then an overnight. Work up gradually to a week.
3. Keep it FUN! Take along food you enjoy, a liter of water for every four hours, and come back BEFORE you’re tired.
Get started gently on your treks and you’ll be building up to longer, farther, and continually better walks. I’ll see you on the trail!
Solitude
Alone perhaps?
Mist envelopes me
Isolating me with Nature
Connection made within
Peace returns
Gratitude
I wrote this “Diamont” while sitting alone atop Spy Rock, a bare rock in southwest Virginia on the Appalachian Trail. I was feeling lonely, not getting a connection on my cell phone as I usually had at that spot. So, I challenged myself to rise from the doldrums and use the Diamont poem form to look deeply into the feeling. Transformation!
Try it yourself! In any situation! Basically, it’s a seven line poem:
First line: One word to name the object or situation
Second line: Two words to describe it
Third line: Three words to say what it’s doing.
Fourth line: Four words to say how you’re feeling about it
Fifth line: Three words to begin turning the situation around
Sixth line: Two words to describe a new possibility
Seventh line: One word to name the new possibility
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
— Rachel Carson
My daily walks on the Appalachian Mountain ridges of Virginia confirm the validity of Rachel Carson’s words. As an Appalachian Trail Ridgerunner for the past month, I’ve walked the same 80-mile section of this famous trail twice. I’ll start out on the same section again today, monitoring the conditions of the trail, meeting hikers both experienced and novice, and basking in the beauty of the mountains.
Indeed, the more I walk the trail, the more I feel a deep connection to enduring qualities, those expressed by Nature. In the very rocks themselves, eons of slow change hold stories formed long before history began. In the trees, season upon dependable season of patterns hold lessons of patience. In the cautious animals – the deer, the bear, the lizards – I see Nature’s totems, reminding me to embody gentleness, introspection, and adaptability.
The beauty of Nature in these mountains is limitless, only requiring my attention, my willingness to take the time to walk the pathways set aside for re-creation. I join Rachel Carson in encouraging you to create time for yourself to “contemplate the beauty of the earth” wherever you are.
What are your thoughts about the healing qualities of experiences in Nature?
For months now, I’ve been saying, as if it were really true, “I get paid for hiking.” For months, I’ve walked on short trails and long trails. As far as I could tell, no one was paying me to do it.
Nevertheless, I continued to say, “I get paid for hiking.” And, “I hike in service to others.”
Well, guess what?!
Today, I’m getting ready to begin my first weeks as an Appalachian Trail Ridgerunner. What’s that? It’s someone who gets paid hiking in service to others! My job is to walk a section of the Appalachian Trail, meeting hikers, educating them about low-impact hiking and camping, hearing their concerns, calling for help if necessary. I work for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the US Forest Service, and the local trail clubs. Just what I had wanted!
I love it when I can see the Law of Attraction in action! From what I’ve learned from Colin Tipping’s Radical Manifestation www.radicalforgiveness.com, here’s how it may have happened.
1. I could really feel the lack of what I wanted.
2. I allowed myself to feel the feelings of having what I wanted.
3. I imagined having it, even speaking of what I wanted as if it were true.
4. I took action toward what I wanted and noticed when it occurred, even though it was in a different form than I had originally been aiming. (Providing hiking guide services)
5. I gratefully received what the Universe brought!
The board game, Satori: The Radical Forgiveness Board Game, never ceases to surprise its players. New insights, energy release, and even new friends are results that participants regularly have when they play the game.
I even play the game by myself to work through problems, often gaining a new perspective that other ways of addressing an issue didn’t bring.
Here’s what a participant had to say about her game this week:
I hesitated to schedule a Satori Game for Easter Sunday until a friend who’s a regular Satori participant said that she’d love to play that day! A musician like her is frequently booked on weekends, but Easter afternoon is free!
As I thought about it more, I realized that the grandest day of celebrating Life and opening our hearts to New Stories is Easter! That’s what Easter is all about! We’re celebrating the shedding of the old baggage of death, sin, betrayal – all of it! We’re embracing new possibilities, redemption, freedom from the past.
Well, that’s what the Satori Game guides us through. We start in Victimland, heavy with limiting beliefs, energy blocks, projection, and our Old Story. Through the spiral of awakening, we open ourselves to self-acceptance, willingness, releasing, letting go, Radical Forgiveness, and surrender. It’s the Passion Story and Resurrection Story playing out in a different form.
Free yourself from the Past! Embrace a New Story! Create a New Life!
Celebrate Easter with Satori!
Satori GameDetails:
Sunday, April 4, 2010
4 – 8 p.m.
Decatur, GA location
Registration includes light dinner and snacks
$40 and bring a friend for half-price
Reservations only
The Appalachian Trail in summer is sooo inviting! This part of the trail on Cold Mountain, in Virginia, could be sporting Maria VonTrapp singing ” the hills are alive with the sound of music!”
