A Runner’s Meditation on Heaven and Earth

There is a heaven,

I write with my knee slashed

And blood dribbling down my leg, dirty

From stumbling, stumbling

—running raving through the woods.

And I did emerge upon a gravel road,

Which went east and west and deep into wilderness.

I let hour run into hour.

I ran beneath the canopy of green and gold

The leafy banners bold against the autumn sun.

I’ve felt those cold draughts of air

Come charging down to my desperate lungs,

Explode within my chest.

And drive the rhythm of my footsteps

Through Chaos, masterful in purpose.

And it’s just as roots dug deep in soil

Reach the apotheosis of their expression

In burning leaves above.

That which makes live, is perfect

And I cannot live without this.

I actually wrote the first verses right after I’d finished a run.

I was in fact seated in my driver’s seat with a pretty nasty gash on my knee. Months later, I still wear the faint purple scar.

It was back in the fall, shortly before I had left for Wyoming. I had gone for a run in the Maine woods, and fallen through a booby trap of rotten branches, whacking my knee against a rock.

I had started that outing with a not-so brilliant plan to try running down a streambed. When the plan led to painful injury, I almost turned back.

Instead, I beat my way ahead through some nasty brush and discovered a gravel path, which went on forever through some of the most striking nature I have ever seen. Chances are I could have followed the network of logging roads and ATV trails all the way to Canada if I’d had the mind.

The day was uncommonly beautiful and the air was crisp. The still-warm October sun lit up the birch trees as they transitioned from green to gold, illuminating the leaves as though they were pieces of Tiffany glass.

I ran on, charging up hills as fast as I could, letting the exaltation of the day take me many miles further than I’d planned on going.

The simple, biological fact that I was breathing heavily and my heart was beating fast only intensified my feeling of elation. That relationship between emotion and cardiology is one reason why I hold that it may be nice to drive through scenery in a vehicle, but it can never be as exalting as experiencing the scenery while getting exercise.

As I ran I started thinking about:

How it is that the tree’s dying colors (okay, its shedding colors) are prettiest to look at.

All those leaves together form a simple shape, a single splotch of color in our line of sight.

That zone of color seems like an ideal to me, a perfection that transcends its reality. It exists like an equilateral triangle or a solitary note, plucked from a guitar string. When I look at a tree, I don’t think of the decomposing chlorophyll any more than I think of the nylon stitching on a flag or the ink molecules on the pages of a book.

The tree appears as more than the sum of its biological processes, but also much, much less.

After all, the beauty of that final, leafy display begins in that dirty mess of roots, plunging through the detritus of dead and rotting life. Why is it that we are more likely to rhapsodize over the final, brief display of color than we are to worship the roots, the weird grubs and bacteria below that make the display possible?

It must be our human instinct to focus not on the bits and pieces of things, but focus on the complete idea. Psychologists will talk about the symbols and other shortcuts that we use to understand our world. We can divide these symbols into smaller pieces — try to understand the roots, the bark, each strange leaf, but of course it would be impossible to hold all of this in our minds. We have no choice but to misunderstand everything we see, to stab blindly at the truth with simulation.

The idea of “perfection” can only be a byproduct of this sloppy mental arithmetic. I never cared for Plato’s model of the universe, where everything has a single perfect version of itself floating out in the ether somewhere. There might be a couple billion horses roaming the earth, but they are all based on the idea of a single, perfect horse floating out there. somewhere. All other horses suck compared to this one Plato would say.

I believe there are too many forms of beauty out there to assume there is one perfection of anything, not horses, not birch trees, certainly not human beings.

I’d rather think that everything that creates existence must be a part of the larger perfection, not just the tree’s brilliant leaves, but also the roots that feed them and all that plant sex needed to create baby trees.

Running through that imperfect world, I wondered why heaven had to be some separate kingdom, divorced from the breathing, farting life-processes down on earth. I was running, breathing and farting in that world now. The thinkers who spent their time obsessing on perfect angels, writing down the details of the One Truth and other iterations of inflexible dogma probably took breaks now and then to scratch their asses or eat some tubers.

The so-called imperfections of the world are what give it its authenticity. Otherwise, the reality we live in might as well be projected on a screen, incomplete as any other flawed idea that humans can conceive of.

The real world can cut you or kill you. We learn to respect the forces of nature that do this. We nourish our bodies with air, food and water from this earth. We make our minds come alive by embracing the world that we have, taking it in through our eyes and ears, breathing it in through our lungs. It leaves its mark on minds and flesh alike.

Take What You Need

The graves of some old cowboys with Big Horns in the background

Now, let us praise the utility of the simple kitchen spoon. Whether it be silver, aluminum or steel, the spoon is unmatched in its ability to plumb deep into a jar or peanut butter and deliver its precious sustenance to hungry mouths.

At 3 a.m, I awakened with a rumbling stomach, a jar of peanut butter and nothing to eat it with. I was in the driver’s seat of my ancient car, having parked for the night at a 7,000 foot parking lot in Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains. It was cold. I really, really wanted a spoon.

I had packed everything else it seemed — cross country skis and boots, extra hiking boots in case I didn’t want to ski, layer upon layer of breathable fabric tops, an impermeable raincoat. Somewhere in the dregs of my backpack, I had squirreled away my new Patagonia parka, which is rated to 30 below and shimmers like a radioactive orange ghost in the moonlight. Oh yeah; I ‘d also brought my crampons, an ice axe, sleeping bag, gaiters and a tent.

I was planning on climbing Ant Hill. Don’t let the modest name fool you. This particular hill stands at 10,980 feet at the edge of the Big Horns, where it towers over a hundred miles of brown Wyoming rangeland. I had been there in December, but after hours of climbing in waist-deep powder, I’d bagged the mission at 10,000 feet.

 Now at the end of March, I was hoping that the warm weather had melted enough snow, or at least made it solid enough to trod on without the need for snowshoes (didn’t bring ‘em. Draw your own conclusions).

An early start was a key part of my plans, which was why I had parked at the turnoff. I planned to split the journey into two days, with the second day reserved for an early morning summit push. With any luck, the snow would still be frozen from the night chill by the time I started hiking.

The plan seemed pretty solid to me as I sat in the driver’s seat, shivering under my blanket. I unscrewed the peanut butter and plunged my fingers in, plucking up big gobs of the stuff to eat.

Beast of Burden           

Even without the weight of a spoon compressing my spine, I still had a heavy mother of a pack to haul  into the mountains.

Over-packing is a persistent concern of mine just as it is a persistent source of mirth to friends who see me heading out the door with what looks like another hiker grafted onto my back.

I’ve tried to get better. I’ve read Ultralight Backpackin’ Tips which is a fine book by outdoor instructor Mike Clelland. The read (with cartoon illustrations!) includes everything from tips on how to make pillows out of ziplock bags to sewing your headlamp to your hat to cut the weight of the strap.

While I admire the Zen of only trying to bring what is absolutely necessary to the outdoors.

I’ve also read plenty of stories of poor bastards, dead of hypothermia for lack of that three-ounce layer of polypropylene insulation.

Taking less stuff could be a Zen way to enlightenment, but bringing more stuff is a fun, American way of defying common sense. I recently discovered how awesome it is to have ice axes and crampons, and using them to scramble up steep pitches of ice, even slippery mud slopes, with no problem. Look at Lewis and Clark bringing that damn collapsible boat with them up through the Louisiana Purchase. Then there’s David Breashears, who hauled oversize IMAX equipment up the ice so that he and his crew could film atop Mt. Everest. Nuts? Sure. Awesome? Definitely.

Cold Toes           

The two things I obsess about on any trip are managing cold and managing moisture.  I’ve been to the Bighorns several times now, and I have stayed warm and dry zero times. This is despite my responsible layering; my careful attempts to seal off the inside of my boots from snow with knee-length nylon gaiters. A thigh-deep plunge through a thick crust wriggles away the protection so the snow rushes in. Then it melts into frigid puddles of water that tortured my feet.

On this trip, I wrapped Gorilla tape around my pant cuffs and around the top of my gaiters. Even then, it was no match for the deep, nasty stuff that I encountered up the trail.

It started with almost no snow and I soon ditched my skis. I was hiking with what felt like an oversize child on my back.

I didn’t hit the deep stuff until Soldier Park, a massive field in the midst of the pines and in view of several snowy peaks.  It was about an hour and a half into the hike.

I could see that the wind had blown a lot of snow off of Ant Hill, giving me hope that I might be able to finish the job in one day. Before I got there however, there were still miles of pines, still filled with deep snow.

Eyeballing the mountain, I thought that I had maybe a half-mile of the really deep stuff until I could reach some bare rock. I took my compass out and set a bearing for the nearest stone outcropping and plunged on ahead. 

The crust was a nightmare. It would tease me into thinking it would hold my weight, then plunge me into the icy powder.  I would struggle to lift myself out, but the snow around me wouldn’t hold my weight. Soon my feet and legs were soaked and freezing. My heart was pounding and my morale was sunk. I had gone off course and couldn’t even see where the damn mountain was.  I had been out there for about two hours. Disgusted, I turned around and followed my footsteps back to Soldier Park.

The sun was high in the sky, warming the air to the mid-60s. It was a beautiful day to lie in the grass with the splendid mountains all around, shimmering in the bright light. I set out my boots and let them fill with warmth. As they dried, I crawled into my sleeping bag and stared up into the blue for a while then napped.

I would go back and get my skis. I would try in vain to push myself through the deep snow and set up tent that alongside the trail that night. I kept my wet boots inside the sleeping bag so that they wouldn’t freeze. When I woke up that morning shivering with icy feet, I realized I didn’t want to try anymore. Ant Hill had won again.

My stuff resting in Soldier Park