Soulfully and unapologetically human, in a soulful and unapologetic wild.
We are all seekers. On the summit, we seek to know what we are made of. In love, we seek a kindred spirit. In adventure, we seek to feel alive. In religion and science, we seek answers to ultimate questions. In life’s difficulties, we seek meaning. In therapy, we seek to understand ourselves. With each other, we seek to belong. These are deeply human pursuits, yet they always lead us outside of ourselves. If followed far enough, they eventually break through our illusions of mastery, and invite us into the heart of mystery.
Nobody does mystery quite like the Pacific Northwest.
Here, mystery lives in the reverence of a cedar forest after the rain. in the grandeur of a volcano on fire with first light. in the longing of granite peaks reaching through the clouds. in the vastness of the Milky Way arching across the night. in our very bodies, which are moved to laugh, cry, relax, tremble, thrill in response to such beauty. Mystery awakens wonder, which resonates in our bones, even if the mind can’t articulate it, because our bodies are profoundly of the earth. They ask us to rebel against the speed, noise, technology, loneliness, and control that define postmodern existence, and to befriend depth, stillness, reality, connectedness, and the unknown—all readily encountered in the more-than-human world.
When we meet the natural world not just as a backdrop to the human quest, but as a fellow traveler in its own right, we realize we are on a planet that is not static, disconnected, or without direction, but alive with possibility, interdependence, and purpose. On the whole, life’s trajectory is one of increasing beauty and personalization, propelled by a mysterious drive toward greater becoming.
Surprisingly, this process of evolution seems grounded in right relationship, for galaxies, Higgs-Boson particles, and everyone in between. The most transformative relationships require a balance of solitude, to develop who we uniquely are, and togetherness, to express, refine, and share it. As an avalanche lily interacts with the environment to realize its true self, growing from a seed into a stunning flower, authentic individuals interact to create mutual community, which furthers self-actualization, which then creates new levels of relationship, and so on, like a fern frond’s ever deepening spiral.
And we are not limited to human relationships. The wild is full of presence. Mountains, lupine, weather systems, marmots, trees, waterfalls are so stubbornly themselves that we can’t help but reflect on who we are in their company. If we take them on their own terms, learn about and listen to them, respond to and respect them, the real in us engaging with the real in them, their mysterious otherness provides a relationship which, over time, allows us to become more deeply what we are: soulfully, unapologetically human.
Wilderness is a world revealed, not constructed. So, too, is true self. As far back as that primeval mix of atoms, light, and energy, there is a life of its own within everything that is waiting to flourish. Our task is to engage in the process, getting to know, nurture, and trust what longs to come alive in us. The more-than-human world has mastered this, and teaches us how. If the way of the city is control, and ego is about projecting a crafted image, the way of the backcountry is surrender, and authenticity is about a willingness to be surprised. Only then can we discover each other and ourselves from the inside out, as part of a vibrant and unfinished universe which participates in its own becoming…
…though to what ends, we cannot yet know. As the cosmos continue to expand and life on this planet becomes ever more complex and interwoven, nature points beyond itself toward a hidden frontier. What—or Who—is that horizon endlessly drawing all things outward into greater being-together? Is our relentless drive to seek, evidence that we have already been found? What does it mean to be human in a universe on its own path of promise, struggle, transformation, and beauty? How can becoming more than we presently are paradoxically make us more ourselves? And with so many diverse subjects, human and more-than-human, existing through and for relationship, how could we not move beyond simple belonging and into—of all things—Love?
These mysteries are not problems to be solved but adventures to be lived.
Will we accept the invitation to follow the trail that disappears into the mist?
The wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned to ask. ~n. newhall