Alexandersmap

    Category: Travel

    • Friends with the Sky

      “One of the many ways we have made ourselves lonely without gaining the deeper nourishment and intimacies of true aloneness, is the way we have lost the greater supporting circle of friendship available to us in the created, natural world: to be friends with the sky, the rain, the changing light of a given day and the horizon always leading us beyond the circle we have drawn too readily for ourselves.” – David Whyte, from the forward of Essentials

      I’ve often wondered at loneliness. I’m rarely lonely, but I’m often alone. I think the root of it lies in Whyte’s observation about the greater supporting circle – a connection to the world around you and with your own inner voice. Nothing awakens your relationship with the world like lingering with it on its terms.

      One of the things I miss about having a dog is that forced connection with the outside, no matter the weather. It’s easy to just stay inside when it’s raining sideways or bitter cold. But having a dog forces your hand – they’ve gotta go, and you must connect them with the place they go. Letting them out is a cop-out. You must walk as a true offering to the pet gods.

      This connection to the outdoors doesn’t require a dog, I’ve had similar connection with hiking, rowing and sailing where you’re forced to deal with nature as it comes to you. When you’re a small part of the natural world you tend to see it differently than you might looking at a screen from the comfort of a favorite chair. Nature demands that we meet it with respect and reverence, and in return we awaken something deeper in us.

      I suppose a circle drawn around us feels like a hug or the blankets you pull over yourself on the coldest nights. The problem with a tight circle is that it’s inherently limiting. Getting out under the open sky and feeling the elements, you recognize that you’re alone, yet a part of something bigger than yourself. When you see the world outside that old circle, you’re never quite the same.

      Loneliness is a state of isolation derived from looking inward. Connection is looking outward, and beyond yourself. Stepping outside the circle is a courageous act if you haven’t spent much time there, but it leads to a world that is alive with wonder. A sensory world of conversations in many dimensions. A world where we can become more than whatever it was you were when contained in that circle. That’s where you’ll find larger possibility. You’ll never be lonely outside your comfort zone.

    • What Shape Waits in the Seed of You?

      Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
      toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
      what urgency calls you to your one love?
      What shape waits in the seed of you
      to grow and spread its branches
      against a future sky?
      Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
      In the trees beyond the house?
      In the life you can imagine for yourself?
      In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?
      – David Whyte      , ‘What to Remember When Waking‘

      We get lost in the person we told ourselves we’d be today when we were someone else yesterday. To-do lists and created obligations conspire to hold you to what your scheduled to be. There’s a future you being created in that schedule that should make you burst out of bed with excitement. But waiting a beat or two to listen to the calling informs.

      I’ve mentioned before that I do a one line per day entry at the end of the day. I sometimes wake up thinking about it, contemplating how I might make the line worthy of the ink. Worthy of the day crossed off the short list of days we have on this earth.

      Morning writing forces the hand, you might say. It forces you to reconcile the whispers before getting to those other things. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to figure out what that voice is actually saying in your ear. And when you hear it, what then? Does it chafe against that which you’ve planned for yourself?

      The beginning of the day sets our course based on the conditions and circumstances we find ourselves in. We know where we’d like to go, but must reconcile it with our current reality. With our previous expectations for ourselves, set on the calendar. The question is whether we’ve left ourselves the room to grow into that future sky. The answer, like the question, lingers in that quiet, solitary moment.

    • A Hole in the Ground

      Walking through the woods of Hampstead, New Hampshire we found an old mine quietly marking time. A modest hole in the ground, really, with scattered bits of Mica all around. To call it a mine seems a bit of a stretch when compared to the big mining operations elsewhere in the world. But it called to me, knowing I’d been looking for it, and seemed to sparkle in the sun for the attention.

      Mica is also known as Isinglass. From a resource perspective, Mica is sheet silicates used in everything from glass making to fashion to a key ingredient in gypsum. It has some heat-resistant qualities and is non-conductive, which makes it useful. But it’s very expensive to mine and labor intensive, so most of the mining now is done in India. For anyone complaining about their work, I’d point to Mica mining as one of many professions that might be a bit tougher.

      In New Hampshire you see flakes of Mica everywhere but the meaningful sheets (or “books”) were harder to find. When they did find it, they’d root it out by blasting and drilling carefully around the sheets. Keeping the sheets intact was the labor-intensive trick.

      There’s a semi-famous mine in Grafton called the Ruggle’s Mine, now closed, that used to be a tourist attraction. Visitors could carry out whatever rock that met their fancy. The mountain where it was mined was called Isinglass Mountain. You can find it on a topographical map but good luck finding that on the list of New Hampshire’s 1,786 mountains. Does a mountain lose prominence when people dig holes in it?

      Back in the woods, I wondered about this old hole in the ground, once a Mica mine, now a landing place for leaves and pine cones. There’s little history around it, probably because it really isn’t any bigger than a cellar hole. But it’s in my nature to wonder about such things. Not so much for the hole but the people who labored in it. I imagine they’re buried somewhere in town, filling their own holes in the ground. What was their story?

      Holes in the ground aren’t nearly as flashy as waterfalls and mountaintops. I can’t blame anyone who skimmed the first paragraph of this post and thought, “not for me”. But there’s a story there in the ground, marking time like the rest of us. And I wonder, what would it take to dig it out? For without a story it’s just another hole in the ground.

      Mica Mine hole in Hampstead, NH

    • A Visit to Fall of Song

      The Fall of Song is a popular place located on the grounds of Castle in the Clouds in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. The is a waterfall with infrastructure to support the masses, with a large parking lot a short walk from the walls and a boardwalk that runs right up to the waterfalls. These make it far more accessible than most of the waterfalls I visit, and likely ensures a lot of company when you visit at peak times. As is my nature, I visited off-peak and had the place to myself for a short time.

      The Fall of Song was once called Ossipee Falls, so named for the mountain range they’re in. I’m not sure exactly when the name changed to the medieval, lyrical Fall of Song. It may have been in the mid-19th century when the area was known for its mineral springs, or maybe later when BF Shaw came up from Lowell to build Ossipee Park mountain resort here. Or maybe it was when the property was sold to Tom Plant who built his Castle in the Clouds. Any of the characters from that time could have named it Fall of Song. It really doesn’t matter, I suppose. The falls have drawn visitors for generations because they’re simply beautiful.

      Fall of Song

      In the winter and early Spring the gates are closed but pedestrians are welcome. A quick half mile walk up the road offers beautiful views of Shannon Brook tumbling down to greet you. You soon reach The Pebble, a giant glacial erratic that stands watch between the brook and the road. I see a lot of glacial erratics in my walks through the woods, and this one is pretty impressive.

      The Fall of Song is an impressive 40 foot plunge through narrow granite walls. With recent rain they were singing with gusto, with an icy mist swirling into a rainbow in the afternoon sun. I appreciated the boardwalk for what it offers in accessibility for people who might not otherwise see Fall of Song, while thinking about how great the photo might have been without the boardwalk in the picture. So it goes.

      Fall of Song and Shannon Brook

      Not being one to settle for the easily accessible, I hiked up the trail above the falls to see them plunge from above, and then made my way up to Bridal Veil Falls just above Fall of Song. This second fall is one you have to earn, but in doing so you feel you’re in on a little secret that those who only visit Fall of Song never know. I tried several approaches to get to the best vantage point without being completely satisfied with any of them and have promised myself another visit to see them again.

      Shannon Brook, above Fall of Song with a glimpse of Bridal Veil Falls above

      There are several other falls above Fall of Song worth a look, with Bridal Veil being the prettiest. And you can spend a lot more time hiking this area beyond the waterfalls. For all my wandering further north in the White Mountains, the old volcano ring of the Ossipee Mountain range offers stunning vistas. This is a place worth returning to.

    • What You Are Not

      In order to arrive at what you are not
      You must go through the way in which you are not.
      And what you do not know is the only thing you know
      And what you own is what you do not own
      And where you are is where you are not.
      – T.S. Eliot, East Coker

      This is the way: we march on through the unknown, discovering the world and ourselves in each step. That’s part of getting older and, too infrequently, wiser. We don’t know our identity until we’ve reached beyond that which we’ve done before. Life is the sorting it all out part in between steps. Knowing with certainty that this thing is not my thing. But maybe the next thing is… or maybe not.

      I know I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that the more we learn and grow and experience, the more we recognize ourselves in the patterns and energy around us. The more we encounter that which is not us, the more we seek another way. Life is learning to navigate the channel even when it isn’t clearly marked. You experience a few bumps along the way but you don’t sink unless you’re reckless.

      If we have any freedom at all eventually we stumble into uncharted territory. Some turn right around and go back to where they came from, trusting the familiar over the uncertain. But life changes around you whether you’re a willing participant or not. So embrace the things you don’t know and revel in the discovery.

      You can’t possibly know what being a parent is like until you’ve had children. And you can’t really understand until you’ve nudged them through each stage of their own lives. I say this knowingly, but also knowing what I don’t know as they grow beyond the previously familiar. And so we learn together and embrace the unknown.

      This is just the next step in the journey for each of us. We all reached the pandemic and experienced the changes it made in us. Some grew, others crawled to darker places. But we were all transformed over twelve months and will be again as we rediscover the changes in those we once thought we knew. If it wasn’t the pandemic it would have been graduations or career changes or major life events. Change is part of the game.

      Where you were is not where you are now. And so it follows that where you are is where you are not going to be soon enough. Accept that for what it is and step boldly into the unknown. For there you’ll find yourself.

    • Trust Our Heaviness

      How surely gravity’s law,
      strong as an ocean current,
      takes hold of the smallest thing
      and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

      Each thing—
      each stone, blossom, child —
      is held in place.
      Only we, in our arrogance,
      push out beyond what we each belong to
      for some empty freedom.

      If we surrendered
      to earth’s intelligence
      we could rise up rooted, like trees.

      Instead we entangle ourselves
      in knots of our own making
      and struggle, lonely and confused.

      So like children, we begin again
      to learn from the things,
      because they are in God’s heart;
      they have never left him.

      This is what the things can teach us:
      to fall,
      patiently to trust our heaviness.
      Even a bird has to do that
      before he can fly.
      by Rainer Maria Rilke, How Surely Gravity’s Law

      It’s been a long time since I posted an entire poem, but Rilke’s demands a full reading. And if I were bolder I might just leave it there by itself, instead of injecting my own commentary on the world. But a blog (to me) necessarily demands contribution not simply reposting. And so my own words dare to follow Rilke’s, reaching for a place at the table.

      The key word in the poem is surrendered: to earth’s intelligence, to God’s heart if you will, to our own heaviness. You realize your imperfection and embrace it. In doing so you recognize the entanglements and struggles in others. You accept them for what they are as well. And learn to trust others and most of all your own voice.

      You reach a point in life where you let go of it all and to stop worrying about place and whether you’ve earned it. You stop worrying about everything, really. The work remains, but the will is stronger. You’ve rooted yourself to things tangible and true and begin to rise up.

      To push out beyond. Grounded. And anchored so, we begin to fly.

    • The Newfield Covered Bridge

      The 1853 Newfield covered bridge is a survivor. Wooden bridges were usually torn down when they grew old. New York State once boasted of 250 such bridges, now there are only 24. And Newfield’s is the only remaining covered bridge in Tompkins County, New York. As with any survival tale, it comes with a story of perseverance and a battle of beliefs.

      If you aren’t from places where they build such things, you may wonder about the reason for covered bridges. It was simply a matter of economics. Wood was plentiful, but you couldn’t realistically leave a wooden deck exposed to the elements in northern climates without having to close and replace parts of it every few years. So the builders would simply put a roof over it. It was a lot cheaper to replace a roof every twenty years than the bridge itself every few years. And once you had a winner, other communities would copy the design and soon these timber tunnels were commonplace in the northeast United States.

      But soon steel bridges were the rage, quickly replacing older wooden bridges as they aged. It was another case of economics – a steel bridge would last far longer than any wooden bridge, and could be built longer and wider – allowing for more cars and taller trucks. Progress trumped timeless beauty. And so the wooden bridges were taken down one-by-one as they grew weary.

      And then the engineers came to Newfield in 1969 and declared that this bridge too would be replaced with modern steel and concrete. And a woman named Marie Musser said “Over my dead body” and dug in her heels to fight progress. She and her husband Grant fought the county over the fate of the bridge and eventually won the right to preserve it.

      Three years later they oversaw the restoration of the bridge, and again in 1998 when it was reinforced and raised to support modern vehicular traffic. And so it was that the Newfield Covered Bridge survived and today looks as good as she ever did. It’s now the oldest active bridge of its kind in the area. Driving through it feels like time travel. In a way it is.

      Marie Musser died the year after that 1998 restoration, and her husband Grant died the year after that in 2000. Their old bridge survived them both, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 25, 2000. I imagine they both knew in their last days that their bridge would make it. I hope so anyway.

      And this story informs. What are we willing to fight for, as the Muller’s fought for this old neglected bridge, resurrecting it to a sparkling example of the possibility of purpose? What is our own contribution to the future? It only takes one of us to stand up and say “Not on my watch.” If the Newfield Covered Bridge tells us anything, it’s that we are the bridge between the past and future. And where there’s a will there’s a way.

    • The Eternal Makes You Urgent

      “Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent.” – John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

      O’Donohue picked the name of his book with purpose. “Anam cara”, or “soul mate”, suggests that the timeless wisdom buried within might offer the kind of guidance you would get from a cherished friend or spouse. Google it and you’ll find coffee mugs and spiritual retreats and other such things. It would also be a great boat name. And it stirs something in you whether you have one or long for one.

      This idea of the soul awakening isn’t new to us. If this awakening happens at all, it might not be thought of as soul, but as passion or purpose or calling. Some of us steer clear of words like soul. It almost feels intrusive for me to be writing about such things. Not skating my lane, you might say. But I understand eternity, and urgency, and this idea that the things that matter most to us require immediate attention. For our time in eternity isn’t the moments on this side of the turf.

      My own urgency started burning inside of me when I started writing again. It served as a catalyst for exploration and deeper thinking. And when you have it yourself you quickly see the urgency in others. Hikers hiking every available moment, landlocked sailors scrambling to be ready for the warmer days ahead, small business owners pouring every bit of available energy into standing up something special, artists creating brilliant mirrors that reflect back on the rest of us. Urgency senses its kind out in the wild.

      The trick is finding and awakening that soul. And you only find it by trying and doing, tossing aside and finding something else to do. If you’re lucky you find it quickly and embrace it. Or you see it and follow a different path, only to have it pull at you until you finally listen or die embittered at the path you took instead. That’s no way to begin eternity. Is it?

    • We Must Be Still and Still Moving

      Old men ought to be explorers
      Here and there does not matter
      We must be still and still moving
      Into another intensity
      For a further union, a deeper communion
      Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
      The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
      Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
      – T.S. Eliot, East Coker

      Beginning at the end as I do in quoting this masterpiece is admittedly the easy path, but seems appropriate given the context. I’m roughly where TS Eliot was when he wrote East Coker – middle of life (hopefully). Or maybe just past the middle. But who’s counting? Days are days, and here and there does not matter. Time will tell, as it always does.

      This blogger has settled into this rhythm of still and still moving. Moments of quiet contemplation, deep reading and exploration interspersed too infrequently with mountaintop adventures and faraway places. Thoughts of past exploration and schemes of future possibility fill the mind, and are betrayed by more than a few posts. We aren’t sharks, always moving, but humans immersed in life in all its complexity. The thoughtful wrestle with the same ideas, the masses distract themselves with media and games.

      Old folks ought to be explorers. And us not-so-old folks too. We ought to be out seeing the world, exploring vast waters and rounding bends. Bridging gaps in language and understanding and toasting the folly of it all with old and newfound friends. Catching a sideways glance and throwing it back. Dancing in celebration and settling into deep conversations. We will again, we see that now. Where will you go? What will you do with the time you’re given?

      This human journey leads to another, more intense place, or perhaps merely to stillness. Who are we to know, really? Do you choose logic or faith? Which is the real leap? Our path is one of tapping our potential, to struggle and explore the darkest and brightest days alike. To make the best we can of ourselves. To turn it all over and understand where we came from. This seems to me the way, for the end is the beginning. In some ways, we’ve known that all along, haven’t we?

      Beginning

    • A Visit with Benjamin Church

      A seasonably warm Sunday lured me from a visit with friends in Mattapoiset, Massachusetts to Little Compton, Rhode Island to finally meet Benjamin Church. Church was appointed Captain of the first Ranger force in America in 1675 by the Governor Josiah Winslow of Plymouth Colony. He was famous for being the guy leading friendly Native Americans that finally killed Metacomet (King Philip). His greatest innovation was in imitation: adopting the Native American style of fighting to allow his forces to survive and find success in battles with the French and hostile native population.

      What made Church honorable was his respect for the native population and his desire to coexist with them. While many around him were inclined to encroach and eventually push aside native tribes, Church wanted to coexist and work with them. This led to recruiting friendly tribes to assist in King Philip’s War and in later battles with the Abenaki and French in Acadia. War is a dirty business, and there was plenty of atrocity committed on both sides, but Church seemed to live by a code of honor untarnished by historical perspective.

      Today Church lies in rest in a quiet triangle-shaped graveyard in the middle of Little Compton with his wife buried next to him. A monument honoring him stands at his feet, and someone glued an Army Ranger tab just above his engraved name. That engraving is fading away now, barely legible after 300 years of exposure to the elements. If you asked a thousand people in New England who Benjamin Church was, maybe one or two would know. Time fades memory faster than it does engraved stone.

      Here lyeth interred the [body]
      of the Honorable
      Col. Benjamin Church, Esq.,
      who departed this life, January 17, 1717-8 in
      the 78 yeare of his age.’

      On a beautiful Sunday afternoon I was the only visitor, but a group of teenagers were playing basketball nearby. I wondered if they knew the story of the soldier buried nearby? Does their local school teach children about the war that happened right across the river, or about the man quietly marking eternity in a faded grave in the middle of town? I hope so.

      Fading history