Follow your bliss

It had been raining for a couple of days without a break. And when the sun was shining yesterday morning, it seemed pretty clear that it was time to go on a hike. The next one marked in my Day Hikes in the Catskills book had silently and patiently been waiting its turn. I was a bit concerned that it might be too muddy. Though there was a small pool at the beginning of the trail and a few stretches of the trail higher up that had become a stream, for the most part, the trail was fine.

We climbed Windham High Peak which is just slightly over 3500 feet with 1700 feet of incline over the course of the ascent. (The picture here is from near the top where you can see the Blackhead Range.) It took us about 3 hours to ascend and 2 hours on the return. And about a half hour break for cheese and cucumber sandwiches and morning glory muffins I threw together that morning before our departure.

My husband asked me at some point on the hike why I thought people wanted to do things like climb Mt. Everest and such. There are times when I might have answered something about human egos and the desire to achieve greatness or complete a challenge or something to that effect. But, my answer was, "because they love it." They love to climb and be present with the earth in a way, with impeccable attention, that our everyday lives do not seemingly allow. I think that's right. I'm sure there is a lot of macho weirdness that goes on and those people that do such things are a bit crazy, doubtless. But, just doing something out of pure joy and being driven by that pure joy is such a rare gift. Most of what we do in life seems to come out of a sense of duty and shoulds. "I should get up and go to work and make my lunch and work on this report and call this person and buy groceries and..."

I think it was almost 20 years ago when I first encountered Joseph Campbell's work. He opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about religion, myth and meaning making in this world. His most famous phrase, "follow your bliss," is priceless. Everyone knows what it means and appreciates it, but it's rare when we can feel it in our bones. I'm finally beginning to understand what he meant. There are unusual people who seem to know how to follow their bliss when they come into the world. I guess it has taken me so long because my bliss has been obscured by so many clouds of confusion. I can say that quieting down and surrounding myself with the right people and right geography has helped me to learn that following my bliss is much different than chasing a dream.