Living Deliberately
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” -Henry David Thoreau
Mount Timpanogos in all of her majesty stood steadfast and silent directly ahead of us. Her summit, flanked on both sides by smaller verdant peaks, was barely visible from the Timpooneke trailhead, obscured by a ubiquitous gray haze--smoke from the Washington and California wildfires.
The morning air was cool. A gentle breeze wrapped around my exposed skin, creeping its way past my unbuttoned cuffs and up my arms. I couldn’t help but think how amazing such a breeze would’ve been a month earlier as I trekked across the sweltering, cactus-infested west Texas plains, sweat drenched, begging for the slightest reprieve from the sun’s onslaught.
I inhaled deeply. “It’s good to be home,” I thought silently.
This.Is.Walkabout
For millennia we have sought to derive meaning for our existence from nature. Its beauty entices, its resources allure, and its mysteries fascinate. Our bodies themselves are an amalgamation of borrowed elements that will eventually return to their source--Nature.
However, in recent years this most intimate and fundamental connection between man and nature has been replaced instead by Internet connectivity. And we, ignorant of what was lost, are left hoarding little blue thumbs-ups, longing for meaning.
Then there was WALKABOUT. A chance for rediscovery, the opportunity to escape the modern world and regain an appreciation for the simple things in life--a flower, a birdsong, a sunset. This is our annual returning. An adventure that exposes our truest self and brings us full-circle.
