Woods Wanderer

Global Warming is one of those subjects so fraught with misconception that only the fearless and the foolhardy feel comfortable discussing it.  As a lover of wisdom, a philosopher that is, I have done my best to avoid this subject like the plague.  There’s no wisdom to be garnered here, and any discourse on the matter between those holding divergent views is likely to degenerate into a shouting match.  But there comes a time when even the most dreadful of subjects must be broached.

The two dominant positions regarding global warming amount to this:  Either global warming is caused by humans or it is not.  If it is, then we must take action to correct the problem before it’s too late.  If it is not, then the matter is largely beyond our control so there’s no sense getting all worked up about it.  The former incites mass hysteria; the latter is a comfortable delusion.  In short, either the sky is falling or the naked emperor is fully dressed.  Take your pick.

Earlier this year, I read the report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and that convinced me that global warming is not only real but most likely the result of human activity.  Being a skeptic at heart, I delved as deeply into the science behind that report as my rather unscientific mind could handle, finding a mountain of data supporting the IPCC’s claim.  Core samples taken from glacial ice are the most compelling.  It looks like we’ve been having an impact on this planet since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago.  Maybe before that.  So why the denial?  Because some people dread the implication, that’s why.  Reversing a 200-year trend will require a radical change in the way we do things, and some people like things just the way they are.

We must reverse global warming before it’s too late, the advocates of change warn us, before the global ecology completely unravels and nature as we know it comes to an abrupt end. Hmm…  I’m inclined to believe that a 200-year trend will take just as long to reverse, and that much of the damage done will never be fixed.  I’m inclined to believe that fear mongering only dilutes the real science behind the IPCC report and distracts us from the long, hard task ahead.  So why the threat of doom?  Because some people believe only the threat of doom will spur others to action – to immediate action that may or may not address the core problem.

Nature is resilient even if human nature is not. The wild will persist in one form or another, even if humankind is foolish enough to self-destruct.  No doubt we’ll take tens of thousands of species with us when we go, but nature doesn’t care.  Other life forms will prosper, either on this planet or the next one, long after our kind has perished.  As far as the wild is concerned, it’s never too late.

Will it soon be too late to preserve an environment that’s so friendly to us?  It’s already too late in that regard.  The glaciers are melting, the deserts are growing, the weather is becoming increasingly more violent, and soon the oceans will rise.  Fresh water is fast becoming a precious commodity and the air we breathe is only relatively clean even on the best day.  As far as the mass die-off of plants and animals go, the situation is practically biblical.  With six and a half billion of us crammed into this world and more on the way, it’s already too late to regain paradise lost.  The best we can hope for is damage control and a reasonably habitable environment in the centuries to come.

I take heart in the fact that Homo sapiens sports a massive frontal lobe and that the problem-solving powers found therein are formidable indeed.  As a species, we have survived some tough times before and it’s likely that we’ll get through this.  But I suspect that things will have to get a hell of a lot worse before we collectively rise to the challenge.  Dread is a hard thing to beat.  It will take all the mental powers we possess to get beyond fear and denial then dive into this problem headfirst.  I look forward to that day.

Tags: change, global warming, nature, the environment

Yesterday my wife reminded me that I’m weird.  I don’t hold down a full time job.  I wander alone for days on end, grooving with the wild.  I sit around pondering the universe, then write down my thoughts.  Okay, I admit it – I’m an odd duck, and not just because I have no fashion sense and listen to avant-garde jazz.  Lately I’ve been spending a great deal of time philosophizing about nature and it’s only widening the chasm between mainstream society and me.  So I make it a point to do something normal each day, like surfing the net or watching TV.  That helps.

Immediately following my four-day retreat in the Adirondacks, I started revising a new set of philosophical essays that I committed to paper last spring.  Three weeks later, I’m still at it.  But I should finish this particular draft soon.  At the risk of mislabeling the work, I’d call it existential naturalism, even though I’m not really an existentialist or a naturalist.  I don’t particularly care for “-ists” and “-isms,” and that makes describing my worldview somewhat problematical.  But this label gives the reader some idea what my work is about, anyhow.

No philosophy worth taking seriously can be adequately expressed in bumper stickers.  That people even try is a tribute more to their sense of humor than to their wisdom.  But simplicity is a virtue in this day and age, so here are a few statements that characterize my worldview:  1) The mysteries of the natural world (the only world there is) are greater than our ability to comprehend them.  2) God, nature (in general) and human nature (in particular) are inexorably entwined.  3) I, Homo sapiens, am entirely responsible for what I make of myself and the world.

Do you see any glaring contradictions here?  I certainly hope so, otherwise I’m just wasting my time.  To be useful at all, philosophizing has to bring fresh ideas to the table.  Everything else is mere apology for the same old, worn-out worldviews passed down through the centuries, or meaningless blather.  I’d rather be thought of as a walking contradiction than someone who has nothing new to say.

The word “nature” means a thousand different things to a thousand different people.  Like the words “truth” and “love,” it defies easy definition, and that’s probably why philosophers find it so attractive.  But I am certain that such a thing as nature exists when I go for a long walk in the woods.  Only when faced with the countless abstractions of human society – things like dollar bills, contracts and “-isms” – do I start having my doubts.

As soon as I’ve completed this draft, I’ll disappear into the woods for a while.  I’ll wander about aimlessly, grooving on the wild and clearing my head.  Then brand new ideas will crop up.  It’s a vicious circle to be sure.  This is what makes me weird, I guess.  I keep going back to the well, even though this constant re-visioning only complicates matters.  Good thing my wife loves me for it, otherwise I’d be in deep trouble.  There’s not much call for woods wanderers in either the personal ads or the employment pages these days.

Tags: being human, nature, philosophy

Yesterday I went for a long walk shortly after the sun rose.  The air was crisp and cool, and a golden glow permeated everything.  My dog sniffed along the grassy edges as I followed a stone path cutting through the woods.  I reveled in the dryleaf smell of early fall, as delightful in its own way as the smell of lilies in spring.  The surrounding forest was more brown than green.  Blue and white asters flowered in the ditches along the path. Crimson sumac, purplish grapevines, bright orange maple leaves and yellowing birches — this time of year, every color seems to have its day.  Change is in the air.

Spring used to be my favorite season but now it’s autumn.  I still enjoy that great thaw early in the year, when the world comes alive again, but I identify more with autumn as I grow older.  It seems more in keeping with the sensibilities of late middle-age.  In my fifties now, I see in the world around me a quiet, mature beauty that is easy to miss – more bittersweet than sweet.  One has to pay careful attention to catch it amid the sudden burst brilliant fall foliage.

Autumn is the perfect time of year for reflection.  Gone are the stinky thoughts of late winter, the jubilant rebirth of springtime, and the long daydreams of summer.  These are the days when thoughts easily sharpen to fine points, when memory and idea converge into insight with the least amount of difficulty.  These are the days when one’s mind clears with minimal effort, even as a thin haze hangs over waterways and among wooded hills.

America is a culture obsessed with youth and newness.  If you have any doubts about this, just turn on your television or visit a nearby shopping mall.  There is little room in it for subtle beauty, nuance or reflection.  All eyes are drawn towards what is now, hip and wow.  That is why we like our loud guitars, techie toys and anything that flashes or shines.   Consequently, we begin the fall season with a flurry of back-to-school spending, then end it with holiday plans.  Between there is little time for much more than a few snapshots of peaking leaf color.  The rest of the season is a blur.  We are busy, busy.

Then comes the harvest.  Other day, one of my grandchildren told me that he’s going to be the Grim Reaper for Halloween.  I had to laugh.  The thought of a vibrant eight-year-old playing the part of Death struck me as absurd – the perfect symbol for the clash of image and reality in our time.  He has no idea what death is, of course.  But I do.  Perhaps that is why I find this time of year so precious, so bittersweet.  The days are getting shorter, darkness is closing in, and the hard edge of winter is not far away.  Traditionally, it’s time to bring in the harvest, hunker down for the lean months ahead, and keep the Reaper at bay.

With the hint of death lurking in the corner of my eye, I cut my pace.  I slowly ambled along the path, trying to take in as much of nature’s sights, sounds and smells as possible before going about my daily affairs.  I, too, am busy.  But I stopped running long enough to take in the broader view.

Today I’ll make it a point to look up when a V of geese honks high overhead.  Maybe I’ll cut some flowers from my garden and carry them inside before a hard frost strikes.  Maybe I’ll go for another shirtsleeve walk while I still can.  After all, these golden days are fleeting.  The snow will fly before any of us are completely ready for it.  There is no time to waste.

Tags: change, death, reflection, walking

A week out of the woods and it’s almost like the trip never happened.

I carried the glow of wildness through the weekend, despite a steady bombardment of foolishness at the motel desk where I work.  When I returned home, my wife brought to my attention a problem with our computer keyboard.  That’ll have to be replaced.  We bought another car to replace the one that crapped out right before I went to the Adirondacks.  That required considerable interaction with the bank, the insurance company and a car dealership.  The transaction took longer than expected because computers were down somewhere in the Midwest.  That was due to a panic on Wall Street triggered by the bankruptcy of yet another financial institution.  Monday night our fearless leaders assured us that “the system is fundamentally sound.”  Hmm.  I’d hate to see what things would be like otherwise.

Despite all this, I kept the glow through Monday and well into Tuesday, even after catching up on world news.  I kept the glow until I called a local appliance store to schedule a service call.  The timer on my dryer isn’t working.  I figured it’d be an easy fix.  I was about half right.  Easy to fix, yes, but the part would cost over a hundred bucks and the service call would be another hundred.  The pleasant fellow on the other end of the phone diplomatically suggested that I consider my options.  The dryer cost about 350 bucks when my wife and I bought it eight years ago.  What would you do?

Ah, this is an opportunity to replace our old dryer with a more energy efficient one, I thought.  I looked at an “energy star” dryer and it cost two and a half times more than the cheapest model on the floor.  That’s money we don’t have.  So I purchased the cheap one and will install it later on today.  Does all this sound familiar?

I went for a short walk on the nearby Rail Trail midweek, but couldn’t linger.  I had things to do.  I finished caulking the roof so it won’t leak this winter, mowed the grass to keep my neighbors happy, and so on.  I even got a little writing done.  But somewhere between “the system is fundamentally sound” and considering my options, I lost touch with the wild.  Now I’m hours away from going to the motel for another two-day dose of foolishness – mostly clueless travelers trying to negotiate a better room rate.

I’d be lying if I said all this has taken me by surprise.  I knew before I stepped out of the woods that I’d be dealing with all this nonsense, or something like it.  Life in these modern times is nerve-wracking even for the most levelheaded, centered Buddha among us.  That is why I shake my head in amazement, wondering how other people do it.  How do those who don’t spend time in the woods keep from going postal?  The bullshit is so deep we should all be wearing waders.

As soon as I get a chance, I’ll grab my pack, load my dog in the car and head for the hills for a day.  Again, yes.  And while I’m there, maybe I’ll give a little thought to the riddle of existence, the relationship between God and Nature, and what it means to be human.  But right now I’ve got to install a dryer so that it meets code, then get ready for a swing shift.  Isn’t life grand?

Tags: modern times, the wild

From Monday afternoon until Thursday morning, I was alone in the West Canada Lakes Wilderness. Or perhaps I should say, I had only the company of my dog, Matika, a few small forest creatures, and the loons who inhabited the lakes where I camped. That was company enough.

Much to my dog’s bewilderment, a loon called out as soon as we reached Sampson Lake. A dozen miles from the nearest paved road, it seemed an appropriate greeting. I smiled as I listened to it, fully aware that I had arrived at a truly wild place. Beyond that I didn’t give the matter much thought.

At dusk the loon called out again, loud and clear. This time the wind had died down and both lake and forest were silent and still. I stopped what I was doing and went down to the water’s edge to see the loon. With my binoculars I saw a mere bird floating about, occasionally dipping beneath the surface. Yep, that’s a loon, I thought. Then I continued about my affairs.

The next day it rained steady from daybreak until late afternoon. To my surprise, a pair of loons called out in the pelting drizzle. First I spotted the female, then the male, then both of them together. They reminded me of another wet day in Southeast Alaska when I was camped alone in the wild. The Adirondacks on a rainy day aren’t much different.

On the morning of the third day, a loon called out and that did it. I broke down and cried. In that moment the loon’s call seemed to me like the voice of the wild itself, like the voice of God heard only in the most remote places – far away from all the nonsense that passes for civilization. I cried because I couldn’t keep up my armor another second. I cried because I had forgotten, in all my busy-ness, what the wild is all about. The shock of sudden self-awareness. Adam longing to regain access to Paradise, yet still Adam. Existential tears.

The sunset at Pillsbury Lake was a hallucination. I watched the steady advance of that undefined edge between day and night until it crowded all the pink and orange sky into a fiery grand finale on the horizon. The glassy lake perfectly reflected the show, and the call of a loon echoed through the mountains until the boundary between the real and the surreal disappeared. Then I groped beneath the stars for some kind of firmament upon which to stand.

Yesterday morning a loon bade farewell to me while I was packing up. I left the wilderness with some reluctance. The walk out was one long daydream. The call of loons swirled inside my head even as I drove home. And right now it doesn’t seem to matter what I’ll do today, how high the price of gas will go, or who will win the upcoming presidential election. I am still haunted by loons. Give me a few more hours to armor up.

Tags: Adirondacks, loons, the wild

A copy of Adirondac, the Adirondack Mountain Club publication, appeared in my mailbox the other day. I immediately cracked it open and looked for some provocative article to read. The ADK rarely disappoints on that count. I found an article titled “There’s a Reason for the Rules,” in which a club member defended some of the more controversial DEC regulations recently applied to the Eastern High Peaks. My blood boiled right away.

Last year I shelled out seventy bucks for a bear resistant canister so that I could legally backpack into the Dix Mountain Wilderness, which I believe is subject to Eastern High Peaks rules. Yep, that’s right. Can’t just sling my food bag in the trees like I have for the past 30-odd years. Gotta have a big, heavy plastic can for the bears to kick around. Well, okay. Bears are a problem in the High Peaks, so I went along with it. Then I returned home from my trip to find out I could have been issued a fine anyway, for building a campfire out there and having my dog off leash.

Right now I have backpacking gear laid out on the floor of an extra bedroom. I’m getting ready for a 5-day excursion into the Adirondacks – with my dog, of course. We won’t be going to the High Peaks, that’s for certain. The DEC rules are more relaxed in every other part of the Adirondack Park. I will land in a place where few people go, build a campfire the size of a pie pan, and stare into it for a several hours after cooking my dinner on it. I call this meditation. Others call it a violation of backcountry ethics.

I fully understand the need to regulate high-use areas like the High Peaks. On many occasions I have hiked the battered trails leading to the Park’s highest summits. Often I have passed so many people on the trail that it hardly felt like a wilderness experience at all. I’ve seen neophyte backpackers drag small trees to fire pits and torch them as if deep woods is the perfect place for a bonfire. I’ve seen dogs chase deer to exhaustion, wild animals open up backpacks full of food, and mountain streams tainted by soap suds. I’ve personally picked up enough trash scattered around shelters to fill my car once over, at least.

Yeah, I know exactly what the rules are for, but I also know that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) is a state bureaucracy that thrives on the endless creation of rules, and that there are enough eco-fundamentalist zealots in both the DEC, the ADK, and elsewhere to impose fixed, one-way worldviews on the rest of us. And anyone who objects is a selfish, nature-hating troglodyte.

Where will the rules end? You can use your cell phone in case of an emergency, by the way. Think about it. Cell phones and bear cans are in; campfires are out. This is not the natural world of John Muir, Henry David Thoreau or Verplanck Colvin. This is the wild managed, the backcountry with signs telling you what you can and cannot do, the canned wilderness experience. Must it come to this?

Next week I’ll go deep into the woods with my dog, doing my best to avoid contact with the rule-makers of all stripes who dominate the civilized world. I desperately need a break from their bullshit. And when the DEC starts breathing down my neck this year or next, I’ll go elsewhere, to more remote places, like a mountain lion or a grizzly bear, until there’s no truly wild country left. I, too, am on the endangered species list it seems. That’s okay. Nothing’s meant to last forever – not even wilderness or those who thrive in it.

Tags: Adirondacks, backcountry ethics, the wild, wilderness

A few months back, after taking a long hard look at retirement with my wife, Judy, I started investing in the stock market. I’m addressing this matter woefully late in life, I realize, but better late than never. At any rate, I looked around for places to put the meager sum I’d scraped together and soon found myself researching alternative energy companies.

I focused on “clean tech” companies for two obvious reasons: first because the recent jump in the price of oil means this sector will soon be on the fast track, and secondly because renewable energy is a good thing – something the world desperately needs. A book called Green Investing, written by Jack Uldrich, turned out to be a great place to start.

Come to find out, there are companies all over the world, both private and public, working hard to provide us with wind, solar, tidal, geothermal power and more. We’ve come a long way from the days when renewable energy was some pie-in-the-sky notion entertained only by hippies and other social outcasts. On the business television channel CNBC, as well as in investment periodicals, there is much talk about Big Solar, as if it might someday rival Big Oil. I take this as a good omen – a sure sign that renewable energy’s day has finally come.

Now I know what all you Greenies out there are thinking. I use words like “business” and “big” in the same sentence and you write me off as yet another nature lover gone over to the enemy. You still believe that anything associated with Corporate America is patently evil and that good things come only from people organizing at the grassroots level – from people who work the earth with their own two hands and those who support them. But the world needs power and lots of it. If big corporations don’t provide clean energy on a grand scale, who will?

Back in the 70s, I read Schumacher’s book on appropriate technology, Small Is Beautiful, and was greatly moved by it. But socioeconomic forces are moving towards globalization faster now than they ever have – towards the very big and very integrated. To think we can reverse these forces is sheer folly. The best we can do is to channelize them. And if we do so correctly then maybe, just maybe, we can prevent this beautiful planet of ours from burning up. So I’m all for Big Solar and whatever else it takes to quit fossil fuels once and for all.

At long last, we have a real chance to change the way we live. The trick is to look beyond old-fashioned, short-term, parochial solutions and embrace innovations that work on a grand scale. So think big about clean energy, I say. Only then can we reverse global warming and tap the clean, inexpensive, long-lasting sources of power necessary to make us all happier and more prosperous. The future can be very green if we want it to be.

Tags: clean tech, globalism, renewable energy

Is the environment currently undergoing revolutionary or evolutionary change? I sat down this morning to answer this rather provocative question but drew a blank. So I did what I usually do when thoughts and words don’t come easy to me. I stepped away from my desk and went for a walk.

A few miles outside town, I parked my car at an overgrown turnout and tramped into a stretch of woods I’d visited before. I followed a logging road until it turned sharply eastward, then bushwhacked north from there. That’s when I realized I had forgotten my compass. I continued bushwhacking north, anyway.

The occasional glimpse of a beaver pond on my right kept me oriented, but I was a little concerned about missing the trail that would eventually lead back to the logging road. I was navigating by memory and that’s always a dicey proposition. Just then I remembered a gap in the old stone wall running east-west through these woods. I could pick up the trail there. Finding that gap would be tricky, though. I didn’t know this area that well.

A few vaguely familiar landmarks cropped up along the way: a half-dead maple tree, a soggy crease in the earth, a huge boulder. None of these things had been on my mind when I stepped into the woods, yet somehow I recognized them. Together they led me to the gap in the old stone wall and then to the trail. Amazing. I couldn’t have done better with a map.

That is how evolution works, I think. Wild nature winds through the material world and, by virtue of trial and error, eventually gets to where it needs to be. Nature itself has memory, reaching beyond the memories of the countless individual plants and animals in it.

When great change occurs, it occurs suddenly, so we are tempted to think it is the result of some obvious set of circumstances rooted in the present. But we aren’t seeing the big picture. That is why humankind has a hard time grasping the causal relationship between, say, the burning of fossil fuels over the past two centuries and global warming. We expect things to develop in a time frame that we can readily comprehend – one corresponding to our lifespans. Yet sometimes it takes many, many years for things to reach fruition. What we perceive as a revolution in nature, a dramatic event, is but a snapshot in a long, drawn out evolutionary process.

The great changes we are seeing in the world around us these days were set in motion generations ago. Consequently, it’ll take a while to set them right. And to do so may require a significant change in our own way of thinking and doing things.

I picked up a game trail on the other side of the old stone wall and tagged the logging road shortly thereafter. The rest of the outing was an easy walk back to the car. Funny how some part of me knew the way through these woods even though I had no conscious memory of it. Still, I’ll make sure to carry a compass the next time I go for a hike.

Tags: bushwhacking, change, evolution, global warming, the environment

I slipped into the forest shade at midday, getting away from abstract literary matters for a while. The smell of earth, lush vegetation, dried leaf matter and rotting wood worked its magic on me. It was the smell of wild happiness, reminding me of more remote places I would soon visit. The trees welcomed me with open arms.

To make the short hike last, I cut my pace. A spider’s web glistened in a shaft of light. Leaves rustled ever so quietly in a gentle breeze. A katydid sang its late summer song. The boulders and downed trees scattered about the forest floor seemed timeless and unchanged. I’d seen them all many times before.

The green infinity extending from me in every direction was an illusion to be sure. Aldis Hill is, after all, less than a square mile of forest located on the edge of town. A mere pocket of wildness.

Much to my dog’s disappointment, no squirrels stirred about the forest floor. No bird sang in the heat of the day either. I followed the well-beaten path underfoot all the way to the top of the hill, past the lookout, past secondary paths trailing away. I reveled in the sweaty pant uphill even though it went by all too quickly. My reward was a patch of white asters in bloom near the summit and a passing view of larger hills to the east. A two-note whistle to Matika, who had wandered off, put her back at my side without hesitation. Good dog.

Everyone should have a place like this – an arboreal sanctuary only a few minutes away from home where wild nature can be sampled, triggering memories of more adventurous outings. Some of my best ideas have come to me on this hill, along with a number of unexpected insights. The mind needs lots of space in which to expand if it is to reach beyond the commonplace. Fresh air feeds it. The surrounding forest encourages contemplation. Sometimes an hour is all it takes.

The easy ramble back to the car was one long daydream. I returned to the starting point and popped out of the woods faster than expected. A glimpse through the trees at Lake Champlain in the distance, then into the car I went for the drive home. Back to work. But I’d visited a familiar haunt and was better off for it. Not a deep woods experience, but good enough for the time being.

Tags: contemplation, walking, wild nature

This is where it begins: two tents pitched in the back yard on a warm, dry, late-summer afternoon. Immediately following dinner, five kids carry a bunch of stuff outside and fill the tents. Pillows, sleeping bags, extra blankets, flashlights, stuffed animals, playing cards, books and games – the sheer mass of it all is quite formidable. No matter. This is no backpacking trip.

Judy stays in the house to harbor anyone who’s too afraid to stay out there. The bigger kids have camped out before but this is the first time for John and Mason, the two 4-year-olds. We expect at least one of them to cut and run. I kiss my wife, take a deep breath then slip out the door. It could be a long night.

Everyone’s too excited to sleep, naturally. They marvel at the full moon just now rising into the night sky, then chatter excitedly while filing into the tents. “Zip up the screen door!” I yell to the other kids as I usher the youngest camper, John, into my tent. The mosquitoes are bad this year and the repellent they’re all wearing is only marginally effective.

Through the screen of my tent, I can see everyone in the other tent three feet away. They giggle, jump around and shine their flashlights everywhere. I settle them down a bit then read one bedtime story. My “no talking” rule goes into effect at 9 p.m. and “lights out” at 9:30. The giggling continues a while longer, until I threaten to send people in the house. By ten, all is quiet. A train rumbles past. A muscle car roars down a nearby street. A dog barks in the distance, but the incessant creak-creak of crickets gradually lulls my tired crew to sleep.

Potty runs into the house occur every couple hours or so. I remain ever vigilant, grabbing a few winks as I can. Shortly after sunrise, I’m the first to awaken. I quietly do a Sudoku puzzle while a warm breeze wafts through the tent and leaves rustle. A cardinal calls out, then blue jays, then robins.

One by one, my grandkids pop up like wild lilies opening in the spring. They awaken to the wild ever so slowly – all but the eldest one completely unaware what is happening to them. They’ve been exposed. In due time, my little campers will beg me to take them into the woods for a night or two. And someday I will.

It begins on a Sunday morning, with all six of us crowded into one tent, laughing and talking. Judy is up and fixing breakfast before anyone can drag snacks into the tent and make a mess. She and I are surprised that both of the two younger ones have taken to camping as well as they have. We see lots of camping trips in our future. All we need is another tent for her, the dog, and more stuff.

Tags: camping with children, the wild