Archives for category: Oregon Trails
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Next Steps, New Moments

September 16, 2025 //
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It was still dark when I stepped onto the trail this morning. It’s only barely daybreak now. My tinnitus is loud in my ears, and the morning is otherwise quiet and still. It is a peculiar solitary moment, not quite lonely, but a little poignant, perhaps, though not for any particular reason. I sigh quietly, and sit with my thoughts.

Yesterday was a good day. I enjoyed a lovely evening at home, after work, with my Traveling Partner, watching favorite shows in the newly reorganized media library. Time, well-spent. I slept well and deeply. I woke feeling rested. I feel pretty good now, too.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I sit in the solitary stillness, wrapped in contentment. For a time, there is no moment but this one, here, now. I think about sunrises and new beginnings, autumn rains and the end of summer. I realize, as I blow my nose on the last tissue in my pocket, that I forgot to pick up travel tissues for the car yesterday. I guess I was just that eager to get home after work.

I reminisce about former colleagues and past jobs, and smile thinking about my new team. Four analysts, soon to grow to seven – it’s not the biggest team I’ve ever lead, and I find it a very manageable size. Comfortable. Each team member brings a unique skillset to the work we share. Fun people, too. I’m enjoying this element of the new role. There’s so much to learn and to do. The “hardest” part, for now, is consuming all the policy documentation and learning all the new tools fast enough to be really useful, as close to immediately as I reasonably can. It is a fun and busy time. I remind myself that it is still “just work”, and relative to other things in life, it isn’t the most important thing going on, at all. There’s more to life than the job we do for the money to live that life.

Another breath of cool autumn morning air fills my lungs. I sit quietly, breathing, aware, and letting my thoughts pass through the open sky of my consciousness for a little while, like fluffy clouds.

… I am out of tissues…

I think about the upcoming Autumnal Equinox. I usually take that day off from work. My Traveling Partner had asked if I have plans. It wasn’t even on my mind, after the chaos and upheaval of losing one job, and the scramble to find the next. I’m reluctant to take time off during the first thirty days. I probably could, though. I think about it for some little while. Then I let myself think about the winter holidays, coming up so quickly. It seems only weeks ago that it was New Year’s… But it also seems an unimaginable long time ago, too, with so much going on in the world. What’s next, I wonder?

… And what about dinner, tonight? Beef and broccoli, stir-fry? That does sound good, and I’ve got everything I need to make it…

I sit with my thoughts awhile longer. Soon enough it’ll be time to begin again…

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

What Are You Choosing?

September 15, 2025 //
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Chilly Monday morning. There is a faint veil of autumn mist clinging to the trees along the riverbank, and above the meadow grass. The vineyard is still a dark smudge across my view, in the predawn gloom. Daybreak arrives quietly. Hard to believe it is a Monday.

I walked the trail on this chilly morning, hands jammed into my pockets for warmth, admitting to myself the whole way that I should have worn my fleece. I feel fall coming. The morning sky is gray and cloudy to the west. The eastern horizon shows off a bit of orange as the sun rises. I stop at my halfway point to enjoy the moment, and write a bit with cold fingers, grateful that I thought to jam a handful of tissues into my pocket as I left the house this morning; I’ve already used them up.

I watched this video over the weekend. Timely. I recommend it.

I sit thinking about some incredibly worthy ideas I have embraced over the past year or two (or three, or five, i don’t know, the time passes quickly). Amor Fati. Vita Contemplativa. Ichi-go Ichi-e. Along with accepting impermanence, and practicing non-attachment, these ideas (paths? practices?) have been useful perspective-changing and have served to deepen my engagement with, and presence in, my own experience every day.

… I make more time to read books and waste less time pointlessly scrolling.

… I make more room to listen to my own thoughts and be comfortably alone with myself.

… I make enjoying each moment a practice of its own, and allow myself to savor small joys such that they linger in my recollection.

… I make my lived experience my focus more of the time, present in the moment, and recognize how finite and precious this mortal lifetime is, without grieving its brevity.

… I face change more comfortably.

Seems worth it. That’s a lot of value out of a handful of ideas. There are verbs involved. Choices. Curiosity. Study. Each moment and each day, I choose the path I walk. You do too. What will your legacy be? What memories will you leave behind? Will you be considered fondly when you are remembered, or an unpleasant footnote in someone’s memory of old hurts? Choose. Then choose again. Every day, you have the power to choose to be the person you most want to be.

… Choose wisely…

…Who are you now? Are you your ideal of who you could be? Are you letting yourself down? What could you choose differently to become more that person you most want to be? I sit with the questions as dawn becomes day… And then I begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Logic & Reason, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, Words

Welcoming the Moment

September 14, 2025 //
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It was dark when I left the house, even though it was an hour or more later than usual. I’m slowly convincing my body to shift the day to a somewhat later start (and finish). It was still so dark partly due to the rainy weather and dense cloud cover. It was still raining gently, but had clearly rained harder during the night. I have a vague recollection of hearing the pleasant percussive chime of raindrops on a vent cover, during the night when I got up briefly to pee.

I arrived at the trailhead as the rain became a soft misty drizzle, grateful for my rain poncho, but I’m laughing now, because it isn’t raining at all, and my poncho’s only purpose is as a dry spot on this fence rail, where I often like to sit for some little while.

A favorite perspective on a moment.

My Traveling Partner pings me, asking if I am sitting in the car, waiting for the rain to stop? It’s not raining here, now, and I share that information. Simple communication, and I feel loved that he cares enough to ask. I sit watching the many little birds doing little bird things; they don’t mind the wet morning at all. Looks like the squirrels and chipmunks are sleeping in, though, no sign of them this morning. There are more migratory birds on the ponds each time I come, lately, another sign of autumn approaching. The cool rain-fresh air is another sign. The dark green of the oaks isn’t any different than summer, too early for them to change, but other deciduous trees are beginning to turn and I see hints of yellow and orange here and there. Somewhere a rooster crows.

This is one moment of many in this finite mortal lifetime, and soon I’ll return home to other moments, with a sense of being refreshed and recharged, feeling rested and purposeful, ready to tackle the Sunday housekeeping chores, and maybe bake something.

My mind wanders to yesterday. My butane stove, which I use with my wok, failed me. The nozzle or the carburetor, or some smaller part between the two, wasn’t working. It wasn’t an expensive stove, and may have simply used up what it had to offer, but it was a gift from my Traveling Partner. We looked it over together to determine whether to fix it or replace it, and decided in favor of replacement, though we both have the necessary skills to tear it down, and rebuild it. (It wasn’t obvious whether it could be repaired and safely used after doing so.) If the replacement really does arrive today, I suppose I’ll make stir fry tonight and try it out…

I breathe, exhale, and relax. Nice start to the day. I enjoy rain, and the fragrance of petrichor. I watch a rather large nutria waddling down the gentle slope from the oaks back to the edge of the pond, where I see her little ones playing on the bank. They pay no attention to me.

I sit awhile longer with my thoughts, aware of my breathing and distant sounds of traffic. I remind myself to stop at the big box DIY store on my way home for something my beloved asked me to pick up for him. I’m pleased that I didn’t forget, and didn’t need my many notes and reminders on my calendar, shopping list, and to-do list. Win! It’s a small thing, but always pleases me to remember something without help.

These gentle lovely moments really matter. I sit with this one awhile. There is no hurry, today, and there is value in savoring each moment of joy. This moment will end, soon enough, and it will be time to head back down the path and begin again.

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Categories Allegories, autumn, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, War and News of War

It’s Not Jam

September 12, 2025 //
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Hate is contagious and corrosive. It can become lethal. Hate can influence the thinking of entire groups of people. Hate can make one individual do terrible things. Hate can drive people to murder.

… What does it mean when someone perceived as hateful, or who espouses hateful ideas, is themselves the victim of hate?…

I’m as human as anyone. There are ideas and people I find pretty horrible and hateful, myself. It’s most often not a personal sort of emotional experience, it’s more abstract than that. I’m not sure I’ve ever truly “hated” anyone in a direct and personal way. I have actively disliked people enough to avoid them. I have even loathed an individual to the point that I had nothing good to say about them, if asked. Hate, though? That seems a bigger deal, a deeper emotional investment that implies a commitment to infusing the awareness of the individual with persistent steady negative emotion – enough, perhaps, to be a weapon itself. I’d really have to care about someone, in some sense, in order to hate them, I think. What do I know, though? I avoid engaging in hate as an experience. There is reliably always too much I don’t know that could change my opinion.

Don’t shoot people because you’re angry. Don’t shoot people over ideology either. That kind of hateful shit is terrible for the perpetrator, in it’s own fashion, and it’s likely to have regrettable consequences. It’s terrible for the world. Violence is toxic and terrible and the “solutions” it provides aren’t the sort with real value. (Have you seen the images of Gaza and Ukraine since the most recent conflicts began in those places?) I don’t suppose, if you’re reading this blog, that you need that sort of cautionary reminder; you’re likely on a different path.

So… Charlie Kirk is dead, I hear. I can’t say his death moves me personally at all. He represented no good qualities or ideas to me. I did not know him personally, and was only aware of him in the most indirect way, as some favored conservative talking head notable enough to be mocked on South Park. (South Park is hilarious, and definitely knows how to tap the zeitgeist, and my opinion hasn’t changed.) I don’t have any personal feeling of loss over Charlie Kirk’s death. The hateful ideas of our conservative administration get people killed and wrecks lives every day…why would this one guy, famed for saying hateful things, getting shot be at all noteworthy?

I think killing people is wrong. It’s vile and wasteful and morally repugnant. Humanity could do better. That doesn’t change because someone I find unlikeable gets killed. It’s still wrong. I just don’t plan to spend more time thinking or talking about this particular death. Aren’t the innocent lives lost to school shootings, domestic violence, and police brutality more worthy of conversation? Isn’t genocide more important to address than the death of one voice espousing hate? And femicide? Infant mortality due to disease? I guess I’m just saying that this one particular shooting death carries no significance for me. It’s unfortunate people are still so primitive and barbaric that they seek to solve problems through violence. That’s the problem worth solving. We could definitely do better.

Don’t spread your hate around (or anyone else’s) – it’s not fucking jam.

I pull myself back to this gray moment, here, now.

I sigh to myself looking at the gray sky. Daybreak came on the trail and I am sitting with my thoughts before the work day begins. I’m tired and I slept badly. The alarm woke me, and I thought it was a mistake, at first. My eyes still feel gritty and dry. My head aches. I’m feeling cross with myself and with the world. I definitely need more rest than I got. I’m grateful the weekend is ahead and that the week has gone well… but… g’damn I’m just so fucking tired. I’ve got shit to do, and all I really want is to go back to sleep.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. I yawn and rub my eyes. I don’t feel groggy – that’s something good. Too much to do to have to deal with grogginess or brain fog, too, and I’m grateful. Slowly I pull my focus back to the things that matter most (to me, right now) and let the rest go. I’m grateful that I remember telling my beloved Traveling Partner I’d run to the store before work, and glance at the clock. Already time to begin again…

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, anger, breathe, forgiveness, Free Will, gratitude, grief, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War

Thinking About Words

September 10, 2025 //
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I walked the first “half” of the trail thinking thoughts about words. I started with the word “open”, and thoughts about open doors, open minds, and open questions. I finished as I reached my “halfway point”, which isn’t typically actually halfway – it’s more to do with a convenient stopping point, or a particular view. I still call it halfway, which is sloppy and inaccurate. These thoughts are inconsequential noodling as I walk, neither amounting to worthwhile thinking, nor meditation. Just chaos and noise in my head, really, and it’s been quite difficult lately to quiet the noise.

I breathe, exhale, and relax, and hope that meditation may provide some calm to the inner chaos. I turn off my headlamp. It was necessary when I started down the trail, it is less necessary now. Daybreak is here, and the sky has begun to lighten, revealing a cloudy sky.

My mind wanders. I pull it back to this quiet moment and my breath. My tinnitus is loud in my ears. The air conditioning of some nearby building is almost loud enough to drown out my tinnitus, even at this distance. I pull my attention back to my breathing, which I hear as somewhat louder than either my tinnitus or the building AC. It’s relative and a bit peculiar that these three things seem so nearly the same loudness…they definitely are not, at all. I’m momentarily distracted by that thought, and gently let it go and refocus my attention on the moment, and my breath.

This morning meditation is hard. It’s been like that for days now, and getting worse. I struggle to calm my mind. Even my sleep is more than typically disturbed by strangely “busy” dreams. I wake not feeling rested. I work feeling constantly on the edge of being completely overwhelmed. I get home feeling sound sensitive and unable to “hear myself think”, but thinking isn’t even the goal, at that point – I just want to find rest.

I’m scrambling to consume as much information as I can as quickly as possible in my new job, and I’m doing so in the context of a ticking clock in the background (a 30-day trial period is a standard practice at this company). It’s working on my mind a bit, I guess. I sigh and look out into the dawn sky. Cloudy. Looks like rain. My head aches ferociously. My arthritis is giving me grief, too. I feel a bit “tense and weird” and wonder whether I just need a vacation – seems premature, considering how new the job is. I’m so tired, though…

I let all that go with my breath as I exhale, and I pull my attention back to this moment, here, as I inhale. Meditation helps. Maybe it helps a lot? I’m not losing my shit over dumb stuff or making everyone around me miserable. That’s something. I could do better with the self-care, clearly, and that’s a manageable detail. Even the work is entirely manageable. I definitely do need to figure out the cognitive fatigue before it breaks me, but as problems to solve go, it is also pretty manageable.

My mind wanders to dinner, to household chores that need doing, to the note on my calendar reminding me to make more tuna salad for my Traveling Partner, to make a quick grocery run… there is more to do than I can keep up on. I sigh to myself as the thought spikes my anxiety. I pull myself back to my breath and do my best to let all of that go, again. It can wait. The work day is ahead, and for now I can let that go too, and simply be.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. My mind wanders, I pull it back. I begin again. I repeat the sequence. Again. Yet again after that. I keep practicing. We become what we practice… eventually. I take another deep breath and exhale as a sigh. I watch the dawn becoming day.

… It’s time to walk on, already. A new day, and there’s work to be done. Rest will have to wait for later…

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Frustration, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, Summer, The Art of Being, Words
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