[at-l] One Love Note

[Bob C]

Sloetoe, a beautiful essay that all should read. I'm tempted to argue, explain and rationalize some further thoughts. But your message is wise. And one we should all heed.

Weary




> ------------Original Message------------
> From: Sloetoe <sloetoe at yahoo.com>
> To: at-l at backcountry.net, indianaatclub at yahoogroups.com
> Date: Wed, Jan-31-2007 12:46 PM
> Subject: [at-l] One Love Note
>
> "Nature" sticks around -- "nature" doesn't care what
> you're wearing -- "nature" doesn't care what school
> you attended or what car you drive. Screw up, and
> "nature" will eat you; be prepared, and "nature" will
> give you a bounty of profound beauty and timeless
> truths.
> 
> I just made a realization about nature and aethetics
> and such a week or so ago, answering the question "As
> a Quaker, all is God's creation, all is as God
> intended, all is good and right. Then why is the bear
> gnawing at my leg 'bad', while the bear loping through
> the meadow below is 'beauty'? Why is a damp grey
> morning 'bad', while a soft blanket of sneaux is
> 'beauty'? Why is a winter hardwood forest -- a study
> in barren grey and brown -- 'bad', while the same
> forest with a lush green canopy is 'beauty'? Or the
> same beautiful lush green forest, now at night, is
> then also 'bad'?"
> 
> Pound for pound, almost everything biotic on this
> little skin over the Fe/Ni ball called "Earth" is
> dead, dying, decayed, or dust. Entropy rules. Yet we
> seem hopelessly captured by the 1/1000th portion
> that's yet hopping and popping, engaged in futal
> enthalpy. Why are we so driven to call it "beauty"
> when one small part of it grows green coverage? The
> answer is "Darwin" -- "natural selection" -- or, as I
> ended up phrasing it -- "Beauty feeds."
> 
> What we find beautiful comes from comfort, what we
> find comfortable comes from safety and foodstuffs. The
> bear is pretty when it's far away, the bunny is pretty
> when it's close up; the leafy forest is pretty, the
> barren one is not. Even the barren forest is pretty on
> a sunny day, but so much less so in a cold rain. Thick
> sneauxs represent warm "blankets"; icey summits make
> us shiver. Beauty feeds us, so we seek it out (or come
> out of our caves), and survive to spawn a new
> generation. (And those who thought otherwise left the
> cave in the sleeting night to pet the bear and, half
> hypothermic, couldn't get away fast enough when the
> bear objected. Ha!)
> 
> Anyway, I was increasingly bothered by the fact that
> although I have done some pretty "all-weather" things
> {insert various stories of wet, windblown summits,
> maybe night coming fast and no bedsite in sight,
> blahblahblah}, I still preferred mornings, sunshine,
> warmth and green, to the other choices. Mr. Mountain
> Man was squishy at the core. How could that be?
> 
> It wasn't always so. When I throughhiked, I remember
> running through the forests to get back into the teeth
> of some simply *terrible* weather -- barechested, the
> rain *hurt*. I loved it. When the boys and I hiked for
> 6 weeks in '04, we met Stumpknocker at an isolated
> mountaintop leanto where 6 of us huddled in to fix an
> early dinner. But Stumpknocker, conditioned and
> comfortable, donned his baseball cap after eating and
> said "Well, I'm off!" There was still another hour
> before dark, he said, and he expected to hike another
> hour after that. My first reaction was to say
> "Excellent!" and join him, regardless of his going
> southbound and us going northbound. Then I recoiled --
> "Ick!" Rain, I'm slightly chilled, there's rain, the
> mud, and I'm slightly chilled, oh and it's raining.
> 
> To be comfortable and prepared on a rainy hike can
> feel a powerful thing -- and I was prepared, and hell,
> experienced. Knowing this, why then would I shrink
> back from leaving a leanto over mere water droplets?
> 
> It took me a couple of years (sometimes the hiking is
> hard to come by) just to frame the question right, but
> the answer came to me in a split second just last
> week. And a terribly simple, even elegant (how Quaker
> of me) answer it is, don't you think?
> 
> Beauty feeds.
> 
> And so on other occassions, the boys and I did indeed
> leave leantos in the rain, and one instance in
> particular, it was just like this one. And it was
> scary. And it was GREAT.
> 
> "And do you care what’s happening around you? 
> Do your senses know the changes when they come? 
> Can you see yourself reflected in the seasons? 
> Can you understand the need to carry on?
> 
> And oh, I love the life within me,
> I feel a part of ev’rything I see.
> And oh, I love the life around me, 
> a part of ev’rything is here in me,
> a part of ev’rything is here in me, 
> a part of ev’rything is here in me."
> 
> Obviously, this is for Shane.
> Where is that boy?
> 
> onelovetoe
> 
> 
> Spatior! Nitor! Nitor! Tempero!
>    Pro Pondera Et Meliora.
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