The Journey...

The Journey.....

So many adventure voyages to remember...so many more to head out on...
G. Leonard wrote: "If the traveler is fortunate - that is if the path is complex and profound enough - the destination is two miles further away for every mile he or she travels."
When musing about the meanings within this quote, I've often felt real gratitude for the many journeys afforded me. Those adventures that await us out there are priceless; we only have to look up and set out...
I remember...the summits of snow-capped mountains and the forests cradling them; the calm on the beaches of islands and the tracks found there in the sand; the trails of Colorado and the people that shared them; the lighting on the red rocks of the desert and the emotions that emerged; the fetch of the waves across a wind swept ocean channel; the high mountain passes along the continental divide...
So many memories; journeys within journeys...
"Collect experiences, not things, for that is what will truly nourish you." Grey Wolf
Words that sound simple, but can hold profound meaning.
The value of such meaning I cannot estimate as there have been so many other times that I almost gave these adventures up, just about quite, doubted if to return...
Therein resides the reasons for musing; about the nature of the adventures we all live and the character of the wanderers we all are. If we choose to do this sometimes what seems like endings are really new beginnings; and the journeys then continue.
Adventures are talked about as hardy things but they have a fragile side to them...
"If you try too hard, adventures themselves become like Zen Koans - puzzles which slip away the more you try to solve them. Like water that slips through your fingers the harder you attempt to grasp it." Anon
They are still worth the careful efforts! If we consider that we never really know if this will be our last trail, our final trip, doing something we most times feel very passionate about. Often it does turn out to be our last journey to a place, only we didn't know it at the time.
"And then there are the places that we have visited, the places we swore we would return to: bays of untouched beaches, abandoned villages with their ceremonial poles, the jagged cut of untouched rocky coastlines. All told, a true paddler's paradise, inviting us back and compelling us onward." G. Rasmussen
Adventure journeys are indeed long and winding roads that we often can not see the end of. That would seem to be yet another hidden gift though. When we are not so focused on the last of the traveling, we then get to enjoy more of what we discover along the way. Easier said than done when the pack weighs forty pounds and the cold rain lasts for a week, but nonetheless holds grains of truth. H. Miller said: "Our destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things", and Anon wrote: "In our travels we don't describe the world we see, rather, we see the world we describe." Sometimes it seems to be more about perception than places, but the contrasts of those places can also have their effects on growing new perceptions.
Many times it is about the people who share these adventure journeys with us; maybe even like sharing the journey of writing this blog with you as you then read it. A blog seems to be much like using a journal, I can follow my ramblings wherever they might lead and try to understand it all as I pass through that new country.
In the end, it doesn't seem to matter what kind of adventure we choose, only that we journey in a genuine way. There are so many kinds of 'summits' and so many 'adventure ways'. When we push our own limits at a level, and in an activity, that is right for each of us, with a focus on safety and especially fun; we journey along paths of freedom, happiness, beauty, and truth.
I hope you have and share many years of wandering; and may the spirit you create for yourself and others along the way of your adventure journeys be forever present...
DSD