A trek up Mout San Jacinto renews the soul
“One need to understand … if he is to transcend his panic of meaninglessness, for no amount of ‘progress’ can acquire its place.” — Peter Matthiessen
There is snow on the mountains over Palm Springs.
A thirty day period back I established out on the grueling trek up Mount San Jacinto on the Skyline Trail —reaching a snowless Grubb’s Notch nestled at 8,600 feet just above the boulder and pine-forested slopes of the Traverse.
Butterflies pirouetted among flowers on the lupine and columbine-laden incline.
The Coachella Valley glittered like diamonds in the desert tough beneath.
It was a body and soul-regenerating exercising and encounter.
Possessing not too long ago go through Peter Matthiessen’s “The Snow Leopard” built me keenly conscious of the mountain’s non secular significance.
Alluring as enlightenment alone, a hike up this austere and mysterious mountain ultimately attaches alone to a pilgrimage of self-awareness—where the weighted defend of ego falls absent revealing the perception of our real mother nature and unity with the organic planet.
The journey is the Jewel in the Lotus, the Way, the Tao or the Route.
We abide in the shadow of a certainly magic mountain.
Spotting quite a few groups of desert bighorn sheep on the ascent brought to brain the diverse wildlife inhabiting our San Jacinto Mountains and the Santa Rosa Variety.
On our mountain, mammals, birds and reptiles are myriad.
Throughout the trek, I discovered quite a few species of the chipmunk and squirrel, lizard and salamander—even snakes (a mountain kingsnake and southern Pacific rattler) and mule deer near the halfway position marker of stones spelling out 4,300 toes.
Witnessing animals in their pure habitat is worlds apart from seeing them in captivity—only the former needs us to lookup and, together the course of action, develop into seekers.
Sensing their existence, I questioned and watched with heightened senses—waiting in vain for a gray fox or mountain lion to surface out of the chaparral or rock outcroppings.
But most startling of all was the trash.
Rogue remnant wrappings discarded from vitality bars and gel packs turned more and more noticeable on ascent.
If the just desserts and dire truth of climate change weren’t depressing enough, the trash was the cake topper.
On my descent dwelling by using the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, I ruminated on the climb, the littering of the landscape, and the ego demise that sales opportunities to enlightenment.
Buying up and packing out our have trash is part and parcel of self-awareness and transcending the prison of moi.
The journey begins with the smaller events—at house or on mountains.
Even in his working day, 50 many years in the past, Matthiessen envisioned that the wilderness he witnessed would probably be absent by the next century.
It is nonetheless here—vulnerable, at best.
Preventing our have sadness, or the profundity of nature’s splendor, is not an response to preserving it.
Embracing the dreadful reality of the organic globe and its circumstance is expected to preserve it.
Our valley and the majestically snow-capped mountains encompassing it are way too precious to disregard.
Dwelling in the present responsibly—to be informed for just about every moment—and in every minute past is the greatest observe and sustainable clarion get in touch with for saving the atmosphere for ourselves and foreseeable future generations.
Email Michael Seeger of Cathedral Metropolis at [email protected]
