Essay | Circumambulating Mt. Tam in COVID Occasions

In 1965, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Philip Whalen, poets and college students of Buddhism established out on a ritualized walking meditation, or circumambulation, of Mt. Tamalpais. Mountaineering clockwise as tradition dictated, they chosen noteworthy all-natural features together the way and assigned rituals to accomplish at each individual: Buddhist and Hindu chants, spells, sutras, and vows.

 In an interview in 1992, Snyder encouraged subsequent circumambulators to be as artistic as they favored, halting at the points his trio had selected, or at other people. 

Circumambulation, an intentional, ceremonial circling of a sacred object, is an ancient ritual with roots in a lot of planet cultures. But what does it signify in modern day moments? 

Snyder explained, “The primary factor is to pay out your regards, to engage in, to have interaction, to prevent and pay out focus. It’s just a way of halting and searching — at yourself also.” In graduate school at UC Davis in the late 1990s, I analyzed poetry with Snyder. I discovered from him the importance of noticing and naming in which I am and what is all around me, the principle of bioregionalism.

Getting up Snyder’s circumambulation mantle in the 1990s, English professor and photographer David Robertson led learners on excursions of Mt. Tam in the spirit of Snyder, Ginsberg, and Whalen. A person chilly March day in 1998, my boyfriend — now husband — and I joined him for the circuitous 14-mile route up, and back again down the mountain, halting to chant the very same Buddhist and Hindu spells, sutras, and vows at every of ten pilgrims’ stations that the trio had completed in 1965. Robertson’s intent below was to get his UC Davis Wilderness Literature learners out of the classroom and into the industry. Considering the fact that the study course showcased texts by Snyder, a journey to Mt. Tam appeared a good option.

Tagging together, I trekked through groves of coastal are living oak, Douglas fir, Sequoia sempervirens, throughout grassy hillsides and amid fog scented with peppery California bay laurel. It took all day. And even however I was a solid and avid hiker, it was tough work. But it was well worth each and every drop of sweat lose to be able to peek into record, retracing the methods and terms of the unique circumambulators. However, I wondered: as a non-Buddhist, how did these incantations utilize to me? Was it appropriative for us to invoke them? Was it more than enough that we preferred to understand about them and honor their traditions by executing them? When I questioned Robertson, also non-Buddhist, he described that circumambulating Mt. Tam was a way for him to make indicating for himself in relation to the organic entire world.

Like Robertston and his pupils (and me), countless men and women have carried out the “CircumTam,” as it’s fondly nicknamed, considering the fact that the inaugural 1965 trek. It is a compelling tradition, as Mt. Tam is a beloved mother mountain of the Bay, towering in the clouds above all alongside with Mt. Diablo and Mt. Umunhum, reminding us the place and who we are, no issue the place we may perhaps be.

2020 was a tough year for a lot of good reasons, which include, of course, a international pandemic. In the year’s last times, my partner (exact same as my boyfriend pointed out higher than), our 17-calendar year-aged son, who enjoys to hike, and I had been cooped up at home for months. More than the summer, we had taken advantage of our sudden time alongside one another, camping, climbing, and backpacking in California’s mountains. But winter located us housebound and sensation a little bit trapped. Our annual pilgrimage to Joshua Tree National Park to remain with good friends and “hike our guts out,” as I often put it, had been quashed by Northern California’s third lockdown. Like a caged coyote, I paced our minimal dwelling in Davis, pondering I would shed my head if I could not do something to break up the tedium of sheltering in put in winter’s darkness.

Cue the New Year’s Working day CircumTam: with a day’s discover and some adventurous pandemic podmates, we pulled jointly a excursion for January 1, 2021, hoping to established the tone for a new calendar year that we desperately desired to be improved than the previous one–for all of humanity.

Podmates Paul and Jennie dubbed our vacation a “Circum-bobulation” because of the improvisation needed for COVID-era social distancing, the limited daylight hrs in January, and impacted parking in 21st century San Francisco Bay Area.

So we commenced 50 % a mile uphill from Pan Toll Ranger Station (see: impacted parking, above). We piled out of the car or truck on the not-so-non secular side of the street. David Robertson had lent me a wooden-bead necklace and embroidered satin scarf, sweat-stained veterans of several a CircumTam, which he experienced acquired when he journeyed to Japan’s Omine ridge to discover about that region’s historical circumambulation rituals. I donned the regalia to pay back respect to David and to Gary for their mentorship, and to all the miles they’d logged in assistance of training other folks about the relevance of linking ourselves to the land, to bioregion. 

Automobiles whizzed by us on the street, searching for parking places. We chanted a spell, or Dharani, meant to clear away disasters. Though it was not from our society, it was the way Snyder et al experienced started their circumambulations, and it appeared acceptable, given the situations we hoped to invoke security on our trek but also to pay respect to the a lot of hardships confronted during the previous 12 months, and to ward off any foreseeable future types. 

We cross-countried to the Outdated Mine Path, and up toward what we hoped was the “ring of outcroppt rocks,” featured in Snyder’s poem, “The Circumambulation of Mt. Tamalpais.” 

Did we uncover it? No. But we did end at a circle of rocks and stood quietly, absorbing the cold winter solar and wafting fog, and observing dried grasses shimmer in the wind. Teens Owen and Rose humored us but retained their length.

Close to Rock Springs, we uncovered a serpentine crag adorned with an giving: a circle fashioned of rose petals, pine boughs, pinecones, lemons and limes. Analyzing this shrine, we guessed that a man or woman longing for one thing experienced appear listed here to question for it. Here was additional evidence of the human have to have to forge relationships with the land. 

Trekking to a nearby lookout level for a picnic lunch with a watch, we approached a massive Douglas fir and on nearer inspection saw it was a granary tree: acorn woodpeckers had drilled and loaded hundreds of holes with acorns, making it a large pantry for on their own. I marveled at the relationship in between a big conifer and several small avians.

At the lookout position, we viewed the beautiful dance of paragliders checking their gear and sailing off the cliff towards Stinson Seaside. We chatted with them, and Paul bought so enthused about the sport, I thought he may well buckle into a harness and leap into the void with them. 

1 issue about investing virtually a year in confinement is that when you arise, anything would seem new, even magical. Snyder reported that the stops they selected on Mt. Tam in 1965 were being “… like participating in with the staying of the mountain, absolutely nothing extravagant about it.” Our very little pandemic pod adopted this playful mind-set by wandering the rest of the day, veering off the regular circumambulation route.