The Therapeutic Value of Hiking
Whenever I can, which is less frequent unfortunately these days, I love short, solo hikes in natural surroundings. These mindful transient sojourns into a world away from at times claustrophobic human contact allows me the space to reflect, rejuvenate and re-ground myself. In short, I find nature is my personal psychotherapist. What follows below are some of my written reflections after some of these small, bite sized but life sustaining journeys.
The above picture was taken at Gandy's Gully. I quietly seated myself here after shoo-ing off a red bellied black snake, to whom I am grateful for hissing a warning before I potentially and clumsily plonked my weight on him. Gandy’s Gully has a number of gentle and also harshly undulating paths which guide you through valleys and also the ascent and descent of steep, crumbling slopes. I reflected that my mindset was clearly resonating with the nature of the geography around me below.
Within the valleys, my mind is more 'being and experiencing'. I find myself feeling the wind brushing on skin, taking in the subtle forest scents, and immersing myself within what feels like the gentle, sheltered gestalt of the 'empty, yet full' valley. I feel my boundaries become more permeable between the 'me' and the surrounding plant and animal life- macro and microscopic.
However, as soon as I begin ascending up steep slopes, my mind set shifts. It becomes more aligned toward 'doing and achieving'. Goals become automatically set. I must get to the next ridge. And the next. And the next. My boundaries tighten again, as the natural surrounds become perceived as 'challenges' that my impeccably tiny self 'must conquer'. Me versus the world, rather than the world and 'me'.
On returning to the valley again, once again I feel its boundary dissolving welcome and embrace. A hike is always 'just a hike', yet it is also so much more than that.
Here is a 'just' a dead and rotting fox, but not just so. Love hikes in nature as not only does one get exposed to the beauty and dynamism of life, one also is forced to contemplate the reality of death.
As the reknown psychiatrist Karl Menninger said, we are fortunate to inhabit this 'small recess from oblivion we call life'. Personally, it is a reminder not to deny death, but also to embrace life and appreciate the aesthetic beauty also in transitions, the Japanese concept of 'mono no aware'.
Our finitude is what gives our short lives value. We are fortunate 'flashes of lightning in the dark of night' in the words of Shantideva, and this philosophy is further expanded in the works of Albert Camus and his fellow absurdist school of philosophers. For those who enjoy fictional short stories, I thoroughly recommend Jorge Lois Borge's work "The City of the Immortals", which powerfully invites contemplation of the question: 'do we really want to live forever?'.
Back to our fox. There was also a lot of life in this 'death'. I know this may sound morbid to many of you, but the death of this fox is also sustaining the lives of thousands if not millions of life forms, many of which are unseen to the naked human eye. As he further decomposes, his energies are then returned back to the earth and air around and far beyond his death bed. We are indeed, composed of the material of stars.
This was taken at the summit of Mount Gower, Lord Howe Island. After a difficult four hour hike filled with experiences such as negotiating treacherous cliff faces, climbing near vertical slopes in the midst of a thunderstorm, and rock hopping along the rugged coastline, we were rewarded at the top by entering into a mist forest, where we felt we were immediately transported back into a prehistoric, pre-human dominant world.
As I allowed myself to relax on a soft moss bed after the arduous climb, my reflections began to take over as words began to form in the inner mist of my mind. They looked something like this: What I've learnt experientially from spending a fait bit of time in various spaces and confinements of the natural world:
That the soundless flutter of butterfly's wings, the serene beauty of a cloudless night, the melodic whistling of a flowing creek, the miracle of perfect births: these all co-exist with the blood red eyes of the stalking predator, the gnashing of teeth ripping flesh from bone, the torturous expressions of pain and suffering, the stench of death and her handmaiden decay. These are all essential aspects of Mother Gaia, who represents time, space and life/death/life. Thank you Mount Gower for allowing the mental and physical space for this to manifest.
Apologies for the poor quality picture. I only have a handheld camera, and it was a pitch black night! This is the pool, encircled by rocks glistening in the moonlight, at the base of the First Falls at Morialta Conservation Park. There was a magic in lying down here, gazing with no particular purpose at the silver stars pinpointing the clear, cloudless night.
The surrounding cliffs made me feel embraced by Gaia herself, while the gentle but dynamic, vibrant splashing of the flowing falls and creek afforded a sense of inner cleansing. The outline of trees, seemingly growing defiantly out from inhospitable rock, stood like silent, serene sentinels guarding one from any harm.
And the knowledge and felt presence of being surrounded by life…hundreds of fish in the pond, nightbirds such as owls and nightjars, the fairy-like elegance of millions of moths in flight, the predatory stalkings of wolf spiders and the barely audible grazing of kangaroos…allowed a sense of shared connectedness between ‘I’ and the world.
It was here on this very spot in Horsnells Gully, that I heard a heart rending howl emanating pure and intense pain and sadness….it echoed right down the valley and continued for several minutes before ebbing away. I think it was a mother Koala grieving the death of her baby…although my thoughts were drowned in a mirrored sadness…nature is beautiful in its neutrality.
After some sojourns into darkness and grief, its time for a re-emergence into light. I learn and notice new things every hike, and what captures my attention are increasingly the 'smaller' things. This was taken during a dawn hike on the Orchard/Eagle trails at Black Hill. It was blessed with the sounds and sights of hundreds (literally) of Wattle birds engaging in their courtship rituals and feeding; vast panoramic landscapes, the blossoming carpet of flowers heralding spring, sleepy koalas looking disinterestedly on, curious kangaroos and noisy fairy wrens.
However, the above picture was my personal highlight for the morning. A beautifully hued leaf of a gum tree (I think) shooting out from the rock beneath, with its life sustaining veins made translucent with the rays of the sun.
Finally, I will leave you with the picture below that I took on a hot summer's hike looking for lizards at Para Wirra. If you keep your eyes open and your perceptions keen, you don't find nature's treasures. Nature's treasures find you.
