Guardian Yearlong blog post originally posted on 8/18/13
Down the Trail:
We are going down the trail
Through brush and bog
Crossing meadows climbing hills
We are going somewhere!
Northwest with canoe
East with packframes
South to the fishing lake
And west for that is where
The river leads up north again.
Back were we started or finished
Or back were we shall once again return
On the trail that is.
Climbing the hill of fear
Swimming in the lake of surrender
Lost in a bog of confusion
Caved and trapped in our own minds
We’re walking in circles!
I’m reversing, backing up; returning.
Stumbling over some roots
Face first to the earth I hit my head
Lose conscious for a moment
Aho! These are my roots! Our roots.
Wandering from dawn to dusk in the big bog to the north
Through Alder, Cedar, Spruce, Balsams and Tamarack.
And up on a little bog island where bunch berries grow in abundance.
I lay down on this soft forest floor of sphagnum moss
Just for a while
Join the seemingly enternity of ancients
“Ah! I wonder what is for dinner!?”
I dip my fire making stick, that I made without tools, in water
And still manage to make a fire.
It is an achievement!
I rip my trousers on some raspberries
and go for a long nap.
Nothing was accomplished
In my mind
We are all walking
It is the thought that we are going somewhere
That keeps us sane.
“We make the path by walking
You walker there are no roads
Only wind trails on the sea” – Antonio Machado
Ask me what I am doing, and I’ll say, “This is what I’m doing.”
Sure we are setting up tarps with sticks only, using packframes we made out of wood and learning to carry our homes on our backs, making fire by friction without knifes or tools, learning to read the stories of a feather we find, making waterproof birch bark bowls for easy travel, learning tracks and signs of wild animals, to navigate in a big bog, tan hides, and make raw hide containers, learning to have an inner compass and how to run and walk like water flows and see how a river is formed
But really
We are just on the trail.