all that is long does not last;
All that is old does not wither;
not all that is over is past.
Not all that have fallen are vanquished;
a king may yet be without crown,
A blade that was broken be brandished;
and towers that were strong may fall down.”
- J. R. R. Tolkien
The Mavora Walkway is part of the TA, connecting between the Greenstone and Caples tracks. So, after the Greenstone (written about in my last post,) I linked up with the Mavora Walkway. It isn’t a circuit, so I just hiked it out and then back, linking up with the Caples track before the Routeburn. I learned so many lessons just from this walk in and of itself.
It has been interesting to watch myself yearn to record all I am discovering through this. Either by video, voice recordings, or writing it all down. I am learning a beautiful lesson though, since all or any of these methods of recording are not always possible, especially when trying to conserve battery power and paper:
I do not have to write it down, for it to be real.
While yes, I ((obviously)) love writing, and will continue to utilize this method to heal, I am being shaped, changed and evolving daily out here – regardless of if the idea, realization, or notion gets recorded or written down somewhere.
For example, there were multiple days on trail when I would talk to myself for hours. I gave positive energy to myself and recited mantras; I placed value on my independence, and thanked myself for working so damn hard. I soaked in energy from fire, water, wind, earth and air… I felt strong. I offered myself compassion, forgiveness, healing. I cried out in emotional agony - seeming to ask the wind, (to anyone looking on,) but in reality asking two people: The God Energy and myself – “will anyone ever love me?” Will I ever be deserving of love? A love unabridged; a love based on acceptance, trust, respect, passion, appreciation, endearment, creativity, enjoyment, peace. Could a person truly love me? My psyche whispered back a truth I came to see I already knew – that when I stop seeking, love will find me. In whatever form it chooses, whether in the form of Earth, a person, literature, sunshine… When I relinquish control, and need for domineer of my life, my whole, healed, pure energies will draw in what will expand its wings even further, and I will take flight to heights I never knew existed.
To be fully loved, to recognize when I am fully loved, I must come to fully love myself. For if I do not, I could not grasp or understand the type of love I long for, even if it were right in front of my crystal blue eyes. If I cannot fully, and I mean wholly and completely, love myself… Me. Rachel Lee Folkman. Exactly as I am, I will not know what I expect from someone else. I will be blinded by the gap in my understanding of love; that comes from my inability ((or refusal,)) to love myself. How beautiful is that?
I am learning this quickly out here… How to love myself. How to spoil myself, please myself, treat myself, respect myself, honor myself, push myself, then rest… How to thank myself, adore myself, cherish myself, work myself, forgive myself. How to love myself.
So many hours of thinking, crying, laughing, yelling, cursing and talking out loud to myself over the past 24 years, and especially the past 2 months, have amassed to this simple realization. LOVE YOURSELF. It is beautiful that it didn’t all have to be recorded to be real, that I remembered this lesson without writing every step down, and that, even if I hadn’t have written any of this down, it would still be just as real as it is today. I am learning so much every moment out here in the bush.
It is amazing what happens when we relinquish control of our lives, and let the wind set sail to our souls, hearts and minds. Flying free.
Lesson #1:
I really do like people. I like people a lot. I think at home, I was with people so much, before work, during work, after work… Just all the time. I didn’t know how to create space or boundaries. Coming out here… where I don’t have to talk to anybody, if I don’t want to, was like a breath of fresh air. However, I am learning that I need balance. Imagine that! ;) I LOVE walking alone all day, having till the evening alone to rest, read and write, and then chatting, cooking and talking with people for a couple of hours in the huts at night, then having after 9 PM to be alone and read or write again… I want to remember this when I get home. Remember to keep balance in my life.
I am learning how to be comfortable with myself, in my skin. Back home, I wasn’t okay being alone in my head. I didn’t want to know what lurked in the recesses of my mind. Out here, I am seeing very clearly why – there are some scary places hiding out! Places that back home, I could distract myself from, ignore, or run from. Out here, it is impossible to run from yourself. I cannot adequately describe the value of learning to be alone with oneself, to sit with whatever you find, talking yourself through it… Sounding like a crazy person, and finding that you have the answers to your many questions, just hiding places in your mind. Yes, I love communicating with people, but it is quite comforting to see that I have the innate ability to answer some of my most pressing questions.
The key? Acceptance. Acceptance of self. It is what it is. And that’s it. So, when I start sobbing out of the blue, or laughing hysterically, or replaying memories in my head I wish I could forget… The answer is to simply roll with it. To let it run its course. I’ll obviously never fully rid myself of those memories, or I would have erased them already. So, why not let it be? Experiencing fully my nostalgia, sadness, pain, gratefulness for the good times, longing for the happy ones… Accepting it as it is.
Lesson #2:
We remember life the way we want to. Obviously… But sometimes we forget that! Our life experiences, worldviews, and biases play into everything. Since the track was one way, I hiked it out, then hiked the same thing back. I remembered the track so much differently than what it actually was! It was crazy! I remembered the middle of Day #1, bushwhacking through tussock grass, to be arduously long and painful… Having so much difficulty locating the next pole, the next orange triangle, and remembered it going for miles… I remembered the forest section (which was, of course, the beginning of my hike on the way out, and end on the way back,) to be quite short and easy, and the hut just 10 minutes walk from the largest river crossing… Well, everything seemed to be flipped around on the way back. It was so fascinating. I couldn't believe how short the tussock section was (now the beginning of my day,) and how longgggg the forest section was (the end of my hike out.) I began thinking of what lesson this was trying to teach me, that related to every day life.
How skewed we can remember the past… Depending on how exhausted we are at certain points in our lives, events may seem to occur much differently, become bigger deals to one person than another, etc. I want to remember that I may not always be remembering events exactly as they happened. Avoiding bias completely is impossible, of course – we view life through our individual lenses, but we can take our memories with a grain of salt, can save a lot of our over-reminiscing and replaying of the past, and allow things to be what they are.
Lesson #3:
We don’t always have to have a “direction” to be going somewhere. On my one way tracks, or circuits, it is easy to say to myself, “Oh, I am just enjoying the experience…” Which, while true, is easy to say when there’s the end point of a hut each night, or when you’re not backtracking every step a few days later, or when it is absolutely, spectacularly, breathtakingly beautiful.
The Mavora Walkway, on the other hand, had no “end point” for me. I was going to be retracing every single step I took out here, and it was not the stunning, spectacular scenery akin to some of the other walks I’ve done… ((also, there were many wild bulls, which scare me half to death.)) At so many points on the trail, I thought to myself “What the hell am I doing? This is stupid.” And then, I would learn some crazy type of lesson, which I would not have learned had I been thoroughly enjoying myself surrounded by breathtaking scenery.
While on the Mavora Walkway, in all her swampy muddiness, I kept my feet quite dry. Hopping from rock to rock or tussock patch to tussock patch, I avoided the huge mud suction holes and deceiving grass patches, to the best of my ability. Why? To avoid blisters. On my second to last day, I was 5 minutes from the hut (I could literally see it across the river...) I was crossing my largest river, and it was quite swift. I was hopping rock to rock, was careless, and fell, ass- first into the river. Sobbing, I jumped to my feet and pulled myself out. I was more afraid than anything, river crossings are the most dangerous parts of tramping out here. I was completely unharmed, other than I was soaking wet. Instantly, I began to swear and curse past individuals or events in my life, who I, for some odd reason, turn to blaming every chance I get. A life lesson presented herself immediately: That I get to choose how I let these experiences infiltrate my current life, or not. That I am not powerless, but actually quite powerful. And that sometimes, shit just happens. No one is to blame. No reason exists... Life just... Happens. It was really great, once my tears cleared up :) | |
I love how each section of trail teaches me something different. Each town has a different lesson or person, just waiting for me. And that is all I am, just me. Everywhere I go.