September 15 - Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness Day 1

I woke just as the sun was beginning to show over the mountains. I kept fairly warm in the car last night even though it was in the low 40s but getting out of the car was very chilly because I still had on my t-shirt, shorts and sandals I was so proud of yesterday.

I got my backpack all ready, got more appropriately dressed, and set out about 9 am. I hiked for about 3 hours and found a great spot to camp overnight. I had to stop many times and was exhausted by the time I found this site. I hung my sleeping hammock between two Juniper trees which are everywhere here, along with Pinon Pine, sagebrush, cactus and rocks, rocks and more rocks. An impulse buy while stocking up on food and water, this hammock may be my best investment so far on this trip.

I took a long nap. Afterward, I spent a lot of the day feeling like I should be doing something. That is what western society has done to us. Work, produce, accomplish, succeed, do, do, do. Wake up and start over. When do we have time to dream? To be? This is what I came for.

I am reading Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community by Malidoma Patrice Some. He talks about pain being, "the result of a resistance to something new - something toward which an old situation or experience resists being replaced by a new one." When someone experiences communication through pain, it is a signal that their soul is in need of communication with its spiritual counterpart.

I have felt an aching in my soul for years living a life that I didn't feel was fully mine. Although I have much to be thankful for, where was the life I had dreamed of as a kid? Continued to yearning for as an adult? Where am I in the midst of this unauthentic life I am living? As I just begin this year of adventure, this year of outer and inner discovery, I wonder what will be replaced in me.