So I live right at the base of the George Washington National Forest and I love the woods and wilderness. I feel as though this is one of the reasons I felt so compelled to take this course. Anyways, I am a short drive to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive which are both roads that traverse a small portion of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The entire drive is a spectacle and around every turn there is a new view of the Shenandoah Valley below and each one is as breathtaking as the last. During Fall Break I proceeded to take an hour hike up to a popular, but not too popular tourist site known as Humpback Rock. This rock formation is not at the highest peak, but what makes it special is what it looks like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Humpbackrock5.jpg
This is a link of what the summit looks like. The thing about this hike is that it's very short and some people even take their dogs up on the mountain. With all of this touristy actions, the place does not seem to be that sacred. From my experiences on the mountain I can testify that no matter what you see on your way up, the view from the top gives you the most wonderful feeling. I consider this to be a sure-fire spiritual renewal opportunity. Everytime I hike this, I feel as though nothing back in the real world matters anymore. Every worry or thought just melts away from the rolling mountains and the green valleys.
So, now that I have explained stuff that isn't the main point I will now continue to the reason for this post.
Over fall break I decided to take on this hike for the umpteenth time and I decided to take my sister along with me. We started out right before the sun was about to set and we started walking. The hike at first is not natural at all. The trail has been graveled and set up to prevent rock slides and to divert things such as water. The trail does not help with any type of mindset. After the halfway mark the trail starts to immediately get more treacherous on one of the path options. Of course being the adventurous type that my sister and I are, we chose the path that was harder. We began to run out of things to talk about and so we fell silent for a while. I began to look down at my feet and then out of nowhere I felt as though I snapped out of a trance. I realized I was almost done with the hike and I had no idea how I was so far up and how I had gotten there. I felt completely happy and content with everything around me. It took me a minute but I finally connected that I had just experienced flow for the first time. I was in a state of a merging of awareness and action. I had been walking for what felt like no time at all, but I was farther along than I thought I was. My mind completely stopped processing what I was doing and started to soar higher than the mountain. My mind was wandering and my body was walking. I felt so out of it and didn't even know where I was. It was an amazing experience and It changed the way I viewed hiking. I got to the top of the mountain and sat there to journal and looked out as the sun was beginning to fall behind the mountains right beside us. The hike had finally showed me some of the things we has talked about in class. The idea of flow had always intrigued me and I finally was able to experience. I wish I could explain it with more detail but the pure state of no action awareness is indescribable. I now wonder if I can experience flow in more places than in wilderness alone.
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