Uncomfortable is Good- Samantha Anderson

While watching the documentary “Walking with Freedom on the Appellation Trail” the other day in class a particular quote stuck out to me. One of the people interviewed said, “Uncomfortable is a good day, pain is a bad day.” It stuck out to me because personally I try to avoid uncomfortable situations if possible. So to say that on the trail you are faced with it every day in a good way, makes me think should I view uncomfortable situations as a good experience? I have never gone out hiking but the more and more we are learning about in class my perspective is changing. It seems that most people who go out hiking on the AT is looking for some answer. They seem lost or at a point in life where they are deciding what path to take. I guess the big thing is to make sure that you don’t put yourself in an uncomfortable situation that brings you pain?

Meteor Shower- Samantha Anderson

In the start of the morning (12 AM) of November 18, 2010 a beautiful phenomena happened; a meteor shower. While laying on the cold pavement with four friends next to the practice soccer fields in 34 degree weather, I gazed up at the vast, open, starry sky waiting to see a meteor. After about 30 minutes of nothing contemplating going back inside a meteor passes by. A fiery start grazing the sky for only a few seconds. How connected I felt to the stars at that moment. I know that what I saw was thousands of miles away but it was so cool to see it with my own eyes. I had brief connection with the cosmos. Once it passed the cold hard ground brought me back to reality, but for those few seconds was connected with something far, far away.

Old People in Nature- Samantha Anderson

In the Nature & Culture vol. 5 issue 2 the article “The Importance of Nature in the Well-Being of Rural Elders” discusses two studies done on elders who live in the wilderness. Most participants in the study said they liked living in rural areas because they found beauty, safety, and space. One of the downsides mentioned was the lack of social and health services so far out. Both these studies make me wonder where the people grew up. Did they live in rural settings or did they spend most of their life in suburbs and urban life? I think after living most of my life in urban settings I would want a change of pace for retirement.

Unlikely Communitas-Will Geiger

This afternoon my father, who works for the PEW environment group, sent me an email that had hyperlinked into it a video documenting Wilderness Week. Wilderness Week, which took place September 26-30th, is a gathering of people from various conservation organizations, interest groups, and some people who just plain old like the outdoors. They all come to Washington D.C. to meet with representatives to advocate wilderness in over a dozen states, lobbying for over 2 million acres of wilderness. In the video, a man named Mike Matz discusses the value in all these people coming together to work to protect wilderness. He explains that everyone is there to do the same thing and through that they form a camaraderie with each other. Turner discusses in "Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture" the concept of communitas, specifically "spontaneous communitas" as a transient personal experience of togetherness. The cause that all 120 people that participated in Wilderness Week shared gave each individual a medium that they could connect to the group as a whole with. The individuals participating in Wilderness Week took time away from their respective families, jobs, and lives in general in order to devote themselves to a focused effort of wilderness advocacy during that week. In this way they are stripped of their normative customs and placed in a setting in which communitas is able to take place.

Axiom #1-Kristen Gladfelter

For the summer, I worked in Montana studying plants as an internship opportunity. My entire life I’ve been traveling to Montana as my family lives there. From the jagged cliffs to the pristine blue waters from glacier runoff, I loved this place. With that in mind, I was extremely excited to stay there for the entire summer and explore the terrain. I figured I could simply make Montana my own sacred place... Unfortunately I was wrong. Without even knowing Lane’s four axioms I realized, it is impossible to simply declare a sacred place sacred. With temperatures that barely broke freezing in the middle of July, steep terrain that sometimes proved impossible to climb, snow in august, and a coworker that thought bathing was too modern, I realized sacred place will only approach you when it chooses. Regardless of how breathtaking the scenery was, the effect of the sublime, or when my coworker was down wind, I never found axis mundi out there as I had hoped too. Instead, strangely, I found it in my own backyard when I returned home... Funny the way life works.

Why Walk? -Kristen Gladfelter

A few weeks ago, a few of us decided to hike part of the AT. As we started on our journey, we were first greeted with the sight of colorful trees changing for the fall weather. Traveling further up the mountain, people from all walks of life emerged from the trail, some young, old and even the ever cranky teenagers being drug by their parents. As we kept walking, I kept thinking about the different reasons that people hiked the trail. For me, it was clearly recreation, but as I kept walking, I wondered why do people hike the trail? If not for recreation, then what? I continued to walk up the mountain and kept running into people with huge packs on, ready for the what ever the trail through at them. They obviously had a different reason for hiking the trail than I did. As we reached the summit, the view stretched 360˚. I felt small in comparison to the mountain that held me high above all else. I felt man could never recreate the sublime feeling of being on the mountain. Then I realized, what if man hikes the trail to prove that there is some more than just man? To find God perhaps, or another being that puts into perspective what it is like to be human. A deeper meaning in life, or just a closer connection with the spiritually unknown. In reality, I will never know why each person hikes the trail. However, I do know that a deep connection is found to life and the holy. Regardless of why man travels through nature, they will discover more than what they bargain for.

Real. Big. Fart. -Will Geiger 11/16/10

Today, around 1:15, two of my suite-mates and I are walking back from the Commons after a delicious lunch of Buffalo Chicken Wrap and chicken nuggets made from grade quadruple L (Black plague) meat. There was nothing particularly special about the trek across the 100 meters of campus separating the Commons with our dorm. However, as we entered through the doors of James River residence hall, two young ladies were on their way into the elevator with their to-go boxes in their hands. We enter after them because we are all fat and lazy and the third floor is simply too far to go by means of a staircase. Elevator rides can be awkward, especially when everyone on the elevator maintains a stone-faced, silent demeanor. This elevator ride was just such an experience, save one of my suite-mate's knack for impeccable timing with his flatulence. Just as we pass the second floor, a loud, health fart is heard from the corner of the elevator where a red faced, glassy-eyed young man, who will remain absolutely anonymous, is standing. The only noise for two remaining seconds of the ride up were the pathetic, feeble gasping attempts at holding back a ferocious laugh. When we got out on the third floor, with the doors still being open, the three of us started into a frenzy of laughter that could be heard throughout the entire hallway. We made our way back to our room, unable to keep from bellowing. I have never laughed for so long or with so much intensity.