Chapter Won
Let Us Pray :- O Heavenly Father, is Reality your Dad Joke
There was this part of the map on google earth that was sort of blocked out, it looked like it had been digitally altered to hide something. I had noticed it a few years ago, as I like to look at my own area of life on the google map, and find it interesting when they change the picture. There is a ongoing progression of snapshots which tie together to lend insight into what is on the ground upon our world. For example, for some years google showed there was a bus in the front yard of a particular neighboring property, which had actually only been parked there for a few days. Myself, I live in a region near to a National Park and so there is thousands of acres of wilderness just out my back door.
For fun I would fly over my landscape with the aid of google earth and enjoy an explore of the lay of the land, the shapes of the creeks, the rocky outcrops peeking out from the forest, the fabric of the tree scape. But for some reason there was this one spot that caught my attention, and as much as all the other landscape would change over the years with updated images there was this one particular oddity that seemed to have been a cloned image from another part of the forest, permanently holding that particular position.
For my busy mind it seemed to be possibly hiding something, but practical logic would suggest that it was not an important part of the dense forest landscape in the cleft of two ridges, and the image was sufficient to present what was there.
But some beings have a funny something in them, a sort of a nagging “what if”, for myself I have been dealing with my own nagging “what ifs” for as long as I can remember.
Nagging “what ifs” are OK by themselves but when certain ponderables accumulate then they become hunches. Hunches are a little more demanding than what ifs. A Hunch is a strange and beautiful thing it activates a feel of allurement, a possible something just out of reach, a some thing that might not even have words to describe it yet, an idea nobody has yet thought, or maybe some notion that has been long forgotten and aches to be remembered.
A Hunch infects imagined possibilities that color the mind and generate scenarios that usually fade out into fantasies. Like when you buy a lotto ticket and for your few dollars you get to entertain your “what if” muscle, and if you have an active imagination certain things may happen in your day to catapult the what if into a hunch and then you can begin to imagine yourself driving a new car, or buying a new home, or traveling the world.
This little part of the forest was bugging me and while being at work, my doing-my-job-mind would begin daydreaming into taking a little hike to where the google anomaly beckoned, “its probably not to far” my mind would say “it probably is not to steep”, “bush walking is fun anyway”, “it will be good exercise” and then the final hunch punch “Why Not”.
So I did what any curious bloke would do and I set out with my backpack and photo copy of the google map knowing that at the very least I could discharge my “what if” and create the mind space for a new “what if” for some other day. Now it wasn't a simple and easy discharge of my “what if”, as google showed that the enigmatic part of the map lay about phive or so kilometers away as the crow flies through the wilderness. So in hilly rain forest scrub the actual path will be much longer.
The fateful day was early spring in the tropics, enjoyably warm days with cool evenings. The trek I calculated to be possibly double the crows flight and in parts a climb, as the terrain of my google map indicated my destination existed atop a ridge, joining a bigger ridge which lead to a shared high point of a few ridges. The creeks of the terrain were still with water from the wet season, so carry water was needed only for the climb over one ridge and then along more creek and more climb to the spot I had called X. X was mostly east facing but included a portion of the west face of the adjoining larger ridge.
I set out at daylight with the vague prospect of returning the same day. But good sense suggested I might like to prepare for a night sleep over in the forest and in my backpack I had my hammock and a small tarp and appropriate ropes and a sleeping bag. A nice compact bundle which I had used other times in other bush walking adventures.
A walk along the boulder-ed creeks of the forest is good for exercising all your monkey muscles. Rock hopping, and climbing, clambering, sliding, ducking under fallen trees, avoiding the claws of the 'wait-a-while' or the potent sting of the Moonlighter, being careful to not slip on the slippery bits. This type of bush walk is necessarily a journey of mindfulness. In a relaxed mindful stroll is the safest way to go a long way into the bush by yourself, no stress, no difficult time limits. Being prepared to sleep over allowed a day to get there and a day to get home.
The meditation of bush walking, when with out stress, allows ones mind-scape of “what ifs” to feel into the allurement of pondering multiple possibilities. Might I find some alien flying saucer base, or some secret military compound, maybe some old bloke who has been mining gold for fifty years, or is it just more scrub and rocks and turkey mounds.
Hours go by and ones mind becomes absorbed by what is, the sounds of the day, the birds, the water, the breeze, the sound of my walking, the sound of my breath, the pounding of my heart. The walk is comfortable though not easy, the following of the creeks always present a reasonably uncluttered high way, a part from fallen trees here and there.
I grew up with gentle, loving, nice people who were always dealing with there own “what ifs”. I noticed that “what ifs” come in two particular types and that obviously is positive and negative. The trouble with “what ifs” is that most times when one journeys into their particular “what ifs” to see if they are the particular “if” you thought they were going to be, some other “what if” comes along to change them, or complicate them.
But it is the unknown factor of the “what if” that breeds the hunch and it is the following of the hunch which ultimately cures the “what if”.
There is no escaping the “what ifs” when you are alive, as “what ifs” are mystically connected to ones will. Will I or won't I ? . What ever you end up doing you have answered a what if. If you do nothing you are still in the consequences of “what if I do nothing?”
My mindfulness of rock hopping was needing a rest and at a particularly beautiful water hole I sat and enjoyed the sun, drank the crystal clear flowing water and ate some dried fruit and nuts. My favorite, most compact and durable, most satisfying and effortless nourishment for these sorts of situations.
My mind was buzzing with a glow of smile due to my actually embarking upon a deliciously loaded “what if” adventure. It is so easy to ignore silly little things in your life that at the end of the day probably don't really mean anything. So I am on a bush walk, enjoying the nature, feeling the nourishing exercise of body, enjoying the mindfulness of the day, enjoying the daydreaming of following a hunch. Worst case scenario a healthful day or two of nature.
By afternoon I had crossed my first ridge and found my next creek system. Its flow was a little slower and there were gaps of dry stone between water holes. As the creek systems dry up in the dry season they change from creek to waterholes and eventually all dry at the surface. The higher you trek the dryer it becomes. My water bottles now full as I now tackle the ridge which I calculate will get me to X. My guess as to where I was had me feeling I was still a couple hours from where I needed to get to to dissolve my what if.
The juxtaposition of my google map of terrain of tree tops to the flow of the land at ground level has you always wondering if you are actually where you are supposed to be. Will I be clever enough to actually find what I am looking for ? The enigmatic spot on the map covered a few acres so I was bound to at least identify some part of the ridge intersection. All my previous bush walking was not going any where in particular, especially not looking for a particular spot in the scrub. I was not equipped with satellite navigation or any thing fancy like that, I had my photo copied google map and my own fathoming.
I was surprised by the steepness of the terrain I was meeting by mid afternoon, and the density of the scrub had become more challenging. As you