Transience Teaches Patience

Glacier National Park
Mountain Camp
July 16

When I got packed and ready to leave the mountain for the second time
in as many days, I felt like I was leaving home. I was glad that I had
come to Glacier. I was glad that I had come to this exact spot. It was
impossible to remain dormant in the mountains; they're to unforgiving
for that. You either learned what was taught, or you moved on. I had
learned a lot, and for that I was grateful. The lakes and streams had
taught me unity. The mountains had taught me transitory, regal
majesty. Here, emphasis was on the transitory. The mountain was
splitting apart and falling down (effects of weathering). I learned
from the rain and wind that Nature always wears a Janus face. She was
truly two-faced. As with everything else, the bad makes the good
better, and good makes the bad worse. Probably the most important
lesson I'd learned, however, was "patience."

Cold, hungry, wet, miserable, or content, it was all self-explanatory
up here. It was just "me" under any and all conditions. The trees,
birds, fish, insects, mountains, clouds, snow…all were passive in
their independence, and in harmony as a group. Everything that was,
just was. When I left this place "It," the Being of the place, would
go on. My being would go on too, except, down the mountain, it would
go on as part of civilization. It would go on as part of the illusion,
a being of a different color perhaps, but just as real. A long time
ago I had learned that deliberate and effective change was part of the
illusion. Those who thought they could change the world risked
becoming fools. In fact, I memorized a passage from the Upanishads
(books of commentaries on Hindu sacred writings) that referred to this
very thing. It went something like this: "Fools dwelling in darkness,
wise in their own conceit, puffed up with vain knowledge, staggering
to and fro, going round and round, like blind men lead by the blind."

It's all very quiet now.