GAIA AND ME

I love the Earth. Not in the tree-hugging, bleeding heart liberal way that most people would think when I say that even though I’m probably that too.  But in the I absolutely love the tremendous beauty and solitude and danger and power and inspiration and solitude and don’t fuck with me attitude of this huge old Earth of ours. I love it so much I have half a mind to call it Gaia, imbuing it with the personality of a Goddess so powerful that Zeus’s Olympus is just a puny little mountain lean-to  compared to the Goddess’s glory.

Somehow Mother Nature (I call her Mother for short) and I have been buddies for many years. I kind of think of Mother as one aspect of Goddess Gaia. When I was younger, my best friend was a big old weeping willow down near the very intermittent creek on my folk’s property. (This is where the tree hugging comes in.) I LIVED in that tree. It was often so much less chaotic than the house on the hill where my Mom, Dad and my 4 other siblings lived. Tree was my sanctuary. 

I’m pretty sure that old tree had a special relationship with Mother because after I fell out of the tree at the lady-old age of 15, my Dad chopped it down to the nub, taking out on the tree the anxiety and upset he could not take out on me. I was pretty hurt from the fall and Dad felt the someone – or in this case something – should be punished for my sin of not wanting to grow up into a young lady that would want to maybe I don’t know join a sorority at college or wear pumps. But months later after I recovered from both the fall and my Dad’s executing my best friend, I made my way down the hill very carefully to grieve for it and tell it I was sorry. And where the trunk had been, a tiny healthy brightly green sapling had sprouted. I figured it was Tree’s way to let me know it had forgiven me and the Mother’s way of saying she was kind of sorry things got so out of hand.

In my mind, which in the wilderness tends to be befuddled and clear all at the same time, Mother Nature may be an aspect of but unlike Gaia who I’m a little afraid of and the Mother and I have a special deal. Whenever I am out in the wilderness, bad things just do not happen. The sun shines or if it is snowing like shit something incredible happens like a herd of bison cross my snowmobile’s path and a big old bull looks me right in one eye (their eyes are kind of far apart) or the most glorious rainbow appears or no kidding that day, the bad thing just morphs into one of the best days of my life.  I think Gaia likes to tease me a little when I get cocky just to remind me of her power.

I’ve been spending more and more time wandering by myself lately and my next excursion on foot and with my home on my back is a trip to Isle Royale, the largest island in Lake Superior and a National Park. Somehow I feel so much less anxiety camping down some dirt road all by myself or backpacking solo into a peaceful forest undoubtedly full of dangers than I do at my local Mall. I can trust the wilderness to be just that – the wilderness. The wilderness has no malignant feelings and just is. As long as I prepare for what I can, chances are I’m going to have a great time and come out with praise in my heart and my head for the Mystery that lets Gaia exist in this huge cosmos.

This trip is a bit of both solo backpacking and group canoe/camping trip. The group part is early in the trip so I have several days to recover from trying to be at least just a little of that pump-wearing but paddle-wielding lady my Dad so wanted me to be. Although, honestly, most of these people already know me and they know I’m like Abbey’s cactus in Desert Solitaire – I just need a LOT of space to grow. They don’t expect me to wear pumps but they have yet to witness the depths of my introversion that I am so careful to nurture at appropriate and solitary times.

The days following the canoe trip will be all mine – and Gaia’s of course. The east end of the Island, where I will spend the first few days of my backpack, is all rocky trail and boreal forest. The western end, where I will alight after a brief ferry ride from the east side, is all old-growth hardwood forest. The kind they used as a model for the Ent Treebeard.

I have decided to use this solo trip as a test trip for a new way to backpack using only my hammock and a rain tarp for shelter. I figure if it doesn’t work out I can always sleep on the ground in my sleeping bag, zipped up on the ground in my tent hammock, rolled up in the rain-proof tarp to keep out the moisture. Either way, I’ll be in a place with lots of friends – the trees. I’m sure they probably group remember my long enduring friendship with my Willow. I’ll be fine.

In the meantime, ramping up for the trip, it’s fun learning an entirely new way of rigging gear. I’m refreshing my memory on my knots (hammock rigging takes a lot of knots) and hoping sleeping in a hammock will prolong my backpacking days now that the arthritis in my hip feels particularly painful after a night on the ground. I’m cross-checking my gear for double duty plus all the gear I will need for only the canoeing or the backpack. I’m checking websites and Youtube for the weather and to make sure I have all the gear I need and the most important will be available on both sides of the Island in case I run out of or lose what I brought. I swear gearing up for a trip is almost as much fun as the actual going for me.

We are so privileged. We get to sleep in warmed or cooled homes, step into clean bathtubs with reliable hot water raining down upon us. Our food comes from packaging instead of from the end of our bow or our rod. Heat for cooking comes from a high-tech tiny stove instead of a carefully placed gathering of slightly damp limbs and branches which have been coaxed into a friendly fire.

Somehow, as I pack, I feel the Mother hanging out with me and I think Gaia is watching all my preparation and gently reminding me that Mother Nature and I have a deal. As long as I treat their precious Earth well, Gaia and the Mother will be on watch.

#hammockbackpacking #aging #gaia #nature