One Year - Fire

As I set out of the house, brave and happy, the weather brought me back to October, and the thirty-pound hiking pack on my back brought Asheville back. That nameless sense of wonderment and adventure, the undeniable feeling that as strange and new as the land is, it is entirely yours, 'ere you may go

This is the ultimate measure of whether your travels have been well for you. If you feel this, then that is your success.  

If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal . . . All nature is your congratulation

It has been a full turning of the seasons since I set out towards the mountains, with just a forty-pound hiking pack and a bicycle --- four hours to drive there, four weeks to get back. The cold has come back and has kissed my face many a time already. Between then and now, I have had many an adventure, and I have learned much. Not having a car has had such a positive impact in my life. It has forced me into a exhaustive investigation of my native land. James Island, Strawberry, Goose Creek, U.S. 176 past Goose Creek, the U.S. 52 / U.S. 78 split with the great oak tree, Hanahan, Bushy Park Rd, Sullivan's Island, the Ravenel Bridge, and every last inch of Rivers Avenue. Hundreds of miles have passed behind me in my soul flights over the past year. With autumn having arrived again, I look forward with love in my eyes over the changing of colors. Just this afternoon, I was bicycling on a road that borders one of the many swamps in Goose Creek. The trees across the water, their mosses caught in the midst of saffron fire! The goldenrod all along the hills, resonating with the light of the late afternoon sun. All these past days, I have been perpetually drunk off the air, methinks a sweet wine abounds in all of it. And if the air is ambrosia, then the train screaming is an injection. stealing my breath, holding it captive sometimes for multiple seconds, undaunted as I contemplate my world hanging on the precipice of a great ledge. It certainly evokes such apocalyptic feelings. And then there are God's stars, Avalokitesvara's ten-wondered universe of dark and diamonds, falling like cherryblossoms upon your head as His blessings. These are my tranquilizer. As seen from skies just beginning to clear, giving promise of sunshine come morning, (after soothing me) they carry me unto the top of the world, where I look at the valley below holding the mists of the morning world. The chill air that sets my bosom a-burning, the trees colored as if a flame of fire, the distant burning stars, it is all fire, it is all spirit. Peaceful fire, purifying fire.