Reach Out and Touch Something

Bears Ears X

During our Bear’s Ears trip we spent many evening’s ends and several times in between, reading to each other. Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness:  A Celebration of the Beauty of Living in a Harsh and Hostile Land” was a favorite. On pages 261 and 262, I found this excerpt when he was a park ranger exceedingly relatable. I identify with much of his expressions of exasperation.

QUOTE:

“Ranger, where is Arches National Monument?”

“I don’t know, mister, but I can tell you where it was.”

“LABOR DAY. Flux and influx, the final visitation of the season. They come in herds, like buffalo, down from The City. A veil of dust floats above the sneaky snakey old road from here to the highway, drifting gently downward to settle upon the blades of the yucca, the mustard yellow rabbitbush, the petals of asters and autumn sunflowers, the umbrella-shaped clumps of blooming wild buckwheat.

“What can I tell them? Sealed in their metallic shells like mulluscs on wheels, how can I pry the people free? The auto as tin can, the park ranger as opener. Look here, I want to say for godsakes folks get out of them there machines, take off those fucking sunglasses and unpeel both eyeballs, look around; throw away those goddamned idiotic cameras! For chrissake folks what is this life if full of care we have no time to stare? Eh? Take off your shoes for a while, unzip your fly, piss hearty, dig your toes in the hot sand, feel that raw and rugged earth, split a couple of big toenails, draw blood! Why not? Jesus Christ lady, roll that window down! You can’t see the desert if you can’t smell it. Dusty? Of course it’s dusty—this is Utah! But it is good dust, good red Utah dust, rich in iron, rich in irony. Turn that motor off. Get out of that piece of iron and stretch those varicose veins, take off your brassiere and get some sun on old wrinkled jugs! You sir, squinting at the map with your radiator boiling and your fuel pump vapor-locked, crawl out of that shiny hunk of GM junk and take a walk-yes, leave the old lady and those squawling brats behind for a while, turn your back on them and take a long quiet walk straight into the canyons, get lost for a while, come back when you damn well feel like it, it’ll do you and her and them a world of good. Give the kids a break, too, let them out of the car, let them go scrambling over rocks, hunting for rattlesnakes and scorpions, and anthills—yes sir, let them out, turn them loose, how dare you imprison little children in your goddamned upholstered horseless hearse. Yes sir, yes madam, I entreat you, get out of those motorized wheelchairs, get off your foam rubber backsides, stand up straight like men! like Women! Like human beings! And walk—walk—WALK upon our sweet blessed land.”

UNQUOTE

So, we saw this, lots of able-bodied travelers with huge investments in RVs of all sizes. Even the owners of ATV’s who would sit in their open-air rigs, having the other three seats filled with mom, grand-mom, kids, or beer cooler, all missing the point. They scare away the wildlife, they disturb the natural quieting, they just stay in-between those rails. They can never feel the wonders missed around them. Never realizing their rude transgressions, or what they are missing. I feel sad about them. Mr. Abbey, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

There are millions on this planet who can only dream about the mobility to fully immerse into the gift that so many squander. How ever, by whatever means, I implore, use what you’ve been blessed with, sit and listen to the night, the morning, feel the sun everywhere, allow the touch of the earth on the feet which will respond to the sand, or the dew laden grass. Even if your body has been made to feel little, or nothing, you are of “it,” not separate, it effects you.

One very gratifying reason that DF and I hike and live nude in nature is to indulge in all of that which is. Our intention is to naturally not miss a thing, to realize the most authentic experience possible.  We relish knowing these places with all of our natural senses, unrestricted.

Feel the real “it.” Sense the smell, hear it, taste it. Know it without the buffers, intimately. Be there with all that you can, to know it in the moment. So, strip!

I am on the forum of FreeRangeNaturism.com often, if you would like to converse.

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