Jasper

One may well wonder why anyone would strap a heavy pack to one’s back and set out on an agonizing, calf-burning, knee-crunching, mosquito infested trek through the back country of Jasper National Park.

I thought, after all these years, I knew how painful such journeys can be, but I tend to be a September hiker, after the mosquitoes have died, when the air is frosty and I can wear a lovely padded jacket that spares me the agony of bruises from straps digging into my shoulders and hips mile after uphill mile. After ending this trek covered in layers of sweat, blood (my own, thanks mozzies), bug spray, sun screen, bites,  squashed bugs, and bruises, I have every intention of returning to my strictly autumn hiking habit – give me freezing cold, teeth-chattering nights any day over the trials of sweaty, buggy summer days and stormy summer nights (three hour displays of sheet lightening followed by hailstorms at 4:00 a.m. do not a peaceful night’s sleep make).

But to answer that question, “Why do it?” see below:

First viewpoint over the Athabasca River after 7.5 km on the first day of hiking

First view upon breaking through the trees on the first day and that Group of Seven feeling overcomes you

The Fryatt Valley deep in the heart of Jasper. I was continually awestruck and grateful to be alone in this vast wild valley in an overcrowded world of 7 plus billion people. I felt like the luckiest person on earth, though it had less to do with luck and more to do with stubborn determination and a willingness to endure

It may not look like a comfy bed but after a seemingly endless day on the trail the valley bottom at Brussels campsite was the perfect place to crawl into a tent and pass out

Morning sun on the slopes above Brussels campsite

A wet year and water was everywhere, seeming to ooze out of the mountainsides all around us

Setting out on the second day without the packs after leaving camp felt like true liberation

It may be the most enormous slide covered in loose, ankle twisting rocks, but without the packs who could complain?

We had plenty of streams to ford thanks to a snowy winter followed by a rainy spring. Fortunately, I never fell off any logs or boulders and got a boot full of icy glacier water but my companions were not so lucky!

Approaching Fryatt Lake over the slide

Fryatt Lake. Just as stunning as Lake Louise but we didn’t have to share it with anyone!

Again, Lake Louise without the pavement, the tourists, the bawling ice cream smeared children who could care less about visiting UNESCO world heritage sites, people taking photos of themselves on their phones, and other horrors . . .

High water this year meant the lake shore trail was sometimes underwater. . . more wet feet.

Beyond Fryatt Lake, approaching the falls

Glacial fed beauty

The falls above Fryatt Lake. The snow had just melted here but there was still enough left for a snow ball fight.

Returning to the valley via Fryatt Lake

Evening at Fryatt Creek, lower Fryatt campsite. Fortunately there was a foot bridge over this one and we didn’t have to ford it!

Lower Fryatt Campsite. Pretty Basic. The sum total of amenities – a semi-flat patch of gravel strewn ground for your tent and a bear cache for your food

Morning at Lower Fryatt after the lightening storm that kept me awake

Morning at Lower Fryatt

The trails at Miette Hot Springs (a hot soak was in order after the Fryatt Valley) seemed tame with the wide gravel paths and foreign tourists sporting those tinny mini cow bells intended to frighten bears and annoy the locals

Another Beautiful Morning

I never tire of starting my day this way . . . and look, no ice!!

Beauty by John O’Donohue

 I had the house to myself for most of the weekend so downloaded a treat from Sounds True to keep me company while I pottered around the house cooking, cleaning and making soap (lavender shea butter soap – this could be my best yet!).  I made the best possible choice when I selected ‘Beauty: The Invisible Embrace’ by John O’Donohue .

I was attracted to this title because I am terribly disappointed by the deliberate ugliness of the world we have created. Environmental destruction,  the violence, perversity, crudeness, and inanity that passes for entertainment, the noise, the fumes, the cheapness,  artifice,  utilitarianism and greed. We have created an ugly civilization and an ugly culture on every level.

When, in the first section of this book, the author stated, “When you look at postmodern society it is absolutely astounding how much ugliness we are willing to endure,” I knew I’d found a kindred spirit.

But the book didn’t take the course I expected. It didn’t dissect and analyze the ugliness of our world and then make suggestions on how to solve the problem through a renewed commitment to beauty. This book turned out to be much more and much better than that.  It was more of a guided tour and homage to beauty and a bit of a dusting off and rediscovering of the places where true beauty lives. It was a gripping journey that brought together poetry and thought on beauty throughout the ages, and examined how it infuses our lives, brings us to life and, indeed, is the best of who we are.

All of this was delivered with the fine storytelling, eloquence, grace and a delightful curiosity of the author, punctuated by the occasional unexpected stab of  humour.  I savoured every minute of it.  The book explores all the expected places such as landscape, nature, light, colour, and music but it goes so much further and deeper than that in exploring the true sources of human beauty  – from the imagination to woundedness to reverence – and its inevitable manifestations of graciousness, truth, balance, proportion, dignity, respect and integrity.

As it is difficult to write a concise synopsis of such a sumptuous feast,  I will instead offer some random quotations that I hope will pique your curiosity and lead you to enjoy this wonderful work  in its entirety:

Quoted from William Stafford’s ‘Crossing Unmarked Snow’:

The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying the things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing the things you do not have to hear dulls your hearing; and the things you know before you hear them – these are who you are and this is the reason you are in the world.

On the beauty of nature:

The beauty of the earth is the first beauty and our difficulty with the earth is that we are usually so busy and so taken up with our lives that  we rarely seem to acknowledge that we are actually here at all.

The memories of nature are within us but each of us also in our bodies and minds and thoughts and souls are very unique masterpieces that the earth has created . . . we are earthen vessels that hold immense treasures.

One of the most tender ways of awakening to the sense of beauty is to really waken up to the beauty of nature.

On wilderness:

I suppose because they are so much themselves, wild territories remind us and recall us to the unexamined territories of our own hearts and minds and they open up places within us that we don’t even know are there.

On being human:

One of the lovely things about being a human is that we are called in each moment to bring ourselves to birth.

Part of the difficulty of our times is that we have reduced the magnificent adventure of being a human being to endless, wearisome projects of self-improvement and self-analysis according to the flattest and most boring maps that could be made.

On the beauty of the imagination:

The imagination is infinitely kinder than the mind. The imagination works naturally from the in-between world, that invisible territory, and it seeks out the edges of the unknown to find out the thing that neither the mind nor the eye ever attend to.

One of the most sacred duties in any life is to honorably imagine yourself, to bring the full depth and care and luminosity to imagining the person that you actually are. The depth of who you are also depends on the depth of your ability to imagine yourself.

On Beauty and the experience thereof:

Beauty is not a deadener but a quickener and it alerts and awakens our heart to what is true and good and unified.

The experience of beauty is like a homecoming. When we feel and see and touch the beautiful we feel that we are at one with ourselves because in some subtle and secret way beauty meets the needs of the soul.

On glamour:

One of the fatal habits of minds which has become common in our times is to mistake glamour for beauty. Glamour is a highly fickle and commercially driven enterprise that contributes to the humdrum.

In calling for an “imaginative restoration of the mystery and beauty of experience”:

One of the tragedies of Western culture at the moment is how poor and thin experience has become. . . We say ‘to have an experience.’ Experience has become a possession and a product . . . people rifle their experiences like a scavenger rifles a dustbin.

In quoting philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer:

The integrity and truth of a society is determined by its willingness and ability to engage contradiction.

On “Creating beauty out of woundedness”:

Divest yourself of outside explanation and voices and attend to the particular shape that the wounds take in your life . . . your places of greatest illumination and most elegant poise are the places where you’ve been badly wounded. . . . out of woundedness comes strength that has been tested.

On the importance of old-fashioned courtesy:

Courtesy is the secret unacknowledged heart of all civility.

On the beauty of self-respect:

 . . . proud of the beauty we do not own but has been given to us.

My personal favourite, in the discussion of music:

I’ve often wondered if a deaf alien were to visit an orchesteral concert . . .

And, ultimately:

Whenever we awaken to beauty, we are helping to make God present in the world.

The eternal in a human being is a light sleeper and will awaken at the slightest rustle.

The Wait is Over

Flowers – Why aren’t we mad with joy?

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”
— Iris Murdoch 

  

Borage flower in the garden, early this morning

  

Today's Calendula blossoms. I'll be making infused oil with these.

  

A house full of fresh flowers, one of my favourite things about summer.

  

Ox-eye Daisy. Some of the most common and least appreciated flowers are among my favourites.

 

The Summer Day – My Favourite of Favourite Poems

I was asked recently what my favourite novel was. I don’t have one, nor a favourite story, movie, or play. But I do have a favourite poem, one that I love more than any other and that I have committed to memory. I remember it often at this time of year and recalled it just moments ago when reading George’s post on The Importance of Loafing over at Transit Notes.  

The Summer Day  

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is just what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?  

 – Mary Oliver  

Broomhill Sculpture Garden, Devon

 

  

   

My friend M's garden in Rossland, a most inviting place to be idle and blessed on a beautiful summer day