LONENESS

Loneness. When you think  of it, it seems to be a empty word. Almost like “nothing“, it is there but you can never  find it, how far does it go,  where does it start and where does it end. There are examples of it, just look  at a set of mountains, or a empty valley.

But when you really think about it, it effects people too, not just nature and in pictures. Could it be a drug? Some think of as a disease, a cure that could be never  found. What about a feeling, like happy, sad, angry.  You can never see it coming, it hits likes when you not expecting.  What if you did see it coming, will you prepared, ready for  impact? Could you accept it or are you wanting to fight it off with a battle?  How would you do it,  take it your happy place and watch it dissolve in it’s own pain.  What about watching it lurk back where it came from in the shadows, but keeping an eye on it and watching, till it hits again.  Do we make it up or is there even anything like it.  Are we playing minds games with ourselves, and thinking that we really are lonely, or do we actually just want to think that way.

How high are your walls?  Are they as big as a canon or a mountain? Is your space big, small, tall, deep.  What’s like in there, is it empty? Do you keep your self busy, or do you just sit there and wait for it to go away.  How long are you willing to wait? Do you find a secret way out and never let it know that you left or do you just go right through and hope to find help and survive the whole thing.

If you did survive how would you tell the story? Stand up tall and let the people know or  would you just keep it quite and under wraps and not say anything.  Do you praise your self and do something that only you will understand but celebrate with friends and family.  Just to know that they are not forgotten.  But, in due time you will forget the past until it comes back for revenge. Then it will hit even harder and faster will stand up and fight it over again or will you let it take you over. Eating you away little by little.  When it does take you over what happens next.  Will there be a stage 2, what about a second draft of loneness?  Does it even harder and more powerful than the first?  If, it does, will you find your self stuck in a corner, a hole, just hanging around in places for a long time like a statue. Looking  out in the world where you just stand and stare., or what about…curled up in a ball. Just letting poke fun you, all day and all night. Almost makes you feel like you are an outsider. Different. You don’t fit in at all, unwanted, not accepted. But you make good of what you got, you use resources to cope and fit in.  Then surprisingly, then right in the front of your face, you see a pebble fall, could this be the way out? Is the Calvary coming,  a sign of hope.

Then you step back and examine the crack where the pebble fell.  Do you pick at it or do you leave it alone and let it works the way through.  How will it show it self, like water dripping from a faucet, explosion like a bomb going off or a big piece of hard wear coming through and smacking you in the face telling you to wake up. What does it feel like, being born again. Flying high in the clouds,  so relaxed that you don’t know how to response to it, almost like dropping acid or popping a ecstasy into your mouth.  Do you jump up and down like crazy person or do you enjoy in the site where you start to cry and believe it is the most happiness moment of your life and you take it all in one step at a time.

But all I can tell you is that, we all experience this feel some time through our life time. The real question is how do you deal with it? I know I have but have not forgotten how it feels to deal with…………LONENESS.

Backpacking for the first time……

In the year 2005, I decied to take a 4 day bacpacking trip. It was the first i would have done anything like, this. I was happy, i was going to do something, that i wanted to do. Iam the one that dished out the time and money to research the gear I needed.

The day started off pretty good I was there eating breakfast, and thinking of what kinda meals and stuff i needed. So i start making alist of food items i needed. Then my grandpa calls and asked if would help him move a couch with some other people, so i agreed, well the day went on and by the time we got done moving the couch, and came back home, the noon wistle of going off. Then mom and i got ready to leave for town, it had to be a fast trip, b/c the whole time i was helping move the couch, i could have been hiking the trail. but noooo, grandpa wanted to stand around and talk.

By the time I got back from town, it was already 4 pm, my dad was just getting home and saw me in the huse with all my gear spread out, and food covering the table, and yells, ” YOU HAVE NOT LEFT YET!” Thats when i told him about the day. So he jumps in and helps me pack and haluts everything out to the car. As we are driving up there, we are talking about how i will stay in contact and quizes me on survival and what nots. We finally reach the trail head, as i jump out of the car, i stand there, with a 7000 cubic inch backpack, with every piece of gear i own. as i look around, there is a small pond with a tiny island, just big enough for one person, on each side there is two tree stumps. Over the tree stumps there is green, 2 person kayak, amost acting like a roof over it. Then under neath it sat a man and a women,  they had a small fire going, i am not sure if they were going stsay there, or just hanging out. for the day.

Found this on the web thought you might like it…………

Silent hiking
NATURE AS MY GUIDE

Celu Hamer

In the early morning hours, I hear the birds begin to sing.  Their songs welcome the day before the yellow glow of the sun peaks over the eastern hill.  I lay in my bed unable to sleep and finally, rolling over, I find the floor and kneel before my alter.  Sometimes I sit there watching the flame of a small candle burning, allowing my thoughts to rise and fall like waves on the ocean.  Sometimes I think of nothing at all, but just listen to my breath.  Many mornings I pray for guidance from the great Mother, taking her light in to the dark spaces of my being. I seek the meaning of my existence from the void of the universe that lies within my belly, quieting the chaos in my head.  I want to blend with all life and be the transparent Qi Gong Master, but I feel a fledgling, just a small bird in a nest dreaming that someday I might fly.  Waking to a new dawn where meaning is found in the unfolding of the day, the world seems broken.  Neighbors rush to desk jobs, children and teachers to desks. Connection with nature is lost.  Connection is in the dark, quiet forests of pine and redwood, in the rolling hills of oak and sage, in the laughing streams that flow out to meet the ocean, and along the edge of long beaches where sand is kissed by rolling surf.  In these places a voice speaks; this is the mantra of nature. 

Nature is alive.  Living sky and living hills expand and contract. Witnessing nature brings connection, connection brings peace, and peace brings healing.  Nature is the only truth that remains in a world increasingly covered by pavement and plastic.  Conformity and false importance of the human construct falls away when I am in these places.  Cities and towns with hard oiled surfaces, and hard oiled ground meant for the movement of cars, cover the beauty and healing of the earth.  My bones ache from walking on hard sidewalks.  My knees are swollen from crossing the hard streets.  My head hurts from the ceaseless noise of the crawling traffic, the screaming sirens of emergency vehicles, the piercing of car alarms that call to self importance, and the growling leaf blowers that are blowing away the topsoil.  Fellow understanding and compassion is shadowed by angry hurried drivers who hardly wait for me to cross the street as I take my walk to the store. 

No one wants to walk anymore as a mode of transportation.  The car has become a convenience that people think they cannot move without, even though cars are destroying our health and the health of all species.  This car dependency is not just an American trend.  British children walk 50 miles less per year then they walked ten years ago; 20% of these kids are considered overweight (Reilly et. al., 1999).  Statistics for this phenomenon in America must be far worse.  Why do we choose to do this?  How can we be healthy if our environment is covered in oil?  We are being lied to by the media to believe that our cars and petroleum based gadgets provide us with freedom and escape, yet traffic is piling up.  We are being told by the ten oíclock news, that our children are not safe from predators out on the streets, although the truth is that car accidents pose a much greater threat to the lives of children.  The car culture does not seem to take into consideration that our children are getting sick because we are making our environment sick.  Billions of dollars are being spent to find cures for cancer, obesity, asthma, stress, etc., but we are forgetting about the pollution factor for which most of us participate.  I am in disbelief when I see a March of Dimes flyer, seeking to raise funds to fight cancer by promoting a contest for a new Toyota Truck, in the store window on the same day I hear on the news that a huge oil tanker is crashed at the mouth of the Columbia River.  Why are people in such denial about their personal participation in this environmental disaster?  I am at a loss to explain the insanity of the car-based culture.  I am stressed out by driving.  I just want to walk on the grass and not on the sidewalk.  I desire to feel the earth beneath my feet.

To keep from going mad, I seek the safety of the hills where the earth is soft and the noise of man made machines fade into the sounds of the flowing brook, the singing wind, the rustling of leaves.  My walking takes me high up into the hills where the hum of traffic becomes a white noise that no longer shatters my nerves.  Following the deer trail off the beaten path of bicyclists and joggers, songs of birds are singing the praises of life.  Beneath the hum of distant traffic I can hear the hum of the earth, barely audible but ever present.  She speaks with animal voices and the movement of small creatures rustling under leaves.  Her sweetness is heard in the singing of flowers, her sadness can be felt in the crying and moaning of the trees.  When human construct falls away, I can hear the earth sing out.  The earth is where I find my healing from the stress of the daily grind of life; of waiting in coffee lines, of shopping lines, of toll both lines, of the narrow restricted lines of human existence.

            While walking in silence along a beach, I notice that the white noise of human machines gives way to the pink noise of ocean waves rolling on the shore.  Wind and waves blend gently with the cries of gulls, warming my heart.  I sink into the sand and connect with the earth, the tension in my body melts.  I feel the earth holding me in her lap.  I close my eyes and still take in this beauty through my ears.  A Google search on ìNature Sounds for Relaxationî finds 298,000 possible matches so I know that I am not the only one seeking the healing that nature offers.  At the end of the day, I watch the sunset.  Looking out over the roofs, covered with people enjoying this same amazing art, I sense that I am not alone.  A deep sigh escapes us when we witness the colors of a sunset or walk slowly along a beach.  What makes these moments so healing? 

There is something we cannot explain about how we are affected by nature, but we need nature in our lives.  Even the images of nature can break the hard grind of existing behind the wheels of our cars and the square confinement of our cubicles.  Twenty years of research, by Robert Ulrich of University A&M Texas, has shown that viewing nature reduces stress, is a powerful antidepressant, and significantly improves recovery rates for hospital patients (Larkin, M., 2000).  More and more of this scenery is being replaced by strip malls, housing developments, and car sales mega-lots.  The constant hum of machines, the loud bursts of horns and unwanted music all work against our experiencing the peace and quiet of nature.  Unnatural sounds are adversely affecting our health.  Exposure to high intensity noise can cause heart rates in guinea pigs to soar from 224.5 bpm to 278.6 bpm, causing the release of norepinephrine into the blood stream (Muchnick, et. al., 1998). 

We are not unlike lab animals, trapped in our car-cages, being exposed to high intensity sounds that we cannot control; even the non-driver must endure the relentless noise of petroleum technology.  Our reaction is to seek nature on our days off, but we need not participate as destructive weekend warriors by driving our pollution machines into nature for a glimpse of what is not yet covered with petroleum.  We are ignoring the nature available to us everyday by believing that nature is somewhere else, and by participating in overdevelopment.  Nature does not have to be a distant destination accessible only by the vacationing rich.  Nature can be accessed through enjoying our gardens, bringing plants inside our homes, or even visualizing the images of the nature we hold in our thoughts

Thats who I am…..

First off, I want to thank everyone for stopping by, and reading my posts. It means a lot to me, when I hear good things.

Well alot of you are probably wondering how or why I named by blog, “Mountain Dog Chronicles”. The name Mountain Dog, I kinda of thought of when I was thinking of a trail name. When I was going to school to be a chef in Pittsburgh, Pa., the people I hung out with called me Nate-dog. When I moved Kansas, they also called me Nate-dog. But they dropped the name Nate and called me Dog. So I sat back one day and thought about making a really cool trail name for myself. I can see you all now  scratching your head and asking whats a trail name? A trail name is a name you or someone else gives you when you are out hiking or backpacking. It is the time you need to your self and God. You almost act like someone else. There are tons of different names, you even see them in books, movies, and see them on the Internet about hiking and backpacking. You could be doing a long distance hike with a stranger and you could never know what their real name is.

So anyway, I named myself Mountain Dog. Meaning, that I love to look at mountains, climb a mountain, or even be on a mountain. Mountains are amazing all natural structures. The dog part come from everyone calling me by my nick name. I also, thought of calling myself “Question Mark”, but my sister didn’t like that. But I thought it had a good ring to it.

So any ways, I wanted everyone to see what I  was all about and naming my blog chronicles and not journal. Well thats easy. A journal is a book you carry around, write your thoughts and what you did that day, draw pictures, and write poems and stuff in. Well I wanted to record all my thoughts and hiking/backpacking experiences so everyone can read them. Besides, I like to see my self as a different person then everyone else. I don’t like that fact that everyone does everything the same way, or does it because everyone else, like buying that game system, or dressing the same clothes, same sunglasses, shoes, jeans, just because that famous person has that style, etc.

I am, someone who likes to think stuff threw. Plays it safe and carefully, looks out for other people, then thinks of myself last. I am, not a selfish person. I am, happy for what I have and the friends I got. I am, a single, I go to church , and I enjoys the pastors message every time.

I am, a backpacker, a hiker, a bicyclist, a granola eating,  earth stomping, nature loving, big hearted, relaxing, nose stuck in a book or a magazine, who follows a personal trail of life, who has a volleyball room mate named Wilson, who likes to use rechargeable batteries, while using backpacking equipment in a everyday life, and being Eco-green as possible kinda of guy.

And thats who I am.

Take the long way home……part 2

As many of have read the last posting, i wrote, about the homeless guy on a bike.

Well just a few weeks, Pastor and i decied to take a bike ride one Sunday afternoon, before we left the Pastors wife decied to say dont get any flats tires and have fun. well shortly after we took off, we stopped at the gas station to get some air in the tires of Pastors bike. well started off, as we entered the south end of town, we decided to stay single file. After we exited south if town, we stayed next to each other(side by side), as we were riding and talking, we heard and weird sound, almost like a squashing noise, then Pastor looked down and saw that i had a flat. So we decied, to stop and repair ir, well the fun was not over yet. When Ii got the tools out, i heard Pastor go, ” AHHH”.  As I look over his bike that he parked in the grass, tipped over. Pastor,  then contuined to help get the tire off, and  change the intertube. so after getting the tube and tire back on. Ii pick up the co2 inflater, and connected it to the tire, and nothing. still stand ign there with a flat, thats wheni decied to make a joke. When stood there fir a minute, i took a deep breathe andlet it out, i looked up to the sky and closed my eyes and said out load “Remember the message Nate, remember the message Nate” (Pastor at the time had a 3 part series abotu dealing with anger). Shortly after I said that, both me and Pastor broke out laughing very load, to break the silnate anger about the flat tire.  As we both decied, to end the bike ride there, so we diced to walk back on foot, not eve thinking about how far we have gone. We just starting talking about diffent stuff, from hiking to doing plays, and opening the church to one day  a week, for aarty open mic night.

But the thing that I noticed was that there was tons of traffic going my us the whole time, and not a single person, even to stop and see if we were ok, or even offered us a ride back into town. when we reached the gas station, the same one we stoppped at to fill Pastors tires the first time, W e stoppped and hung out in the shade. As we fished our walk with the bikes back to Pastors house, we turned the corner, we got closer and he asked if i wanted to go yell at his wife for saying what happened. But when i opened the door, i just said it, I nevered yelled at her. i am too nice of a guy to do that to anyone. As Pastor entered the house, he made a joke by saying, ” Well, i better go mow the lawn, since Nate popped bothi his tires on the bike”. So i offered to do it for him, but he said he can do it. So, we loaded up the car with my bike, when going home, we decied to………TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME, that day, but we will always look back on this day and laugh at it.

Take the long way home……

As many of you probly know by now that I originally, not from Kansas. But yet from a small town in New York. When I look back, I can see myself, riding down the road on my bike or going fishing at the local pond. but when the season chage there is a diffent mood. when winter comes it means helping a stranger out of the snow banks, going skiing, snowboarding, even sledding. these are all happy memories that we all should have.

But the other day at work, when i was on lunch. i turned the corner to see a older gentle man, standing there, with a bike. All diffent kinda of bags, hanging all over it. But i noticed that his clothes were not that clean, his shoes where kinda torn up a little on the sides. Then i decied to take a seat, and see what would happen. I was surprised he just went on about his business and lite up a cigarette.

When i first saw him, it riminded me of living in Pittsburgh, Pa., there is tons of homeless people there, they would even buy wax boxes from you for nearly as 5 cents to 25 cents a pop. I wanted to help everyone i saw, but yet they all were not nice as some people these days. There has been a few times where me and friends would TAKE A LONG WAY HOME, just to get away from them. but yet some times i wondered how they became that way. was it b/c of laziest, loss of job, loss of family, it could have  been anything. So i kinda dont wanta end up like them, when I get older.

So when i saw the guy at the store i was wondering where he was headed. but i was able to get a shots with my camera phone. They are not the greatest shots, but it something to look back on. But when I saw him light up a cigarette, i was kinda happy that I did not lend him some money. Because I know, he would spend it on something that he did not need.

I am just glad  that I made a good choice to stay working and have a place over my head, but yet it seems it would be good to get on a bike and go any palce you want. Just to get away from the people. But, you also need to look out for other things too along the road, like getting flat tires and bike parts breaking, etc. Even thou he is, TAKING THE LONG WAY HOME.

My 9-11 triburte

Hello, all.  See action speaks louder then words, but yet a picture says a 1,ooo words.

As some of you know, I am from Upstate New York. raises most of my life there, after i graduated high school in 1998, i had a life change experience on September 11, 2001. But a lot of us will never forget as the saying goes.

As i woke up that morning, it had to about 7:30 am, I heard the UPS truck pulling into my parents driveway, so i waited till i heard the package drop on the front porch, as i opened the door it was for me. My brand new 4 season backpacking tent, that I ordered from a small outdoor store over the internet. ( It was Kelty snowfall expedition 2 tent, 4 season, if you were all wondering). So i hurried and got the tent up and was standing there looking at it in awwww. Thinking how great it is was to have a tent for a year round. As it dawned to me to take a picture of it, i ran back inside and grabbed my camera and took a picture of the tent standing in my parents back yard. As the silence went on, it broke with a ringing phone. When i answered the call it was my mom calling, to tell me to turn the t.v. on and change the channel to CNN. I then did what she asked, as soon as she said a plane crashed into the World Trade Center, i was confused to what she was talking about. Then she repeated what she said again, But this time around she said the twin towers, as I turned to the t.v. There a building one of two towers on fire with smoke rolling from it like a chimney. By that time, it had to be about 8: 47 am

I was so scared I hung the phone up on my mom, with out saying bye. For the rest of the day I sat in the chair closetest to the t.v. listen to what the reporters had to say about the plane crashing. Everyones first reacting was it was flying to low or there was problems with plane. As everyone over the CNN was saying different stuff, they had video of (formerly know President Bush) talking to a school of 3th graders and as one of the body guards leans and wispers to the President about what happen, he gets very disturbed. By this time they cut back to the reporters threw out New York. As camera men are showing people flooding the streets of New York, they cut back to the main reporter. He does not get a single word out of his mouth, they have the cameras facing the second tower ands thats when the second plane crashed into the building. By this time I, i could have stopped breathing, knowing how scared it would be to be going threw this and watching it in front of you.

The time, 9:04 am, cameras still showing different scenes of down town, New York. Cops telling people to move, and all chaos breaks lose. The streets, getting covered in ash,burning papers, parts of the building falling to the streets. But yet, the firefighter and engines with sirens and lights going off, driving into the smoke and ash, to save lives. As the day went on they kept covering and replaying the video, of the planes crashing into the buildings. and people screaming. But yet, they kept saying there was more info every so often. Then later that day, there had been reports of two more crashes in America, one was in Pennsylvania, and the other was on the Pentagon, the reports said, that plane that hit the Pentagon was suppose to hit the White House instead. The weird thing is that i knew a guy i went to church with, that was almost on that plane that hit the Pentagon. if he walked on the second plane,he would not have been here.

well the thing is that him and his business partner, decided too walk up the road after hearing about the crashes. As they walked up the road, a gentleman yelled from a van saying that he was headed up to central New York. the whole way home they listened to the radio about the day. But it does not stop there, i also knew a girl that moved to NYC, for college and attended New York University, so you can image what was going threw my head at that point. When the day grew longer, i sat and watched different reports, and aerial shots of all four crashes, the whole experience was mind numbing. i totally lost thought of the tent in the back yard, eating lunch that day. It was just me and the television. When my mom walked threw the door after work about 2:45 to 3 pm that day, she asked what else happened since then, I acted like a recorder and recapped everything with her and updated her. We just sat in silence for the next few hours as time ticked away, thenit hit us what time it was, then we ate dinner. after dinner we decided to move away from the t.v. and talk about something, else. when my dad spotted my tent in the back yard, we went out to look at it and check it out. was saying what a nice tent it was and all. but some how, we always brought up the subject of the day. i was planning on sleeping in the tent that night too. But instead, I slept inside the house, the couple of nights, to get rid of the thought of a airport in Syracuse only 45 minutes away, knowing something could happen any time, any where. as the weeks went on the news coverd reports of the status, of the attacks on America, still today it runs chills down my spine. But yet………only GOD knows and WE WILL NEVER FORGET.

9-11-2001

419 FIREFIGHTER committed theirs lives to saves others.

But also, silence is such a powerful movement.