Hem of Eden

This morning I stood in our doorway, coffee in hand, and waved good-bye to Naomi as she drove off to work. As my eyes followed the car down the street they were stopped abruptly when she passed under an aspen quaking in the morning sun. A gentle wind rustled its leaves that carried an aroma of budding flowers and wetted lawns into our home. For a moment I mused over how sweet the smell was, how nice it was to be able to enjoy a fragment of Nature in the already bustling metropolis. Then the notion that childish sensory experience is too ephemeral and weak, giving way to a growing "dark hour of reason"* became clear the way the tree stood isolated in its tiny plot of concrete, amidst telephone wires, presiding over traffic and under territory claiming dogs.  As if the entirety of Nature could be encapsulated in this one tree, I perceived the clear division of Wilderness and Domesticity; two worlds dramatically divided yet useless with out each other.

 

Every day I pass beneath these trees I savor their sights and smells, but not yet have the two worlds been so clearly juxtaposed as they were this morning. I think it’s due to how I have spent the last four mornings in the Mt. Evans Wilderness. At 6:30 am yesterday, as my companion and I made our way up through a swath of Ponderosa Pine, stopping to vainly fill our lungs with oxygen at 11,000 ft, the sun dripped from the verdant spires onto our faces. I remember telling him that that early morning hour and dusk were my favorite times of day. Then I clarified, "in the forest, that is" and joked that the sun really does shine on both evil and good. We took a moment to absorb the place. 

 

Silent is not how I would describe it. The suns warmth generated a myriad of creatures to life: Gold Finches flirted with each other, a Robin hopped from branch to branch, an alpine chipmunk scurried along the path ahead of us. These were back dropped, however, by a more deafening noise: A brook tumbling over boulders and fallen trees that seemed to carry a conversation with itself from one drop to another. It was so loud, in fact, that in order for my friend and I to talk, we had to raise our voices as if in a mob of people. Then there was the wind overhead. The only way for me to describe this sound is to liken it to breakers on the coast, or, in a more relatable sense, 8 am along side a major highway. For one who basks in silence and despises raucous, this vibration of life soothed my senses and could lull me to sleep and sustain my need for peace. 

 

It goes against how I commonly understand Nature as a refuge of silence away from the perpetual noise of the city. All three nights a mélange of wind, Coyotes, thunder or sleet awakened me. They might have kept my exhausted body from rest had they themselves not ushered me right back to sleep. The noise that awoke me, in a sense, allowed me to witness an activity that often goes by unnoticed. I felt privileged instead of burdened to have woken up. The nature of that anti-silence is so organic to existence that as naturopathic medicines cure our bodily ailments better than a chemical imitations, this slight disturbance worked as a salve on frayed nerves from an unnatural metropolitan life.

 

It’s fascinating how ones mind begins to adapt to the course and habits of a new place. My accustomed senses expect city noise.  In the wilderness, however, what was once a cars audio system, booming and pulsing in deep base tones was replaced by thunder reverberating against monolithic mountains; the hissing of tires on asphalt with breezes and creeks. Upon entering the city, such sounds as sirens, horns, Jake-brakes, engines, exhaust systems etc. seem out of place before one realizes where they have returned. Sounds birthed from our invention to facilitate our pace and habit of life scrape with violent friction against Nature just beyond our borders.

 

Thinking about that aspen as an example that humanity desires Nature in its backyard, subdued and contained, shows that we need Natures resources. The resurgence of natural medicines, organic foods and natural therapy is the outflow of this realization. For my birthday a couple years ago, Naomi bought me a massage at Aveda. When I entered the corridor that led to a small chamber to “get comfortable”, my skin crawled with an eerie sensation from an attempt to contain the essence of nature in a narrow, dimly lit hallway. All sorts of plants were hung from the ceiling and placed on tables or the floor. An audio track played the chirping of birds, the soft texture of a stream while new-age music flowed in long breaths as if to harmonize with Nature. For some who never leave their urban gardens, this might do the trick; a supplement of Nature with out actually having to exert the energy to leave the safety of the city. Despite its cheap representation, it clearly shows what Nature offers our souls and bodies and how it reveals a deep inner need for beauty and tranquility.  

 

Yet, even as I make the time to leave the city for some moments of solace, I cant help but feel isolated in the wilderness, surrounded by its course of life that goes on with or with out my noticing. I feel out of place, estranged and restless, neither there nor here. Its economy demands a different industry and ingenuity for survival, a keen eye and understanding to live. Small and vulnerable I feel a need to return to a place where the resources for surviving are immediate. At once the tension between needing the products of humanity for simple survival and the dread of returning to it mix with the society of Nature, its dour demand for survival-of-the-fittest and its wide open door for anyone who desires to succeed. It bewilders and beckons. One conversation that my friend and I often have is about the inner pull we feel to move out into the wild, live simply and drink from Natures storehouse of resources. As we talk though, its tone changes from passion and dreaming to that of impracticality. As much as we despise the pace and ideals of our culture we realize that we are truly dependent on its resources as well. To live in the city and escape to Natures embrace? or live in Natures bosom and visit the city when needed?  

 

Herman Melville put this tension in perspective when he said,

 

               “...to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in its self. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more.”

 

Perhaps this is attributed to being simple sojourners on this planet that within our souls there is longing for a paradise. Could it be that there is an actual unmet need and no amount of invention and science will satisfy it? It seems that a technological revolution has brought us full circle, back to primitive basics with rediscovering that a simple life yields a better quality of living, that quantity and quality are more opposed than not, that Natural medicines and diets truly aide our bodies and that containing nature in our neighborhoods allows us to experience a subdued wilderness convenient for hectic schedules. It has allowed us to come even closer to uncovering what lies deep inside the soul of humanity: a need for Eden. But I wonder if Eden were attained here on earth, chained to grim finality, would it truly quench the yearning? Knowing the ephemera of things, I am temporarily satisfied to see the hem of Eden in the quaking of urban Aspens.

 

* John Bjetman - “Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows”