Trip Report: Banff--Arrival and Day One.

[kitchen_kink]

We arrived Saturday night after long flying, and I was surprised to see no mountains at all--in fact, Calgary is a flat expanse of farming and industry. We met up with S---- in the airport, found out that two of our pieces of luggage hadn't made it onto the connecting flight, had various ridiculous arguments with the idiots at Avis, and at long last, drove toward Canmore.

Canmore is a precious little town of 15,000 or so, nestled in the Canadian Rockies. It hosted the 1988 Calgary Olympics Alpine events. (My favorite of these is biathalon--skiing and skeet shooting! What a great idea!!)

We drove along, making periodic cell phone calls over the mountains to those of our friends already at the house--"bring ice cream, pine nuts, clementines, anchovies and pickles"--and made several shopping stops. S---- wanted a malt, but discovered that the manager of the local Dairy Queen had been living under a rock for several centuries. Much pouting.

All at once we saw that we were approaching the mountains. The drive was very dark, but the moon was bright even though the clouds hung low, and all at once the hugest mountains I'd ever seen reared up out of the landscape like solid pieces of sky.

We found the house relatively without incident, in a little vacation housing development on a cul-de-sac named Paddy Padmore (those crazy Canadians!). In we walked, and found the place bustling with Pika folks. I felt a bit intimidated at first, as I often do when surrounded by MIT geeks, particularly ones who have known ert for nearly 15 years. But this week was to prove fruitful for my getting to know these old friends, and settling in with them proved fairly easy, especially with Settlers to help us.

We tucked in, tuckered out, not long after.

The next day, our baggage having arrived, most folks went off to ski and snowboard. I stayed home and did a brief exploration of the area, which I wrote about in my paper journal shortly afterward. I'll record some of that here as well, though it turns into rather a long-winded spiritual blather.



I went out for a little while to walk in the falling snow, over the low rises near the main road. There were trees there I wanted to be near, but I didn't know them the way I know the deciduous trees of my home, and didn't quite trust them. They are tall, thin, creaking conifers, beautiful and swaying. And beyond them, mountains--the biggest I've ever seen.

The mountains here awe and humble me; I feel like a speck in their presence. They are so high, jagged, and majestic--and they have the uncanny habit of disappearing completely into the clouds and mist, then re-emerging, without warning, where you thought there was only sky.

I feel shamed by them, naked and silent.

Every step into the woods was another test of faith. My paranoid fears ran high: I know the grizzlies are hibernating and that cougars would never come so near the road. But even so, I kept walking as though I were being stalked. (Ed. note: Perhaps the very wonder of the place was stalking me.)

Still, I felt the same spiritual wash come over me as it did when I drove in Sedona: even that close to civilization, the feeling of there being no one and nothing for miles. The way the mountains loomed, higher than could be believed, piercing the sky through the rifts in the pines, clearings opening suddenly to radiance, was akin to the sunlight, streaming through the red rocks, that silenced me in Sedona. There is nothing to be said in the presence of such things: there is only wonder, and then, song, or tears, or falling to one's knees.

I feel in the presence of something profound when I even get near nature, even in places where it is touched by man. (Ed. note: perhaps even especially in these places.) Cities are free of gods, I believe; they don't seem to dwell there. But even on the edges of the wilds I can feel a connectedness, a life force, a thing that draws all things to itself even as it lets them be, in their places, exactly as they are. Is this what it means to be sacred? Is the holy merely the wild?

I wonder if the taming, caging, churchifying of monotheistic religion is what truly makes it so repugnant to me. In a church, with smells of wood and must and incense, even if there is incredible beauty, even in Sacre Coeur, St. Paul's, St. Patrick's--I don't feel God. I feel the achievement of human artistry; I feel, even, the hubris of attempting to glorify God by removing it from Nature.

I can't see how the two could be separate.

In Nature, alone, and quiet, I feel and hear the Divine. It is intensely personal, and yet present in a way that is completely accessible and limitless. I, for one, don't agree with Ert that religion should always be practiced communally. Of course, he makes that argument only because he thinks religion is rather silly and that the community-building aspect of it holds its only real value; that, I can fairly well agree with. But if one is actually seeking "religious experience," I find the living God in myself only when I place myself alone in nature.

I believe that the community aspect is, at times, the best people get out of church. I think that many ordinary people go to church as their connection, not to God, but to other people. In my life, I get community from spending time with friends, chatting about literature, going to parties, sharing bodies and minds. I get virtual community from email lists and Livejournal, and I get an idea of what's happening in the lives of people I care for.

At church, people come together to witness each other's life events, to gossip, to share in their commonalities.

What on earth does this have to do with the Divine?

The Divine is like a bottomless pool, but it must be approached individually. To hear it you need stillness, not song and the chatter of a thousand prayers said in unison. When a group of people tromps into the forest, the animals shy and bolt, the trees are drowned out by other noise. But when one enters, respectfully, reverentially, the animals hold and glance, curious; the trees whisper to each other and creak/speak.

Perhaps one day I will feel the need to enter the forest, alone, and stay for a few days, listening.



I'm aware this thread will offend some people who are churchy or ritual-y or otherwise into communal religious experience, but it reflects my gut feelings on spiritual experience, as I have felt it. No offense or devaluation meant; simply my assessment of what I've found to be true for me.

Comments

[sol3.livejournal.com]

You described what i feel when i go here. (Alas, while there are more thoughts along such lines... now's a bad time for me to braindump them... perhaps in a future post)