There are no places on this earth that touch me so deeply as Glacier National Park. When I leave, I long for it like hopeless romantic's long for lover's that were never truly theirs. I often flash through my catalog of memories of shared moments of awe and quiet in places like the one above with friends and family. Without even exchanging words, in moments like that I can feel so deeply connected to another human being just by knowing that in the most simple and yet profound way we are affected by the same place. Sure, we're each inevitably carrying with us a life's worth of fairly unique experiences and impressions which frame our vision, however places like this force you to get over yourself and just drop the shit--to see without a frame. And maybe its just a faith based assumption, but I believe that with certain people who are open in this way to the landscape, we share in this frameless, ineffable, connection to that which is beyond us. And for you philosophy majors out there, this in no way fits in with Davidson's meaning triangulation theory--I'm talking extralinguistic perception here--philosophically speaking, I'm speaking complete non-sense--practically speaking, I'm speaking from the heart. For me, that's part of the power (and the therapeutic value) of spending significant periods of time in nature. On my third day of a backpacking trip all the clutter that I, by default, add to my perception becomes translucent, the awful din, an occasional cackling. I've got more to say about this, and much more to say about my trip back to Glacier, and the place photographed above, and my first few days in Bellingham, but I'm trying to stick with the short and sweet blog post format. No one comes here for an all you can eat buffet (I promise, Brendan, that is not a jab at you).
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Seeing the Same Thing from the Same Place
There are no places on this earth that touch me so deeply as Glacier National Park. When I leave, I long for it like hopeless romantic's long for lover's that were never truly theirs. I often flash through my catalog of memories of shared moments of awe and quiet in places like the one above with friends and family. Without even exchanging words, in moments like that I can feel so deeply connected to another human being just by knowing that in the most simple and yet profound way we are affected by the same place. Sure, we're each inevitably carrying with us a life's worth of fairly unique experiences and impressions which frame our vision, however places like this force you to get over yourself and just drop the shit--to see without a frame. And maybe its just a faith based assumption, but I believe that with certain people who are open in this way to the landscape, we share in this frameless, ineffable, connection to that which is beyond us. And for you philosophy majors out there, this in no way fits in with Davidson's meaning triangulation theory--I'm talking extralinguistic perception here--philosophically speaking, I'm speaking complete non-sense--practically speaking, I'm speaking from the heart. For me, that's part of the power (and the therapeutic value) of spending significant periods of time in nature. On my third day of a backpacking trip all the clutter that I, by default, add to my perception becomes translucent, the awful din, an occasional cackling. I've got more to say about this, and much more to say about my trip back to Glacier, and the place photographed above, and my first few days in Bellingham, but I'm trying to stick with the short and sweet blog post format. No one comes here for an all you can eat buffet (I promise, Brendan, that is not a jab at you).
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2 comments:
you are most certainly right Serge...Grinnell Lake isn't it? I remember that day we went there together quite well.
Even with Alaska under my belt, Glacier National Park is still my favorite!
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