You can not stay on the summit forever;
You have to come down again.
So why bother in the first place?
Just this:
What is above knows what is below,
But what is below does not know what is above.
One climbs, one sees.
One descends, one no longer sees, but one has seen.
There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up.
When one can no longer see, one can still know. -Rene Daumal

Parliament Hill, Ottawa, ON

This poem was on one of my favorite facebook pages, Biodesign Out For a Walk, and boy, did it hit home. I have been feeling this distance from the mountain tops, the climbs of the early part of my trip. This week was spent mostly in large cities in Canada, walking my feet off in rising temperatures, with my jaw dropping at the sight of 14th and 15th century architecture rather than million year old mountainsides. Don’t get me wrong, it has been phenomenal, but this poem speaks where my heart could only wonder. As I have descended into busy populated zones I am recalling more of the memory of what I have seen. Continue reading →