Most days of the year, I hike Iron Mountain trail. Rain, sun, snow, sleet, mud or slush, I have hiked it so often, in so many conditions and seasons, I have come to deeply love its personality. I know when the fall snow has covered the rocks enough to sled down. I know when the winter trail will be icy and fast like a bobsled run, or when the fresh snow will be too deep and slow to sled. I know where the water will run in the spring washing away the dog poop and mud, and where the quail will startle and make a ruckus flying through the bushes. At the steep curve with the fallen tree, the rising sun hits the blooming aspen grove first in the spring, then the evergreens below. In summer, at the bottom of the trail, the chickadees sing a call and response to each other in the early morning. Half way up, at the steep rocky section, chipmunks run and Timber gives chase.  In the meadow where the moose like to bed, butterflies appear for two weeks in July. Hiking Iron regardless of conditions keeps me close to the elements. I love getting wet and cold, I love the rain dripping from the front of my hood. I love getting muddy. I love getting hot and dusty. And I love when the sun is shining and the breeze is cool. It really doesn’t matter to me at this point what condition the trail is in, I will be there, grateful and happy to be outside with Timber, hearing the birds, and feeling my legs and lungs working.  

I realize in writing, hiking Iron Mountain has become just that, a spiritual practice. It reminds me to be grateful; for living in Park City, for this particular trail, for this particular body that allows me to hike, for this human personality that allows me to deeply appreciate, and most of all, for the sheer gift of experience. The fact that I exist is a gift. The fact that there is something to see is an absolute miracle in this vast empty almost entirely inhabitable universe. And yet here we are, gifted with experience after experience. And all we have to do is show up. And it’s different each day! We don’t have to peddle or pray or pay. Life just unfolds and we get experience after experience. The richest and the poorest, the happiest and the saddest, the oldest and the youngest are all having experiences. No more. No less. Just different. And as if the external world weren’t enough with its weather and humans and wars and beauty, we are all having internal experiences. All day every day. I have a heart that feels things and a brain that thinks things. I am being entertained for free and my only job is to be there for it. All I have to do is be present. To play, interact, dance with and enjoy the awesome gifts of experience through one particular human form in one particular period of a lifetime. 

Yeah, but no. That’s not usually how it goes. Because no matter how much we want to say yes to life, we want more for it to be a certain way. I want Kalvin to be grateful, Grace to not yell, my toast not to be burnt, and my friend to acknowledge when she is late. I want more lemonade in my iced tea lemonade, my brother to be gracious, my heart to feel bliss, my mind to be still. We want this and not that. We strive for and cling to some experiences, we fear and resist others. We don’t just go for a hike, we don’t just experience Life. We get busy doing and making it be the way we want it to be. We get busy judging and manipulating reality. We struggle and strive and rationalize in an attempt to get our external lives and our internal selves to be a certain way, so then we can be happy. It doesn’t work. Even when it does, the joy doesn’t last. That is just fact. And we quickly return to the treadmill of doing, orchestrating, building, validating, manipulating the next thing in the name of creating a life. 

Hiking the trail regardless of conditions reminds me to be done.

It reminds to be done trying to change the weather, the weather has nothing to do with me. Just go have the experience, it says.

It reminds me to be done trying to change people, places, things, and myself to be a certain way in order to feel joy. The trail is the trail and you are joy, it says.

It reminds me Life itself has nothing to do with me. It has been doing its thing for a very long time, just fine, all by itself, without little old me.

Hiking the trail regardless of weather reminds me to be done defining and living life according to the changing weather patterns of one fluid and finite little human. You are more, you are transcendent. 

Being done looks like this. 

I wake up. If my mind is going, I remind myself to empty. I remind myself to be open, curious, and grateful for what I get to experience. If my human resists, if she wants and needs and desires, I talk to her with compassion. Let’s just go have the experience, I tell her. Let’s go see what’s there for us. Usually she quiets down. If she doesn’t, I raise the stakes. Would you rather experience nothing? Or half your senses, half your heart, half your brain?  Like and dislike seem a failing frame of reference when compared to experience or no experience. I’ll take experience, thanks. I’ll take Life. But it’s really so much more than that. I deeply love Life. I mean, LOVE. Even when my heart hurts, even when my mind is destructive, even when Life is ugly, I try not to get all picky. I hike the trail regardless. And I can land there, it seems like a genuinely awesome spiritual path, doesn’t it? Don’t get all picky. Hike the trail regardless. Have the experience regardless. And be grateful. Don’t be so picky.

Right now, the trail is dry at the bottom with patches of mud. Most of the poop has been washed away by the runoff and green shoots are poking through the dirt. Snow still covers the top half, so I bring my spikes and hike on the narrow snowpack to avoid post holing. Near the top, a runoff stream is carrying 328” of winter snowfall under feet of melting snow. I walk on the snow bridge and feel the water running and bubbling below. When a patch clears, I splash through the cleansing water, grateful for Gortex and Timber and my body and nature and Life, and the sheer absolute privilege of getting to experience in this way on this day on this trail with this human who is learning to be, not so picky. Amen.