Yosemite is unlike any other place that I have been to. It seems to have a soul of of its own. But it won’t reveal it if you are just passing by. It didn’t to us for the first few days when we were there, scrambling around with our places to go and things to do routine. Doing Jumping jacks from scheduling hikes to making dinner plans to taking pictures. We were in Yosemite alright. But Yosemite wasn’t in us, yet.

That changed when we took an easy day to just drive around and laze about. We headed to the northern end of the park, by lake Tuolumne area, without much of an agenda. We had been on agenda thus far though. Checking out the Giant Sequoias with a close to 3,000 yr old tree, hiking up the Chinchuahua trail with great scenery and fantastic waterfalls, hiking the 8,000 ft elevation, 3,600 ft ascent of gorgeous Glacier Point hike. The secenes were breathtakingly beautiful. The sights, so far out of the ordinary that it would be silly and pointless to compare them with pictures or paintings or anything else one could have ever seen. There really is just no comparison, to the sights that you feast on in Yosemite. But it wasn’t untill we had no agenda for the day, it wasn’t untill we made ourselves fully available to what we were experiencing and where we were, it wasn’t untill we slowed down and called a stop that we felt the full embrace of the place. I think the park is a woman that way!

There is no letter or sound or word that we make in any language that I know of, that even remotely approximates the sound of flowing water. The words that we use to represent that sound are so far away and so limited in their representation that it is truly laughable. Add to that the rustle of wind blowing through pine trees or an occasional bird chirping. Add to that the silence of the forest, or the impact of sitting neck deep in a mountain lake surrounded by snow melted water, with 360 degree views of towering light colored granite peaks interspersed with massive Sugar Pines and deep endless forest. How does a visitor comprehend all this, let alone communicate. Its a feeling thing. You can look at the views and hear some sounds, but the hills and the lake don’t speak to you yet. You have to first become available to this place. Then she will love you back. So Yosemite is beautiful to many, but magical to a few. Those that didn’t just visit. Those that were truly here. 

A woman loves deeply when she does. There is no end to what she would do or to which end of the Earth she could go to for you. Millions of years of loving her babies has given her resources to plumb depths that aren’t available to men folk, in most cases. But it won’t happen, unless you are fully available to her. All that is so like Yosemite. All that is so like mother nature. All that is just so beautiful to contemplate, to fathom and to experience.  

 Having your children with you at a place like this is a special blessing. Teenage children especially, even though it all came about as part of an evil conspiracy you hatched to trap them with you for the whole week. What else is a parent to do. How do you have teenagers engage with a parent for any length of time? Hahn? hahn?

I saw my son as an adult for the first time really when, during a situation (I left my sachet with wallet, credit cards and ID), on one of the nature walk trails and realized on the way back while we were already in the bus. Long story short, he took charge. There was no fretting and how could you exclamations. He suggested a logical course of action and we headed back in the next bus. I announced to all the incoming passengers and he ran up the hill to recover it. Fortunately, at these places, inspite of the crowds, there seems of be a level of ethical conduct that is mind blowing. He recovered it, called us back at the base and I had both my wallet and an adult problem solving son with me by end of that ordeal that lasted a couple of hours. He blew his lungs and legs running up that hill too. Made his father proud. 

When a girl is happy she talks. My daughter chatted up a storm when we neared our camping site for Half Dome attempt. We were carrying heavy backpacks and it was a good 3,000 feet ascent over 5 ish miles. But she was as excited as tired when we were nearing the end of it. Now we had to find a water source and choose a camp site. She couldn’t stop talking, that 13 yr old. We finally settled with the location that she liked. After setting up tents, she set up quite a kitchen by moving around logs and log stools. It was a nice triangular looking kitchen with a place to sit for all three of us, the gravity filter hanging on the tree nearby, the center table log with the cooking stuff and the side stools for the bear cannisters where other food was. We made tea from dehydrated powder and dinner from dehydrated food. She went and fetched water when needed at the creek nearby where she and her brother had hung out jumping over rocks in the stream for two hours. Imaging that. Her and her 16 year old brother jumping rocks for two hours in the middle of absolute wilderness. Sometimes sitting and dipping their feet in water and sometimes their head. There was nothing else needed to be done, nowhere else to be, except here and now. I caught them staring at the granite cliffs and forest surrounding them. They were here where they needed to be. 

Back home they sit side by side on their phones grunting at each other or their parents, about every 30 min. So Yosemite had taken them too in her fold. She was showering her love on them and I was watching it all. Once it got dark she settled in with me in our shared tent. After all her dry shower and face routine etc, about which also she was tickled pink, she lay down next to me in her sleeping bag. There is nothing else to do except lay down when it gets dark in the forest you see. Nowhere to go and nothing to do in the pitchbblack darkness enveloping you. You become part of the wilderness then. Truly part of nature. And then she started talking. She talked for an hour straight or two. I have little memory of what she said. She barely knew what she was saying. But she was happy. And I was there to hear her happy. We even stepped out to watch the zillion stars in the nightsky. So many stars that their light merges into each others and it becaome a haze of starlight instead of distinct stars in some sections of crystal clear brilliant nightsky. It is cosmic wonder of incalculable proportions. That was also part of Yosemite. She was uncovering her grandeur and beauty to us, slowly and gently. 

They say, It is the journey that counts, not the destination. Perhaps its true, to a a certain extent. Others say Its not the journey that counts but who you travel with, that matters most. This is also true to an extent I am sure. But it does not cover the entire picture in my opinion. What is left out in these packaged yet pithy aphorisms is another nuance. Were you truly there during the journey or at the destination or whatever it is that you are at?  To me that matters most. Infact its the only real ask life puts on us. Whatever our curcumstance, whether we ever became really fully available to life as it happened to us.

When we are walking about in the woods we see some giant trees, that lucked out with the resources of water and sunlight and grew to be tall and big. Others, not so much. Then there are the dead ones big and small. All going right back to the forest floor and becoming part of the regenrative process, making soil and nutrients available for the next set of seeds to grow. The shrubs and the small tiny trees that will never grow much, are all integral to the ecosystem. Each grew where it got planted. Now, did it really matter how big the tree grew if it did not feel the sunshine that it got blessed with. That it got so busy sucking up water from those hard rocks that it got planted in, that it never ever really enjoyed a deep, fulfilling, soul-nurturing thirst-quenching gulp. 

Life in the forest happens ever so slowly. Some of these trees live hundreds if not thousands of years. Yet you see these giants, lying dead on the forest floor too, with happy little shrubs growing on them, thankful for the nutrition they provide and the Sunsine that is suddenly available to the forest floor. Happy little bugs feasting on them. The little ferns, blowing in the gentle winds .. they seem to be here and now, celebrating their chance in this magnificent, beautiful drama that some sort of relentless lifeforce is busy playing out on everyone. The question is, whether the tree was present when it was present. Or it spent all its life just growing tall. Because it can’t be present any more. It is someone elses turn now.

So when a child walks on the trail watching these scenes and scenery, how long will it be before their own drama of good grades or bad, of the he said, she said stuff, of the success and failures on the sports field, of the length of skirt and color of tshirt; of the madness of social media that is in hyper focus constantly, that is burning holes in their psyche like rays of concentrated sunlight… how long before all of that melds into the larger picture, becoming part of a whole that life is, and like the forest ecosystem, where the only thing of value is of being present when you got the chance to be present. It may take one such experience or ten. But somewhere along the way, the distinction of being engaged with life versus being entangled in life may become apparant, to anyone that walks these woods. Oh, it may take longer for adults. We are too tangled up already aren’t we?

Our most powerful instinct is that of survival. But it is not just our bodies that we will fight for and protect. It’s our identities that we protect, tooth and nail. Wars have been fought, walls have been built around countries, paintings have been created, palaces and cathedrals, pyramids and mauseleums; music and art of all kinds.. all a process of protecting, validating, propagating, continuing and asserting our real or perceived identities. A King does his thing to project, maintain and continue his “Kingship” to live on even after his death. He fights wars, builds forts and palaces. An artist writes, creates masterpieces to assert his/her identity. So does a mother, raise her children in the best way possible to be a good “mother”. You get the drift. 

Unfortunately as a species we have not quite reached the point of protecting our common identity as human race against the destruction that climate change is wreaking on the only planet where life has happened to evolve that we know of. Yes, there are a few million people out of 8 billion of us who actually understand that everything we have developed, created, built as a species is progressively going to see more and more pressure on it sooner than we think. All the cities(built around water sources), all the rivers, the Oceans themselves are already facing immense changes. From rivers drying up, and water rationing starting to become a reality in states like California, Arizona, Nevada etc. to the entire fish in the Oceans facing extinction by 20050, to city temperatures inching further and further into inhospitable range, all over the world. And yes we know about snowcaps melting, water levels rising.. yada yada yada…

So how do we make a change.. what can we do?

The park ranger on nature walks holds a tiny acorn, the size of a thumb and then a seed the size of an oat grain. Then he points to a 700 year old massive Giant Sequoia tree, one that has a trunk that can hold almost an entire Olympic size swimming pool worth of water. Its trunk is as big as a midsize truck at eye level and it extends to heavens, far above you. Then the ranger tells you and your kids that for the seed to have become that tree, it took enormous Sunlight and tens of thousands of gallons of water a day, to grow. Whoa! that much water, that many resources for a single tree to survive?? Your mind is in a fizz and you glance at your kids. They are listening intently at what the Ranger is saying next. He tells the group that the decisions that will be made thousands of miles away regarding conservation of water, regarding burning or not burning of fossil fuels, regarding the AC temp in the home and car, regarding our consumption patterns will decide whether this Giant Sequoia will survive and whether any of the hundreds that are happily inching upwards from the forest floor will ever really become a Giant Sequoia or die a tiny inconsequential death. The kids are glued in. The next generation is listening. You feel relieved. The planet and the way of life will survive after-all. The identities that matter are getting entangled with the future that matters. All will be well. The infinite resources of their brains will do the needful way after you are part of the forest floor. The forest looks fragile, but loving and kind. You are in love with the forest floor. 

Before we wind up for the night, lets talk Half Dome. It beautiful, has the scenery that your eyes need to earn, and is difficult but not out of range for a reasonably fit person to summit. It is so worth doing. If you have the limbs and the will, you will experience nature at its very best. Rest is between you and your mountain gods. Our’s smiled on us and we were fortunate enough to share in the feast of the mind, heart and soul that such an endeavor unfolds. 

So please do it. Please go to Yosemite, in humility and be available to her. She will uplift you.