My ex-wife and I had bought some land out in the woods to build a house on. When we separated, she got our house and I got the land. It was a fairly remote location, full of old-growth hardwoods with a creek at the back of the property, nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians.
Needless to say I was upset at the separation and impending divorce. I was also in dire financial straits. Since I was now in effect homeless, I had to set about finding a place to live as soon as possible.
I had just finished reading Walden for the umpteenth time, so an idea occurred to me. I was out walking on the three acre patch of woods that belonged to me. The creek was an ample fresh water source, and there were wild berries and nuts. There was a place to plant a garden and a beautiful patch of land in a clearing in the woods. I decided that I needed some time to sort things out, and I knew I wouldn't get the chance by plunging back into the rat race.
So I emptied out my humble savings account and built a little 8 foot by 12 foot cob cabin with a small deck out front. I also built a shower stall. My shower consisted of a five-gallon plastic bag with a nozzle on the end, called a camper's shower. I filled this up every evening and laid it out to catch the morning sun. Then I'd hang it in the shower stall every morning. Sometimes I'd just skip the shower and bathe in the creek. My bed was a hammock fastened to the walls of the cabin. I had a lantern, a collection of books, a sketchpad or two, and a deck chair. I braved the Unabomber jokes from my friends who dropped by on occasion and settled in to prepare myself for whatever lesson life was about to teach me.
By that Spring I had a nice variety of vegetables in the garden. These kept me fed, along with a few staples I bought from the grocer in town. I had fresh water from the creek. When I cooked I had a hibachi fueled with hickory deadfall. It wasn't a banquet, but it's probably the healthiest diet I'd ever eaten. After a while I didn't miss the meat that much.
I found that after a month or two of living this Thoreau existence, my perceptions altered. Here I was, living in an unheated, un-air-conditioned shack out in the woods, yet it was one of the most enjoyable times in my life. The wildlife at first was shy of me, but after they saw that I meant them no harm they accepted me and I accepted them. That Spring I came home from one of my walks in the woods to discover that a mother sparrow had built a nest on the shelf inside my shack. As I got ready for bed she poked her head out and glanced at me. When she saw that I was no threat, she settled back in and lived there until her hatchlings grew up and left the nest. I'd greet her every morning and she'd answer back with a song.I woke in the mornings on the weekends to sell my arts and crafts at a local craft market. I had a battery-powered alarm clock to wake me, but it soon became unnecessary. A woodpecker took up residence in a tree near my cabin and every morning his breakfast foraging woke me up. In the evenings I'd sit on the deck and play my guitar by torchlight while my supper cooked on the hibachi. A skunk soon became a regular visitor. At first I worried about getting sprayed, but apparently he just came to listen to the music. He'd sit a few feet away, listening while I played, then he'd go off upon his nightly rounds. He shared my evening leftovers with a family of possums who visited on occasion as well.
As I gradually became accepted into the woodland community, at first I was amazed at how the animals showed no fear of me once I showed them I was not a threat. Then I came to understand that for some reason humankind has set itself apart from nature by creating a barrier between "us" and "them" that doesn't actually exist. By accepting nature as a part of us, we open the door for nature to accept us as a part of it. By treating nature as a respected family member instead of as an adversary to be conquered, we partake in the great circle of life that is.
Eventually the heat of the day and the chill of the night on those first days of Spring no longer bothered me. As I became accustomed to the changes in temperature I found that I didn't notice them at all. My body's cycles and rhythms became attuned to the world around me.
After a month or two of living apart from the rat race, my thinking changed. I saw the world as one complete living system. I was part of it and it was part of me. To talk of myself as separate from nature seemed to be a delusion in the highest degree.
I remember one night in particular. The full moon was rising over the distant mountains while I sat and played my guitar. The animals gathered around for the nightly concert. As I played, an owl landed in a tree directly above me. It looked me in the eye and communicated to me a feeling of peace and oneness that words cannot describe. I glanced into the bushes a few yards away and caught a glimpse of a mountain cougar looking back at me! Although I should have been frightened, I suppose, there was no sense of fear at all. The cougar was my brother, as was the owl and all the other animals gathered around me. It was a feeling more spiritual than any I'd ever had in any church.Perhaps I'm trying to describe the indescribable. As they say, the Way that can be spoken of is not the Way. I know that such a spiritual experience is beyond the ability of words to express. But I do know that in hiding from the world in our cocoons of concrete and steel, we've forsaken the better part of ourselves. There is a part of nature that would speak to us, but its voice falls on deaf ears. We need to remember how to listen. The great hunger for spiritual things that can be found nowadays throughout the world could be satisfied if we returned to our source. It's not as difficult as it seems, and the sacrifices aren't as hard as they would appear. If this world of trinkets and baubles we've built for ourselves is blocking out the melody of nature, and nature's voice is the key to true happiness, what have we lost if we cast off this lie of material possessions?
