by Jo Proia
trails are blocked by gates. However, when opened, these gateways can lead us to new places in life. We wake up opening and shutting gates, such as the bathroom door, the door in and out of our homes, the door to our cars, the door to our offi ces. After we open or shut our gates, aren’t our homes and offi ces just elaborate fenced in spaces with many gates? The computer is a huge gate, and
every webpage we visit is another gate, an opening to somewhere else. Are we choos- ing our gates and fenced in spaces or are we just moving through them like robots? Have we forgotten that we have a choice in the matter? Is the Internet feeding our ancient need to roam the world, but never leaving our chair? After all, we can roam just about anywhere on the net. Many believe nature is the gateway to the soul. Is this why we still travel near and far to wooded trails and wide-open spac- es, to escape the fenced in lifestyle of our modern society? The Native Americans did not fence in anything—not livestock, cer- tainly not wild animals, not even gardens. They lived wild and free.
Is this ancient need to roam why we seek the freedom of not having anything to stop us in our tracks? Is this why we feel so liberated on the trail? There is a reason we constantly seek this feeling of freedom, the anticipation of conquering a rugged trail to the top of a mountain. About 1500-2000 hikers attempt to
thru-hike the Appalachian Trail each year, a grueling, approximately 2,184 miles. Why? Why would anyone attempt this feat? They have to save up money to fund the excursion, take months off of work (in the traditional manner of thru-hiking) to com- plete the trail, endure lightening storms, wet feet, wild animals, physical endurance testing, hunger, pain, fatigue, and more. Why do humans continuously seek out the extremes of nature? Because it’s in our biological makeup. There are no gates and fences there, just 2,184 plus or minus miles of trail to be conquered. I hope to be an AT Thru-Hiker one day. Indeed, I dream of having that many miles in front of me and then ultimately behind me, with no gates shutting me out and no fences keeping me in.
In our modern society we fence in our
pets, our yards, our schools, mostly all in the name of safety, to keep our valuables
Natural Triad Magazine JUNE 2012 41
or ourselves safe. What about the fences in our minds? Being in nature unlocks these fences in our minds and allows a free fl ow of thinking and dreaming that is cru- cial to our well-being. There’s a release, a surrendering to a vast ‘being’ or ‘knowing’ of something larger than us and larger than the human mind can comprehend, al- though we valiantly try to dissect the mysteries of nature. On a recent trail ride, my horse and I passed through gates a total of eighteen times. I grew tired of opening and closing the gates and longed
for no more gates shutting me out of where I wanted to go. Why so many gates? The simple answer is that on
that huge horse farm, without the gates the hundreds of horses would intermingle and the bullies would fi ght and hurt the other horses. We as a society have gates for the same reasons; prisons to lock away the human bullies whom would do us harm and locks on our doors to keep out those
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