Monday, June 17, 2013

Trekking in Vermont- Part 2



After hiking and camping in the Killington, Vermont area I ventured Southwest into Bennington. It's one of those towns with a "Main Street" which is still undeniably "Main Street". A place where unlike certain fictitious Boston haunts, everyone still does know your name. Unless you're an outsider like me. Then they refer to you kindly as "friend" and make you feel like you live there, or at least like you'd really like to live there. A place with which  anyone who isn't a self professed "city lover" is bound to fall in love. 

Stopping in to replace my worn out ATM card, I question Emily about the vividly decorated large cat statues all around town. She explains that the " Catamount" is a nearly extinct predator which happens to be the town's artistic focus for the year. Fiberglass statues of the cats are made available and various artists add their color and finishing touches to them. At the end of summer they are auctioned off for a good cause. Two questions pop into my mind: 1) How "nearly" extinct are they? and 2) Are these purported cats as big as the statues? (Because the statues are the size of oversized panthers!)  Never having heard of such a creature I'm skeptical as to whether they are fictional or non-fictional, but intrigued. As someone who is about to camp out on the outskirts of their town I'm understandably somewhat concerned! Especially now that I have thoughts dancing in my head along the lines of "Werewolves in London".

After checking out the Bennington Monument I decided  that I'm probably as likely to run into a Catamount as I am to swim with the Loch Ness Monster so I back track a bit east along State Road 9 and turn down Forest Road 74. It's not real wilderness camping, but it sure is convenient to drive down a road a mile or two and find a place to pull off and camp that feels like you're in the middle of nowhere, even if a huge carnivorous cat could be lying there in wait. As a consolation there is a great fire ring and more than enough fire wood within a couple of dozen yards to keep things cozy for the evening. Hopefully Catamounts are afraid of fire!

Bennington Monument
After retrieving my allotment of wood I decide to do some trailblazing. Literally. Hiking without a trail  and going where no man has gone before.... Probably! Okay I admit that I'm no Lewis or Clark, but there wasn't a trail, I swear! Having proved my "Manliness" to myself I venture back before I get lost and start crying like a child. I head towards the beaver pond, but alas find no beaver. Just once I'd like to find some good beaver in the woods , but apparently you have to trap and import your own.

Settling in for the evening I stoke up the fire. There is something very special about the campfire, fire in general. I don't want to come across as a pyromaniac, but when was the last time you sat before a campfire? It's mesmerizing. Some say god creates and it is not my intent to debate that notion. However, it is undeniable that fire creates. Fire burns, fire heals, fire destroys, fire creates. Within the bellies of stars, fire creates the elements, the building blocks of all material things. Without fire there would be no cause to ever build a fire place. Man would never cook or forge the steel used to create tools. Without it the Iron wouldn't even be in existence to forge. Steam and Petrol  engines would never be invented let alone do work. It is fire that facilitates the life cycle from start to end, from creation to destruction. And back to destruction. And again to Creation. To every season a turn.  To every cycle a beginning without end and no starting point.  A Cycle. A Circle. A Zero. A whole, empty yet existing in nothingness. Circumscribing nil and containing It. 

If you take away everything, what do you have? Nothing is what you have! Nothing! No Thing! Nothing is substantial. I don't mean "nothing is substantial"! I mean "nothing" IS Substantial! Only one thing in the universe is substantial, "nothing".  In that lies the secret. But don't tell anyone. Anyway, they wouldn't understand, 'nothing' is hard to grasp.

Forgive me, fire can take you to some strange places.....

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