(The Journey Continues is our
1-week high school aged trip)
After some days in the
wilderness, priorities and pleasures will have shifted from normal day-to-day
life. That must be part of the explanation for why a group of teenagers and
their two leaders would agree to get up at five in the morning and hike through
the chill to watch the sunrise from a mountaintop.
It was our last morning together.
I was pleasantly surprised that everyone was up for such an adventure after all
the uphill hiking we’d just done. But off we went through the slowly
brightening dawn up to the summit of Blue Mountain, in the NE Olympics, and
found an eastward-looking viewpoint that was sheltered from the bitterly cold
wind. It was a clear morning but for some haze hanging in the Puget Basin in
front of us. Our timing was perfect. After sitting quietly together for about
ten minutes, all of a sudden a brightness emerged through the haze, a startling
pink. As it rose and grew, it outlined the ridgeline of the Cascades,
previously invisible in the hazy sky. It was one of the most interesting
sunrises I’ve seen, and we all sat ooh-ing and ahh-ing for a while before
getting up to take some pictures.
As I reflect on this experience,
I wonder: what were we saying, with our bodies and souls, when we chose to hike
up there to watch the sunrise? The sunrise is yet another thing usually taken
for granted, rarely given much consideration. But to all of us it seemed the
fitting thing to do. Watching the sunrise gives me a sense of looking into the
future, into possibilities. I often have an instinct to see it when some
transition or transformation has been afoot, when things feel new and fresh.
And even moreso, to see it from the peak of a mountain gives a sense of
incredible expansiveness. On our last day together, as we looked ahead to life
back home, the sunrise lent us a sense of fullness, completion, and a window
into what was coming next.
In a way,
it’s reassuring to know that there’s such a rich experience to be had in simply
taking in this basic (though from another perspective, miraculous) everyday
occurrence. So I suppose that one thing we were saying was that we wanted to
show up for the simple but dramatic events woven into our days and really take
them in. That we wanted to seize the moment and come away with a unique memory
and story to tell. What else is there?
Submitted by Cameron Withey, guide, The Journey Continues 2014
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