Part 2 of Great Glen Way - day 6 of 6 - Completed!
Continued from Part 1 of Great Glen Way -Day 6 of 6 - completed!
I was soon out of the city and walking on a paved road. I had a lovely encounter with a snaggy highland bull who didn’t seem to think I was any threat at all to his dominion over his cows. He hardly noted my passing at all just lay there totally relaxed and at ease.
And for a time the paved road was near the edge of the water.
Very soon - after a mile and a half - I turned off the paved road onto a steep trail with lovely views glancing back down at Loch Ness. There looking back I could see the medieval Urquhart Castle - I notice I am completely oblivious to the important sites - all I seem to want to do is walk, blog, eat, drink, sleep. But as I look back at it, I can imagine a different me in a different life being fascinated by the castle.
Oh it is so hard to choose! I want to share all the photos, trees, benches, sunlight - and the thoughts they stimulate as I walk. I cannot let this walk be completed without posting one photo of a gate.I went through so many gates on this walk (as I did on the PCT as well) to let humans pass and keep animals safe in their pastures. They fasten in a wide variety of ways and often are no longer functioning in the way originally designed but have been gerry-rigged to still work. Being challenged in mechanical and spatial thinking, I am very proud every time I manage to figure out how to open a gate and close it behind me. So I am posting this photo in order to take a well-deserved bow. Not only this gate but literally hundreds of others - I opened the gate to pass through and I closed it behind me. (I wonder if I can find some kind of psychoanalytic meaning in that?) This one is pretty straightforward I admit but it’s the one I happened to take a picture of.
Speaking of the psychoanalytic aspect of my pilgrimage, I got up thinking that one way of looking at it as that I am playing being God’s analyst. I am saying to God, just create whatever comes into your mind, don’t censor anything. God “speaks” through creation, in the events, people, circumstances (inward and outward) I encounter on my walk. I listen attentively and without judgement, doing my best to hold the incoherence, contradictions, the beauty and the ugliness in a story. Realizing the story (whether Freud’s Oedipal theory story or more modern psychoanalytic stories) are all in their way fairy tales - just made believe narratives that serve to contain the uncontainable. Somehow this got me thinking about Oedipal theory - the notion that boys have muserous impulses toward fathers because of their longing to possess and merge with mothers. I thought how a similar fairy tale could help us hold the inexplicable rages between siblings. What if sibs want to murder the brother or sister who stands between us and the mother we want to have all to ourselves (or at least be most special to). For some inexplicable reason this story brought me enormous peace. It gave me a way of thinking about rejections I experienced from stepsiblings and siblings. What if I was the adored birth child that eclipsed their “earned” love? Somehow it made their rejection of me less personal. I needn’t explain it as something I did wrong or some defect in my being. It was just that I was loved in a way that kept them from being loved in a way they wanted and needed. No blame either way. With the step siblings I could let go of their rejection. Stop wrestling just key it be. With siblings I could accept sudden flares of inexplicable hostility and not see them as contradicting the real love and affection between us. Or maybe just being able to hold those contradictions in the strong and accepting arms of my psychoanalytic story. It may sound a bit silly but as I walked through all the beauty of the landscape (a landscape where a lot of conflict has taken place!) I found a peace with the state of my relationships with siblings and stepsiblings that was a huge, immeasurably huge, blessing. I sigh deeply just to remember it.
And here’s another glimpse of water through trees.
And some fascinating tools that I left me quite curious about who would be using them for what purpose but whose silhouette against the sky I found quite lovely.
And finally a storyboard that seemed to answer a little my questions about all the clear cutting.
To be continued in
So I’ve told you about the magical high in the middle of my long final day on the Great Glen Way. Let’s hope for the walk itself I can be a little bit brief.
I had a hard night, waking up with sore feet and grear worry that the long walk (especially with the long stretches of paved walks that the accounts I read had described) works retriever my foot injury. I decided to start early - 5:15am - so I would arrive at a reasonable hour. I figured the walk itself would take me 10 or 11 hours and I was promising myself lots of rest stops and times to elevate my feet.
To my surprise, it was already light enough that I didn’t need my headlamp. Also to my surprise I enjoyed walking the city streets. The few vehicles out - delivery vehicles with night workers - inspired in me a sense of kinship with others who were moving through the city in these quiet predawn hours.
I was soon out of the city and walking on a paved road. I had a lovely encounter with a snaggy highland bull who didn’t seem to think I was any threat at all to his dominion over his cows. He hardly noted my passing at all just lay there totally relaxed and at ease.
And for a time the paved road was near the edge of the water.
Very soon - after a mile and a half - I turned off the paved road onto a steep trail with lovely views glancing back down at Loch Ness. There looking back I could see the medieval Urquhart Castle - I notice I am completely oblivious to the important sites - all I seem to want to do is walk, blog, eat, drink, sleep. But as I look back at it, I can imagine a different me in a different life being fascinated by the castle.
Oh it is so hard to choose! I want to share all the photos, trees, benches, sunlight - and the thoughts they stimulate as I walk. I cannot let this walk be completed without posting one photo of a gate.I went through so many gates on this walk (as I did on the PCT as well) to let humans pass and keep animals safe in their pastures. They fasten in a wide variety of ways and often are no longer functioning in the way originally designed but have been gerry-rigged to still work. Being challenged in mechanical and spatial thinking, I am very proud every time I manage to figure out how to open a gate and close it behind me. So I am posting this photo in order to take a well-deserved bow. Not only this gate but literally hundreds of others - I opened the gate to pass through and I closed it behind me. (I wonder if I can find some kind of psychoanalytic meaning in that?) This one is pretty straightforward I admit but it’s the one I happened to take a picture of.
Speaking of the psychoanalytic aspect of my pilgrimage, I got up thinking that one way of looking at it as that I am playing being God’s analyst. I am saying to God, just create whatever comes into your mind, don’t censor anything. God “speaks” through creation, in the events, people, circumstances (inward and outward) I encounter on my walk. I listen attentively and without judgement, doing my best to hold the incoherence, contradictions, the beauty and the ugliness in a story. Realizing the story (whether Freud’s Oedipal theory story or more modern psychoanalytic stories) are all in their way fairy tales - just made believe narratives that serve to contain the uncontainable. Somehow this got me thinking about Oedipal theory - the notion that boys have muserous impulses toward fathers because of their longing to possess and merge with mothers. I thought how a similar fairy tale could help us hold the inexplicable rages between siblings. What if sibs want to murder the brother or sister who stands between us and the mother we want to have all to ourselves (or at least be most special to). For some inexplicable reason this story brought me enormous peace. It gave me a way of thinking about rejections I experienced from stepsiblings and siblings. What if I was the adored birth child that eclipsed their “earned” love? Somehow it made their rejection of me less personal. I needn’t explain it as something I did wrong or some defect in my being. It was just that I was loved in a way that kept them from being loved in a way they wanted and needed. No blame either way. With the step siblings I could let go of their rejection. Stop wrestling just key it be. With siblings I could accept sudden flares of inexplicable hostility and not see them as contradicting the real love and affection between us. Or maybe just being able to hold those contradictions in the strong and accepting arms of my psychoanalytic story. It may sound a bit silly but as I walked through all the beauty of the landscape (a landscape where a lot of conflict has taken place!) I found a peace with the state of my relationships with siblings and stepsiblings that was a huge, immeasurably huge, blessing. I sigh deeply just to remember it.
So here’s a bench with a view (as I’m thinking these wonderful thoughts)
And here’s another glimpse of water through trees.
And some fascinating tools that I left me quite curious about who would be using them for what purpose but whose silhouette against the sky I found quite lovely.
And finally a storyboard that seemed to answer a little my questions about all the clear cutting.
To be continued in
Part 3 of Great Glen Way -Day 6 of 6 - completed!
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