"You should sit quietly for fifteen minutes every day to gather your thoughts, unless you're too busy, in which case you should sit for an hour." - Anonymous I don't know about your summer, but I suspect it may resemble mine in how full it has been, how busy with activities and adventures, tasks and to-do lists. I want to experience as much of the summer as I can, making up for the shortage of human interaction last summer. In so doing, however, I may have overextended myself, overfilling the hours and days and weeks. It's in these times of busyness that I remember the quote about sitting quietly. I could tell I needed maybe even more than an hour to rest where the wild things are. The only time I could find was the closing of this day. The sun was sinking close to the horizon. The moon rose, nearly full, though obscured by clouds. I finished a dinner engagement with friends, then drove out alone to the Padilla Bay Shoreline Trail in the Skagit flats. Mine was the only car in the parking lot. I walked onto the trail, and immediately my senses took me to a world far removed from the hectic hubbub of the past few days. Fields and farms smelled of earthly warmth, of sunshine and harvest. The nearby tidal waters added the spice of the seashore, of muck and beach salty marine air. Sandpipers piped their warning songs to each other as I walked along. Gravel crunched underfoot as I strolled, relaxed, watching the sun approach the island hilltops, the clouds softening as they mellowed in pink. Farmers parked their combines and then headed home for dinner and rest. One last ray of sunlight lingered over the hill, then the day was done. I walked on into the twilight, the half-light, the fading of vision that we depend on, the blurring of the worlds between daytime and night. It invites introspection, deeper thought, an awareness of a world apart from the day, where darkness comes alive. The speed of the day slows down in the dark; the blazing light of the sun becomes the pinpoints of stars, lights that were always there though hidden, now revealed in their individual glory. So to, my active daytime deeds now became a memory, and my mind became attuned instead to the always present but seldom heard inner voice, the whispers of the sacred night, the wisdom of the ages, the music of the spheres. "Under every full moon, memories stir of the dreamers we were." -- Robert Braul I stopped after about a mile, at the halfway point where the trail follows the shoreline of Padilla Bay. I laid on the grass and looked for the moon, but clouds still hid its body, allowing its softened essence to bathe the shoreline and fields in silvery sweetness. I became grateful for such a trail as this, close to home, easy to walk, yet weaving its way through a world apart. The presence of the present, the moment of now, became all I needed to see, to hear, to embrace, to breathe, and to rest and refresh. A cool wind rose from the west. I eventually got up and walked back in the near darkness, the trail visible in the muted moonlight. jack "When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do no tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free." -- Wendell Berry Directions: Between Anacortes and Mt. Vernon take Highway 20 to the Bay View - Edison Road intersection. Go north about a mile to reach the south trailhead.
Accessibility: the trail is packed gravel. There is a gate at both trailheads which may or may not be wide enough for a wheelchair. During business hours a key is available to the gate at the Breazeale Interpretive Center, two miles to the north of Bay View.
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Maribeth Crandell has been a hiking guide in the Pacific NW for over 20 years. She's lived on Whidbey and Fidalgo Island for decades. As a frequent bus rider she easily makes connections between trails and transit. Archives by date
April 2024
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