Hiking Through Grief with Philosophers

One of my grief essays was published in the Chautauqua literary journal. It’s called “Hiking with Kierkegaard,” and it’s about going to Yosemite to hike with grief and philosophers. Its subtitle is: “The Philosophical Struggle Between the Idea and the Experience of Nature: A Debate Informed by Goethe, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, the Velveteen Rabbit, and Shaped by an Actual Hike to the Top of El Capitan.” 




One of the points in the essay is that we do not see everything about reality on our own. We need the help of others to see the rest, and to become aware of what is going on in the background and under the surface, both in nature and in grief.

 

Our journey into knowing begins with the experience of something. When we go hiking and camping in nature, what we encounter first is the physicality of being outdoors in a place that follows its own set of rules. 

 

In a place like Yosemite, our senses are constantly being energized by the sights, sounds, and scents of the wilderness around us. As soon as we open the car door, we smell crisp mountain air that is scented with pine, hear water thundering over falls around the valley and listen to the songs of red-winged blackbirds in the meadow. We sleep on hard ground and labor up steep trails that cling to the side of mountains. There, at the top, we look over the extensive forests, the bare granite domes and mountain peaks, and marvel that such a place as this could exist. We fall in love with what we see and feel, as well as the power and creativity that we begin to sense is at work here. It’s a love affair that grows deeper as we develop a relationship.

 

In Yosemite, there is so much wonder on a grand scale that it is measured in miles, not feet, and we have to look carefully to notice the smaller nuances. I think this is also true with those who grieve. Death overwhelms and cracks us open, and when we talk to others about what grief is doing, we want to talk about the details of reality not polite generalities. We want to talk about the rawness of life, where our hearts have frayed and are coming apart, and where despair is threatening to extinguish our last flickers of hope. When we look into their eyes, we want to see compassion, not judgment or pity, and we certainly don’t want to be dismissed and told to come back when we’re done grieving. We want to hear words of empathy and support.

 

This is where we begin in grief, sitting in each other’s presence and speaking honestly, sharing our hesitations, our uncertainties about what is going on, and how we are going to save what is left of our dreams. Because of death, we have learned that life is too short to live any other way. 

 

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My essay was republished in Redux, and you can read it at: http://www.reduxlitjournal.com/2017/06/235-hiking-with-kierkegaard-by-mark.html