News from Jules | 06.19.3023 | Go with the Flow
As luck would have it, I found an available campsite as soon as I drove into Cinder Hill Campground at East Lake near La Pine, Ore. Even though I slept in until 8 a.m., even though I picked my destination randomly from Google that morning, even though I needed to pack up all of my camping gear, even though I stopped at Sparrow Bakery in Bend for my favorite “Ocean Roll” pastry, even though I forgot to get cash to pay for a site, even though I finally showed up at 1 p.m. Even though—or perhaps, because.
Last week was the second Friday in a row that I’d purposefully left wide open.
No work, no plans, and offline.
My cell phone lost service as soon as I entered the Deschutes National Forest, so I turned on “Airplane mode.” Literally offline.
From 2014 to 2022, I observed Sabbath, a ritual of making sacred space for connection and renewal, every week. Inspired by a Spiritual Director and Wayne Muller’s Sabbath, I created my own interfaith, personal approach to this universal tradition.
I reserved one day a week for just being.
This was easier when I had a consistent weekly schedule. For many years it was every Saturday, then it was every Wednesday. Since July 2021—when I switched from working full-time to shift work and doubled down on outdoor adventuring—it has been harder to remember the Sabbath.
After years of practice, I knew this ritual was essential to my mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. But, as the dedicated day quietly slipped off my schedule, I told myself that surely living and playing in nature, regularly meditating and journaling, and generally living mindfully was good enough.
Did I really need a day off from everything?
Yes.
A day off from effort, thinking, and planning. From the perception of time. I need the timelessness of pure presence. And the attunement to the world that comes with it.
As Robyn Davidson describes in the 2013 film Tracks about her solo journey across Australia (which I highly recommend watching for free): “In the desert time is elusive. There were days when minutes dragged on for years and the hours stretched for eons. It felt as if I was perfectly stationary walking in place, pushing the world around under my feet.”
Reading the fictional, but very possibly true, Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman many years ago, I started to think differently about time.
Without even getting into the metaphysical potential of actual timewarps like the simultaneous overlapping of past/present/future, we forget that we created clocks and watches, we created calendars and schedules. In a sense, we created time to efficiently relate to other humans and to organize our complicated lives.
Of course, there is also time in nature, including the desert. Dawn gives way to sunrise to high noon to dusk to sunset to twilight to dark night. The high tide flows into low tide. Temperatures warm and cool, plants open and close, and animals move and sleep.
So how long did I look at the waves rippling across the lake, feel the wind whipping through my ponytail, smell the algae lapping up on the shore, bask in the sun warming my cheeks? A moment or an eon?
As soon as I’d paid for one of the many “first come, first serve” campsites—through a fancy solar-powered debit card pay machine—I walked down to East Lake to get the lay of the land. Tree-covered hills surrounded the large, glassy blue lake with a huge peak on one side, next to what looked like a giant pile of dirt from a clear-cut.
The only other person at the lake was dressed in a signature all-brown uniform and a wide-brimmed hat looking through binoculars at the same peak. Well, he’s gotta know the area.
As soon as I said “Hi” and mentioned I’d never been there before, Park Ranger Bill smiled and immediately started pointing to the various features.
He explained how Newberry National Volcanic Monument created the Lava Lands of Central Oregon: how the movement of lava like the most recent Big Obsidian Flow 1,300 years ago had pushed for miles north, moving the course of the Crooked River through Smith Rock and the Deschutes River through Bend. According to the National Forest Service: “The 1,200 square mile volcano (about the size of Rhode Island) remains very active to this day.”
“It’s mindblowing how it’s all connected, don’t you know,” Ranger Bill said. I sure do.
I peppered him with questions, including the must-see places and his suggestions formed an easy itinerary for me to flow through the weekend.
First, I hiked through the shiny and rare black rocks and holey pumice in the Big Obsidian Flow—not a giant pile of dirt!—and learned about the migration of native peoples to gather rocks for tools and pay homage, then I was tired so I headed back to the campsite. I gently swayed in my hammock while reading Denali by Ben Moon, a fitting memoir right now given his outdoorsy life in Bend and climbing at Smith Rock—at least as far as I’ve read.
I gazed up at the towering pines through the open mesh of my tent and fell asleep while it was still light out, then awoke well after the birds had quieted down and started their day of gliding and scavenging. I immediately rolled over, picked up my book, and kept reading. I finally arose when my stomach had to eat. Then packed my backpack to head up Paulina Peak, a short six-mile round-trip hike up to 7,985 feet and a view from Northern California to Northern Oregon on a clear day.
I noticed the puffy, grey clouds covering most of the nearby Three Sisters mountains reaching some three thousand feet higher, and wondered about the weather for the rest of the weekend. A climb always warrants a beer, so I stopped at the adorable East Lake Resort next to the campground for a lager while I listened to live covers of Fleetwood Mac and other “oldies” at the restaurant. Wind blew waves across the lake and gave me goosebumps as if it was a warning, but I still didn’t have any service to check on the weather.
I popped into the resort’s general store and sure enough, there was a printout of the weather forecast: Low of 31°, up to 26 mile-per-hour (mph) winds, and possible snow at 6,400 feet that night. I was camped at 6,600 feet. Uh oh.
Instead of staying the second night I paid for, I packed up and headed out. I could briefly stop and hike down to Paulina Falls on the way out, but I’d have to save Ranger Bill’s last suggestion of the hot springs for next time.
See fun photos from my adventure on Instagram.
Perhaps it isn’t that I need a day off from everything every week, but I really need a day on to connect with everything.
With last Friday, plus Saturday, wide open, I could go with the flow. No work, no plans, and offline. Finding my way back to the woods and my own natural rhythm.
Losing track of time, yet noticing every changing moment and attuning accordingly.
May you set aside a moment or an eon for just being this week.
Love,
Jules