John Pepin

“As I walk on through troubled times, my spirit gets so downhearted sometimes, so where are the strong and who are the trusted where is the harmony, sweet harmony.” – Nick Lowe

Is there an escape, a place to go on this side of death where the real peace of life cannot only be felt, but absorbed, coursed into and through my bloodstream, settled on my heart and grounded in my consciousness?

I know there is.

I’ve experienced it myself, albeit typically in short, highly specialized episodes that often appear out of nowhere and evaporate just as mysteriously – like a reverie.

Perhaps without exception, these blissful sequences of rest and resonance have occurred for me while in some way experiencing nature.

This past summer, on a balmy summer evening, I was out along a forest edge with darkness all but fallen. I was sitting still, observing, listening.

The wind was blowing gently, making the branches bob and there were sounds of frogs and bugs and a loon, emitting his echoing tremolo across the surface of a still and distant lake.

From nowhere, a dull and glowing flash appeared in the darkness, like a spark from a cigarette lighter, there and then gone in an instant.

Then one more.

Then another.

Soon, the lights from these fireflies appeared along the edge of the tree line, in dancing curtains that immediately and directly drew my attention.

For what I would estimate was a minute or so, it seemed as though time had stopped.

I could no longer hear the nighttime noises of the woods around me.

My entire focus was trained on the silent and hypnotic spectacle unfolding before me.

As I watched, a tremendously deep sense of peace and calm washed over me.

I could feel the motion of the small amber lights in my inner being and my awareness was floating with them.

Then, as quickly as the feeling appeared, it disappeared, and it did not return during the remainder of that evening.

I continued to watch the fireflies, but the other stimuli returned to my senses – the sounds, the feeling of the air getting damp as the night grew darker, the smells of blooming wildflowers out there somewhere in the blackness.

I have discovered that camping trips are a good place to occasionally find instances of this rare and exquisite feeling.

For me, it usually takes a day or two out in the woods before the rust and rot of society’s rat race begins to crack and fall off me, like caked mud or fragile ice.

It’s funny how that exoskeleton develops around me, often without much notice. But after a couple days out there, my nerves start to settle, the constant anxiety of society fades and the opportunity for true peace to take hold is created.

For me, this is the crucial time for it to happen, if it is going to.

Sometimes, I think I am so thirsty for a drink of that sublime sensation that I create my own confusion and disappointment if it doesn’t appear – self-defeating the whole purpose.

By the time I am into a fourth day in a weeklong camping outing, the tug and the nag of work and other responsibilities back at home start to set in.

Sometimes, once this preoccupation with duties, deadlines and all the rest begin, I might as well pack up and head home, because the thoughts and feelings are usually a constant companion after that.

In those times, I haven’t yet figured out how to remain in the moment, but I keep trying to learn. I think the more I can accomplish that trick, the more likely I’ll be to experience more of the solitude I desperately crave.

There are times when I can find this enhanced peaceful feeling when on outings with others, but it usually won’t appear unless I am at least somewhat alone, not distracted by conversations, movements or other actions of another human being.

I think a great asset for not only trying to attract this singular peace, but also for cultivating self-awareness, inner strength and contentment is to learn to become comfortable being alone.

When alone in nature, my focus and senses are heightened and I have a greater likelihood of truly relaxing, without having to focus on interpersonal communication with its demands on attention, listening, responding and processing.

Another time the feeling occurred for me was when I was wading a river, trout fishing. I had walked upstream casting, and I was on my way back down to a bend in the water.

Ahead of me, I spotted a doe with her head down, sipping water from the river, about 50 feet away from me.

I immediately stopped walking and stood as still as I could.

I looked downstream and I could see the deer side eyeing me out of my own peripheral vision. After she sized me up, she went back to drinking.

I then turned my head toward her and she stood there for at least two or three minutes, just looking around, now feeling the cool water on her front feet.

My daydream-like bubble popped when she decided to turn slowly from the water’s edge and retreat, back through the tag alders and the thornapple bushes.

Curiously, the thrashing and rumbling sounds of powerful gusting winds all but ensure I will not find this state of peace. However, the rushing sounds of water or the crashing of thunderstorms do not necessarily spell the same outcome.

Also interesting to me is the fact that I can return to a particular place under almost precisely the same conditions, but the moments of peace I once found there, now remain elusive – so far, impossible to replicate.

Something, at least one of a million or billion or trillion different variables, must have been different, short-circuiting this experience.

I think this phenomenon strikes like the time a bull moose crossed the road in front of me, or when I caught my biggest brook trout or the night that I watched a meteor shower in the Mojave Desert and have never seen anything like it since.

I have noticed that these singular events, including the interludes of perfect peace in a specific space and time, after once being experienced, sort themselves in my brain among the highest, most vivid of my recollections.

My late father, who suffered from dementia before he died, could often recall and recite the details of similar events in nature from his life or other highlights from his personal history that brought him some sort of redeeming feeling.

He would talk about them in increasingly fewer details, but would reliably end the story saying, “I always remember that.”

Having since crossed over that big river of death, I wonder what he knows now that he didn’t know when he was here? Are those same memories still with him or did they disappear completely when he died?

Television shows broadcasted decades ago are still moving outward from Earth into space. Do memories work like that somehow?

Maybe when we learn how to cut time into slices, we’ll have answers to all these questions and so much more – maybe even replication of essential moments of peace, love and understanding.

Today, the sky is a sweet powder blue, punctuated with soft, white wintry clouds that don’t hold the dramatic forms of their summertime counterparts.

I’ve set myself up here with my shoulder leaning against a paper birch, watching, waiting, listening, hoping, feeling, thinking, experiencing.

I watch a hairy woodpecker and loudly squawking red-bellied woodpecker playing peek-a-boo with each other from either side of a maple tree. The birds move up and down the trunk forward and backward.

The hairy woodpecker flies off. A few seconds later, the red-bellied goes in the opposite direction.

There was sunshine earlier in the day, but it’s now obscured by clouds.

The temperature is pleasant compared to the past several days and I begin walking deeper into the woods.

In the distance, I hear the water flowing up ahead in the river and evening grosbeaks calling off to my left, just a handful, not a big flock.

I turn towards that direction, moving higher up a hill away from the river, toward a craggy and snow-covered promontory. The climb is tougher than it is in the summertime.

I’m slipping and sliding a bit, but I won’t be turning back until I reach the top. I want to see the view of the valley today.

I am struck by another notion as I move ahead.

Maybe today will be one of those days when the spirit of peace and tranquility will rest upon me out here among the northern hardwoods – even on wintry December afternoon.

Maybe I just jinxed that whole idea merely by anticipating the possibility.

I reach for a branch ahead of me, helping me to stand on that plateau and see that glorious valley and what’s on the other side.

Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.