Tag Archives: Nature Heals

Hiking is good for what ails you

June 1, 2019 Cherry 1 Comment

Take a hike, it’s good for what ails you. Especially if what ails you is stress, depression, anxiety, tension, panic, frustration.

Take a hike. Walk until you see something that makes you smile. Something pristine and natural like a mallard duck lifting off from a lake. Something wild like a fox never deviating off course – ignoring your presence. Something comforting like a fawn in the forest or quail noisily gathering their chicks, or a lizard zipping away from your shadow.

Keep hiking until it becomes clear exactly what it is that is eating you or whom you blame for your issue. Work it out with each step. Talk it out aloud to the wilderness. Keep going. Keep putting one foot in front of the other until your brain has stopped complaining and started feeling grateful. Press forward until you reach that crucial moment when you throw your hands in the air and shout “Thank You!” Then, and only then is it time to head back to your point of origin. You are now healed – at least for another hour, another day. Taken daily, this remedy will go miles toward keeping you balanced and healthy. Healthy in mind and soul as well as body. There is hope. Hope that you will be cured of your anxiety.

This remedy may also be found packaged under any of the following labels: bicycling, running, swimming, kayaking. Parent company: Exercise in the great outdoors.

One word of caution: hiking is addictive. You may find it necessary to walk further and further into the wilderness to effect a change in your emotional and mental well-being. But, dear friends, can you think of a better remedy with fewer negative side effects?

Hear me now, there are times when you feel like you are going to die. Your chest constricts. It is hard to breathe from the stress. The tension is mounting in your shoulders and around the base of your neck. Or perhaps embarrassment has joined with anxiety so that you feel as if you want to die. When you feel like you want to die – or when you feel that you are going to die; you must, you must get out of doors and take the cure immediately. Why? Because your last goal, the last thing on your bucket list is to die in a beautiful place. Remove yourself to a beautiful place immediately to position yourself to achieve that goal. Who knows? You may recover instantly. It has happened to me time and time before.

Ideas other have suggested as remedies for panic attack caused by anxiety or depression: Now I ask you, cannot all these be accomplished via a good hike?

Character, Emotional Health, Family

To the Lake or To the River?

May 12, 2019 Cherry 1 Comment

Lone woman paddles around Lone Rock, finds biceps.
Yep. There they are. Not only can I see them, I can feel them. Just call me River Mouse…

As I stuffed items in my daypack, I tried to review everything Janice had taught me. Chubs for the sunglasses. Sandals for the feet. Tie ons for the hat. Tethers for just about everything essential. A little dry sack for the phone. The phone? Last time I left my phone at home. Back then my phone was a phone and I had a little camera. Back then was three years ago; wait! Has it been three years or seven years? Back then I made makeshift ties to keep my flip-flops on my feet. Back then Janice loaned me a dry sack for my lunch and essentials. Janice also loaned me a kayak. Yesterday, I rented.

These days I am more comfortable on the water and more comfortable in my own skin and more comfortable alone. Nevertheless, when you rent, you have to read and sign three pages of paper; paper that says you are responsible for anything that happens to you. Back then, Janice and I and the other women we kayaked with knew we were responsible for everything that happened – including the poison ivy – but that is Janice’s story.

One of the pages you sign says that you were given an opportunity to inspect the vessel before embarking. The young rental attendant walked ahead of me on the floating dock, turned left on an extension where three kayaks were moored, grabbed one by the rope, chose a different one, “This one,” she said. “Get in, I hand your things.” Fortunately, I had just taken time to snap on my PFD.

Stepping in to a low kayak from a dock feels much less secure than shoving off from a beach with all items organized and secured ahead of time. I plopped on the seat back and had barely achieved balance when she passed me my backpack and the oar. My experiences with Janice were on the Gunnison and Colorado Rivers. This is the first time I have ever stepped into a kayak bobbing in 20 feet of water. Let me tell you, I felt much more secure stepping into the shallows of the Colorado River, though if I were to believe my mother, “The Colorado River is treacherous with undertows, stay away from the river, people have drowned there!” Suffice it to say, I have not stayed away from the river. I paddled a portion of the Gunnison, which joins the Colorado in Grand Junction. I paddled a portion of the Colorado from Palisade toward Grand Junction. I drive down Highway 128 as often as possible. I have hiked to the confluence of the Green and the Colorado, I have been swimming in Bullfrog. I swim often at Wahweap; and last weekend I rented a kayak two days in a row and paddled around Wahweap Bay in Lake Powell.

Lake Powell, you will ask, what has that to do with the Colorado River? Everything. Every drop of water in Lake Powell is merely stored water of the Colorado River and its tributaries.

My brother doesn’t think the lake should exist, doesn’t think the dam should have been built. Be that as it may, that water, that Colorado and Utah and Wyoming snow melt, cannot help the fact that it is dammed up. I have followed the river and it is unlikely I will stop following it anytime soon. There are people I love that are dammed up – anal – and I still make the effort to visit them out of love and respect. And, dammed or not, I will still visit the river as often as possible.

Emotional Health

An Effort to Visit the River

May 3, 2019 Cherry Leave a comment

An effort to visit the river

The first time I tried to get out on the water, my attempts were frustrated. I was balked of my best-laid plans. I knew water was exactly what I needed for self-care and restoration, so I went to rent a kayak. They were too cautious to rent it to me – because I was alone. To be fair, the wind was kicking up and I do know that exacerbates the entire process of hoisting the bark to the car top and then unloading the vessel and transporting it to the water. Yet, it feels unfair when folks are immediately skeptical of you because you are alone. If you wait until someone can go with you, there are so many adventures you will miss. Yes, they were skeptical of my being alone – and skeptical of my vocabulary. Apparently my use of the words “tether” and “dry-sack” were no more acceptable than being alone.

On my way home from that curtailed attempt, I discovered another kayak rental shop where the boats were already in the water, accordingly, I returned the following weekend. I tethered my hat, rolled my phone in the tiny dry sack, packed a lunch and essentials in a daypack and arrived in time to rent a kayak for two hours.

The young rental attendant walked ahead of me on the floating dock, turned left on an extension where three kayaks were moored, grabbed one by the rope, chose a different one, “This one,” she said. “Get in, I hand your things.” Fortunately, I had just taken time to snap on my PFD. I stepped aboard, plopped on the seat back, she passed me my backpack and the oar and walked away. There I was, bobbing in 20 feet of water, somewhat balanced, sitting on top the back of the seat that should have been properly adjusted and supporting my back, holding a daypack that needed to be secured in bungees either fore or aft and holding an untethered uni-paddle. This felt much more precarious than stepping into a river and shoving off a fully loaded and secured kayak. So much for being trained and prepared. Somehow I maneuvered the back support from my butt hold, vaguely attached my daypack and reversed out of the parking space. And my rear was immediately wet. Which brings out a major difference between sit-in and sit-on kayaks. A major difference, but no major problem, for I had remembered my river mentor’s (Janice) sage advice and I was not wearing cotton panties. The open lake was glorious. I paddled straight to the other side, beached my bark (which was actually polyethylene not wood) and walked toward some rock formations I had been longing to explore. Lunch was had on a sand dune. Returning to my kayak, I took a leisurely exploration counter-clockwise back to the marina. As I paddled, I noticed soreness beginning, right there in the purlicue, where my thumb joins my hand. By the time I reached the marina, a layer of skin sloughed off. But that did not dampen my enjoyment, nor did it stop me from repeating the whole kayaking process the following day – even better prepared with moleskin and paracord.

River or Lake, this no mere water; it came from Colorado – as did I.

Emotional Health, Uncategorized

When Sunday restores the soul

November 4, 2018 Cherry Leave a comment

Do you take a regular day off each week? One out of seven? Two out of seven? What do you do with that day off, totally off?

I grew up in a home that went beyond luxuriating in Sunday as a day of relaxation. My family of origin enforced Sunday as a day of rest. No sports. No games. No reading of secular material. Just attendance at Sunday School and Church, preparation and cleanup of a large family meal. Yes, Sunday was an enforced day of rest and as such, a day marked by ennui, often headachy, making me squirm with a longing to get something done.

These days I am still prone to that extreme of getting something done. There are always things that somebody has got to do. If I don’t do them, who will? I am guilty of checking things off the list at the expense of not taking a day – not even one of seven – for rest. My soul shrivels. My vision is constricted.

My spirits were on the brink of shriveling when I woke in a motel room, 200 miles from home, having successfully completed a vendor fair the evening before. Nothing to do? No excuse for not taking a day of rest.

Posey Lake is 18 miles up the Hell’s Backbone Road from Escalante. It was mid-September and the colors, oh the colors, were glorious!

Once I got to the lake, I sat on the boat dock for some minutes, just wasting time. Then, I did the logical thing and took a hike all the way around the lake, startling myself and cattle along the way. Once on the other side, I noticed a trail leading to a lookout. However steep, who can resist a trail? A trail leading to a CCC built fire lookout in Dixie National Forest? Even more delectable.

At first, I took only pictures. The aspens and the conifers were ravishingly colorful.

Then, a few more paces along the trail and I began to shed the layers of photographer, writer, or analytical business woman. With wild abandon, I went on a tree-hugging spree. I sniffed out a Ponderosa (searching for that faint vanilla). I hugged the ponderosa. Then I hugged an aspen. Then a very young blue spruce. And finally I ended up in the arms of an Englemann.

And, at the top, at the lookout, I found an entire colorful panorama stretching for hundreds of miles.

It was Sunday. I had a day off. A day to relax. A day for spiritual renewal. I went further up the mountain.

And my soul, o my soul, was refreshed

Emotional Health

I almost forgot to walk

September 2, 2018 Cherry Leave a comment

Loosing one’s memory is a possibility we approach with trepidation. We want to keep our memories – the good ones, anyway – as long as possible. Proper exercise, we are told, is one of the actions we can take to combat the onslaught of loosing as we age. Besides the practical advantages of exercise; I love a hike in the great outdoors. Nothing restores me better.

I was traveling for work again. Calling on the far flung stores. Face to facing with staff. Hearing their needs and concerns. Delivering new interpretive merchandise.

It is monsoon season, so I was taking the long way around. Part of the road on my favorite commute has washed out, but a good portion of the long route lies up Scenic Highway 12, so there is no lack of beauty.

As I neared the trailhead for Mossy Cave, I slowed, noted the full parking lot, checked my watch and hurried forward to Cannonville and Escalante. I did take time to fill the gasoline tank in Tropic and to take an arpeggiatic run on the piano in front of Clark’s – but I did this standing up – without alighting on the piano stool.

By lunchtime I was finished with Cannonville. A couple hours spent at Escalante and I was on the return road by 3:30 pm my time (4:30 local). “How excellent,” I thought, “I will make it home before dark.”

It pains me that I almost forgot to stop. A wakeup call. I frequently drive two hours on a weekend just to get to cooler temperatures and beautiful hiking places. Yet, I almost maintained speed right by one of the most beautiful sections in the state of Utah – in order to make it home before dark. Stress, you know. The to-do list instead of the HooDoo list. Workaholism at its most insidious. Could it be that I am now immune to the magnetism of National Parks?

Just in time I reminded myself that I am not domiciled in Page AZ simply because there is mound after mound of office work to be done. One can find mounds of office work anywhere. I am here specifically for working closely with National Parks and reveling 24 X 7 in beautiful places.

I stopped. I hiked. I was refreshed. My mission is renewed.

Emotional Health, Hiking and outdoor beauty

Deliberate Fun

August 26, 2018 Cherry 1 Comment

Deliberate Fun

Does that sound like an oxymoron? Kind of like enforced holiday?

Let me ask another question. Are you an inspired and spontaneous creative? Or are you a plodder? Or, maybe like me, a balanced combination of both – until you lose that ever so finely tuned balance. Some unexpected event drains you dry, saps your adrenaline, spins you off the wagon and back into workaholism. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, you consistently work late to get things done, but you are no longer finding joy in it

I have a boss who encourages, “Do whatever you need to do to take care of yourself.” He is far from laissez faire when he says this. What he is doing is giving each of us on the administrative team responsibility for our own health; our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing.

Sometimes working late IS self-care. I may need to complete a project so it doesn’t keep me awake at night. Perhaps I need to stay and make extra preparation ahead so that I don’t go into a special event rattled at the onset.

Other times, I have to insist of myself that I go home on time; that I recreate, that I pursue a change of pace. It was one of those weekends.

My regular five workdays included a 12-hour delivery day calling on far-flung stores. The previous week encompassed six days on and only Sunday off. I was beginning to feel the weariness. The joy and energy were wearing thin. So, like it or not; projects waiting or not, it was high time for a change of pace.

When I insist on deliberate fun, I am often reminded of a scene in “The Grapes of Wrath” and the uncle who took his drunk deliberately – like a medicine – without any enjoyment – just because it had to be done.

The thing is, deliberate doesn’t feel like fun at first. I didn’t feel like packing the car for an overnight trip. I didn’t feel like making a two-hour drive. I was fearful of getting out of signal range. What if someone called? What if I got an important email? What if someone needed me? What if the world came to an end and I wasn’t there to, to, to, to what?

I packed the car. I drove. I found a campsite. I walked in the forest. I cooked on my pocket stove. I hiked to the top of a mountain.

And then, wonder of wonders, deliberate fun turned into relaxation, peace, a new mindset, a fresh perspective.

Uncategorized

Too Hot To Hike

July 15, 2018 Cherry Leave a comment

“It’s so beautiful,” They told me before I moved here. “Think of the lake and the red rocks!” Yes. The desert has its own kind of beauty even to one accustomed to pine trees and aspens. Undeniably such a large volume of water right in the midst of the desert is a thing of wonder. It is beautiful. But it is hot. So hot that a coveted morning hike turns into merely a walk that must be taken before 6:00 am. So rocky and barren I must drive an hour or two to find a shady canyon in which to stretch my legs on the weekend.

What do you do to pick yourself up when you are down? When you are blue, how do you make yourself feel better? If you are agitated, how do you calm yourself? How do you engage in self care – manage your mental and emotional health?

Making ourselves feel better is how we cope. What is your coping mechanism? Do you gravitate toward a crowd? Have a cigarette? Music? Sex? What makes you feel all better? How we cope can become an addition. Who doesn’t want to feel better all the time? I do. So when I feel myself ready to drop into that downward spiral, I walk. I run out the door and hit the trail. But it is hot. Too hot to hike.

Having once discovered the piñon-pine forests of Navajo National Monument (established 1909), I returned again to hike all the short trails and snap more photos. The most popular of the short trails will take you to an overlook from which you can see Betakin in the distance. A second trail descends down the side of an inverted mountain. Beginning at 7,000 feet, the inverted mountain goes down, down to where the canyon floor hosts similar flora to that normally found high up a mountainside – an aspen forest and conifer trees. It was cooler here and with a more regular source of moisture. It has to be to grow aspen trees. This type of canyon is situated such that parts of it never see the sun. So narrow one of the sides is always in the shade. The snow is slow to melt.

And suddenly, I knew the answer to the oft asked question as to why the Anasazi were cliff dwellers rather than living up top where it appears life would have been easier-less precipitous. And now, I understand why certain folks mourn the loss of Glen Canyon as was, and want to drain Lake Powell.

It is too hot to hike – except in lush, deep, narrow canyons.

Emotional Health

What is Real?

April 21, 2018 Cherry Leave a comment

She lounged on one queen-size bed in the rustic motel room and stared at the ceiling. “Tomorrow we go back to the real world,” she sighed.

“What is real?” I said, echoing the plaintive question of the velveteen rabbit. For 48 hours we had hiked in nature. Ten miles on Saturday. Ten miles again on Sunday. Not bad for two women over 60. Was that not real? Was it not intensely real that first day when I summited the canyon toward the ruin, feeling famished and hungry and ready to break into my lunch in the shadow of ancient dwellings, only to turn and see that she had fallen 50 yards behind; short of breath, cold and clammy and at the same time hot and sweaty. She sat to rest and I had nothing to offer her but water – which she also carried. We soaked a bandana and mopped her face. That was real. So real that we altered our plans for the next day to take a less strenuous – but equally long-trail.

Was it not real thrashing through the undergrowth, hair and glasses and arms snagged in unwelcoming branches, just to find a secluded place to relieve myself? Earthy smells. Musty leaves, damp creek beds, cottonwoods, pinyon pines and junipers. These are not real? Blue skies and biting winds and being thankful for a hiking partner because there are places in Bullet Canyon you simply cannot boost yourself when you are 5’3” or even 5’7.”

“Is this the real world, or is it fantasy?” For two days we saw no one but the occasional avid hiker. For each other we acted as human hand rails, pushed, pulled and otherwise offered a hand; shuttled back packs, assisted in withdrawing snacks from top zippered compartments and intentionally went looking for solitude and beauty.

BEAR'S EARS - THE EARS THEMSELVES. March, 2017 — BEAR’S EARS – THE EARS THEMSELVES. March, 2017

Cedar Mesa, The Bears Ears; this was the real world for the ancient ones. The place they raised their children, ground their food, set a look-out, struggled each day to provide and survive. And the struggle was real. Yet, for us, it is a place of restoration – her favorite place to get away on vacation.

Tomorrow we go back to the real world. Out of necessity we spend our days at the office. In the city. In a place where we struggle each day to provide and survive. We set a lookout for intruders and competitors. We perceive our real world as the world of a more advanced civilization, yet when we get away we escape to a more primitive world.

Two real worlds with the challenge of survival and provision and protection in common, is there not more to ponder? Is it a real world without Nature? Without Art? Without Music? Without relationships? We go beyond mere survival.

We build. We communicate. We make art. A very real world, indeed!

Books and other Soul Food, Emotional Health

The Nature Fix

March 18, 2018 Cherry Leave a comment

What could be better than a new book to read? The Nature Fix, by Florence Williams, has fallen into my hands. The subtitle is alluring: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative.

Who would not want to be happier, healthier, and more creative?

I have long felt conflicted about my love for music and my love for hiking in the great outdoors. Every piano I see; I long to play. Every beautiful nature spot I pass; I long to hike. This conflicted feeling often starts when I introduce myself – or write a bio: If there is anything that comes close to matching Cherry’s passion for music and love for her piano, it is the Colorado Rocky Mountain High that comes from hiking Colorado’s higher elevations. Or do I mean: If there is anything Cherry Odelberg enjoys more than playing piano, it is hiking in the great outdoors.

Truth is, it is hard to have one without the other for me. That’s why my favorite piano about town is in Tropic UT. It is certainly not the tuning or the condition of the piano that makes it my favorite, oh no. I have had the satisfying privilege of playing a perfectly tuned, 9-foot Steinway in a recording studio in Dallas TX. The pianos about town in Ft. Collins are well maintained and welcoming, the art murals exquisite. It is not the zebra stripe painting that draws me to the dilapidated spinet in Tropic, UT. It is the proximity of this piano. It is the fact that I can hike in Bryce Canyon and enjoy a round of piano performance all in the same morning – or afternoon.

So yes, sometimes I feel conflicted when I choose a hike over a session at the piano. But can I really have one without the other?

I am in league with musical greatness when I love the great outdoors. Beethoven is said to have hugged a linden tree. It is that same consummate composer who reflected, “The woods, the trees and the rocks give man the resonance he needs.”

Ah Beethoven, yes they do. Yes they do.

Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Uncategorized

And I Will Rest in Peace

March 11, 2018 Cherry Leave a comment

Sun warmed the trailhead and I discussed with myself whether to take my down jacket. The name of the destination – Mossy Cave – evoked a feeling of coolness. It was not yet mid-March. I left the down behind and donned my paper-thin athletic jacket pulled from my daypack. Fifty strides ahead, mounds of snow lay in the shadows. Half mile brought me to a frozen waterfall. The sun still shone and Nature was gloriously beautiful. I was moderately high – in elevation. I began to think of dying.

You see, my bucket list consists primarily of visiting as many National Parks, Monuments and other naturally beautiful spots as possible – with a hearty helping of music and ethnic food, and love thrown in along the way. The grand finale item of my bucket list states: Die in a beautiful place. Therefore, I am careful not to linger long in barren places. One never knows the day or hour. The litmus test of the beauty of any place becomes, “Am I content to die here?”

The entirety of Highway 12 is a scenic byway. Highway 12 cuts right through a corner of Bryce Canyon; a large chunk of the Kaiparowits and Canyons districts of Grand Staircase-Escalante; and ends only after threading its way through Capitol Reef. I have been eyeing a hike in the Bryce Canyon corner of Highway 12 for an entire year. Today, with perfect timing, I discovered a vacant parking space at the trailhead.

Hiking never ceases to make me grateful to be alive, thankful for my life. To hike in warm sun, beneath blue skies makes me fall in love again – with Nature and Life. When you love Nature, Nature loves you back. I hugged a tree, just because it smelled so good. It was a Ponderosa. Essence of vanilla sap was my companion for the rest of the day. Every bend in the trail, every switchback felt like an old friend. My internal compass experienced déjà vu, evoked memories of other trails with this exact angle.

Yes, Nature loves me back, but hiking does not stave off the yearning and longing. I longed to lay myself down on slickrock and bake in the sun, to roll in the grasses and shrubs, to be wrapped up in sandstone dirt and pine needles. And that is why I know; when my time comes and those humans who love me scatter my ashes in a beautiful place; I will rest in peace.

Putting One Foot in Front of the Other, Hiking for Life!