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The Blissful Hiker realizes there's no "there" to get to, learning to live in the moment, face vulnerability straight on – while at the same time, opening herself up to "the ecstatic experience."



In this episode:

1. The Blissful Hiker sorts out the myriad details before departing on the 3,000 kilometer Te Araroa. 
2. She learns she can only plan so much before needing to make peace with not knowing how the story will unfold. 
3. She also learns to be present and ‘hold her soul ajar to welcome the ecstatic experience.’
4. She shares the first words she learns in Maori, ones that mean ‘hello,’  but also, ‘be well,’ ‘be safe,’ ‘be filled with gratitude.'

kia ora: Māori greeting, literally "be well!"

MUSIC: Erik Satie, Gymnopedie No. 1; Kevin MacLeod, Apero Hour; Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 1 (used by permission)

 
The Show: John Kaag writes in his book, Hiking with Nietzsche, that the great philosopher wants us to be wanderers, but not as a traveler to a final destination, for this destination does not exist.

If you arrive at a final destination, it’s a sign that you’ve set your sights too low. On a long walk who we are is about recovering from who we think we are.  

Backpacking is about coming to grips with this projection requiring me to live in the moment, face my vulnerability straight on – while at the same time, opening myself up, like the words of Emily Dickinson, The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.

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The Blissful Hiker sells her flute to make the dream of walking a long-distance thru-hike a reality before it's too late and arthritis takes over her body.


In this episode:

1. Meet ex-professional flutist and voracious hiker, the Blissful Hiker.
2. With arthritis taking over her body, time was running out. 
3. But once she voiced her dream to walk a long trail, the universe conspired to make it happen. 
4. And letting go of her professional flute, brought her one step closer to New Zealand’s long pathway, the Te Araroa.

MUSIC: The music in this episode is Argentine composer Angel Lasala’s Poema del Pastor Coya as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano

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The Show: My name is alison young and I am the Blissful Hiker. Walking was always my solace, the place I found peace, got centered and came up with creative ideas. My earliest memory is of looking down at my feet as they took me from our house in New York up a winding sidewalk to the back door of the church where my father was the minister. I had places to go! Up there was nursery school.

I had a long, hard, fraught but ultimately deeply satisfying and successful career as a professional flutist that took me all over the world, until one day in my mid-thirties when I couldn’t move my fingers. It seems I had developed a neurological condition, dystonia, and it ended my career. 

I played with great orchestras, made recordings, toured, taught, but much of what I did in my life was unrelated to making music. I had this kind of part-time gig as a hiker and when I traveled, I’d fit in some walking like in Japan, China, Pakistan, Switzerland, Argentina, and of course all over the United States. Blissful Hiker’s little motto of “walking the world” is kind of spot on. 

When radio took over my life, I would work weekends to stockpile a few priceless extra days to take even more adventurous hikes, which only whet my appetite for more – and longer – hikes. I wanted to see what it felt like to walk far, a thru-hike of thousands of miles, something verging on a lifestyle. 

But I kept that dream a secret for a long time – though time was running out – dystonia screwed up my hands so I couldn’t play the flute at a high professional level and now, I was developing arthritis in my feet. Would I also lose the ability to walk?

How lovely it is to dream while you are awake. Anybody can dream while they're asleep, but you need to dream all the time, and say our dreams out loud, and believe in them.
 –Andre Agazzi

It’s kind of woowoo, but I have had the experience where when I voice something I want, things begin to change, like the universe is conspiring to make things happen. 

And then there was that flute sale. It turned out one of my adult students wanted to buy it. When we got to the moment I put the flute in her hands, she she presented me with her first student flute from grade school, a little silver-plated jobbie with a sweet sparkly tone. “Let’s make a trade,” she said. “This flute for a flute lesson.”

And I was just that much closer to my thru-hike. 

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