Trying to Hold Sunlight

I hike in nature to be overwhelmed by scenes of natural beauty. I want to be stunned by what I see. I want to be swept up in something that leaves me in awe.

The problem is that these moments seldom last very long, and as soon as I realize that I’m in one of them, as soon as I think about what I am experiencing, the moment ends. I become an observer instead of a participant.

I can try to stop thinking and hope that I slip back into the moment, but this rarely works because I can’t will myself to be surprised. Or I can hope that I’m still close to being in the zone, resume hiking with the chance that further down the trail another moment will sneak up and hijack my senses.

Sometimes I take a photograph of the special moment to preserve it, even though when I look at the photo a year later I wonder why.

And to take a photograph, I have to step away from the flow of the moment to deal with the mechanics of the camera – deciding on focus, composition, shutter speed, and lens. I also jot down a few words to remind me to record the details down later before I forget them, something like “big moment by North Dome.” But trying to preserve transcendent moments in one-dimensional forms like photography or writing doesn’t work because the feeling cannot be caught and held like a butterfly this way. Photographs and words are only signposts.

One time I was hiking by Taft Point thinking about coyotes when I happened to look across the valley and saw a 500-foot-tall silhouette of a coyote’s head on the side of El Capitan. Formed by a cloud, it was soon gone when the cloud shifted.

Transcendent experiences are not the result of close observation or a matter of logic. I cannot make them happen. Like a Zen koan, the moment comes on its own and catches me by surprise.

All I can do is pay attention and be open to the unknown that exists around me.