August 10, 1986
Cottonwood Basin, White Mountains

I have come here to die.

This basin, Cottonwood Basin, sits below the 12,000 foot crest of the range, just north of the Patriarch grove of bristlecone pines, where trees that were saplings during Christ’s life now mature into middle age. Here sagebrush, pinyon pines, bristlecones, and granitic outcrops coalesce into a pleasing patchwork of open flats and rolling wooded hummocks. Cottonwood Basin is the only place in the Whites where the taut and austere lines of an arid, fault-block mountain range yield to the undulating arcs of a serene, almost pastoral landscape. It seems a fine and appropriate place to lay down a burden.

The old ways are not working anymore. They have been less and less effective as time has gone by, and now they are useless. But old ways will not gracefully step aside and make room for new ways that might be more sustaining; my old ways have taken on a life of their own, a life that feeds like a parasite off energy intended for the soul. There is only one cure, and that is to deprive the old ways of their source of sustenance. I need to die.

I want to come out on the other side, changed, more alive. I want new ways. I crave renewal. These things
may happen, but they are not certainties. They are only articles of faith, and faith is not much reassurance. It is frightening to feel the weight of an impending psychological death, the certainty of it, and to be able to do no more than hope for rebirth. But the thought of clinging to this diminished existence and watching the old ways choke off vital lifelines is odious. The situation demands action, and I am not so depleted that I will not do something about it.

This time will mark the end of a long odyssey of seven years from the East Coast to the West Coast, from the naïve, strong and upright midshipman to the weary and cynical seeker who now writes these words. I have traveled a long and intense path, seeking whatever I might be after in an endless myriad of experiences. William Blake summed it up well: ” The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”. Ah, indeed. The small bit of wisdom I have stumbled over is that Experience is a soul-destroyer in the end. She has her lessons, to be sure, necessary and highly instructive ones, but even the best teachers find that mere repetition will eventually close the student’s ears, fog the brain, and lull one to sleep. Experience is not deep enough, not sustaining enough, and life lived solely through experience is too much energy wasted, too much triviality, too much hypnotic and mechanical action, too much, too much – excess. I am weary, and I have no more time for fruitless games. Give me the unadorned essence of the Law. This is my plea. Tomorrow, I will begin a vision quest. I go willingly into this symbolic death because it alone offers a chance of new life. There is nothing left in this death that I know as life to hold me here. In the morning, I will find an appropriate spot for this rite of passage. I’ll begin a three day fast, and on the last night, I will hold a vigil, remaining awake all night to see the passage through the darkest hours. If the gods are willing, sunrise will be my rebirth.

© Copyrighted Material.  All Rights Reserved.