See last post.

My three day birthday retreat at Turkey Run State Park . . .

. . . how to present it here with the seriousness? laudation? significance? it deserves . . .

I’ve decided on three posts: the first one, today, will consist mostly of visual images. Though I took upwards of 40 photos on daily treks, I couldn’t figure out how to put them all into a single, fast-moving slide show. So instead, I picked out a few to represent the whole. Here’s one, the others below:

The second post, tomorrow, will be my “review” of the 384 page book, PARADISE NOW: THE STORY OF AMERICAN UTOPIANISM. Frankly, during my time there I almost succeeded in completely absorbing this dense, detailed, fascinating 384 page book, including footnotes. (Finished this morning.) Indeed, I found myself, to my great surprise, utterly immersed. And, I confess, it’s the very first actual printed book I found myself reading, cover to cover, in many years, so much has our common, screaming, scattering screen life grabbed my attention.

On Wednesday,  the third and final post: the astonishing astrology that accompanied me on this adventure without my even noticing it.

 

Remember,  I did not bring computer or ipad. I did bring my phone (story below), to carry with me on my daily treks, in case I fell and couldn’t get up. (Didn’t happen; nor did I even fall; only one relatively perilous stumble).

So yes, what I did do on my retreat: walk, and read, walk and read, walk and read. I could say that this 83rd birthday retreat starkly symbolized lifelong attempts to integrate steady, stubborn body (Moon in Taurus) with fiery, mutable mind (Sun, Ascendant, Mars in Sagittarius).

Unlike Descartes, I do not say “I think. Therefore I am.” No. I am a thinker, I am also inside a body, which itself is part of nature. And Nature herself, is both alive and conscious. So actually, there IS no separation between mind and body, except that thinking makes it so!

For I have, pretty much, it turns out — And some would say, in spades! — succeeded in my quest to integrate mind and body.

 

On this retreat I probably walked up 700 stairs (that doesn’t include otherwise trekking uphill). A DNR man at a nearby table in the Inn divided 700 by 15, says the number of feet per floor is about 15, and 700 divided by 15 is 50:  So, if that’s the case, then I climbed the equivalent of half way up New York’s Empire State Building!

(I started counting stairs the first day, when I noticed the sign for a stairway, from the top down to stream below: “77 steps.”)

I scampered like a monkey, or, I should say, trudged like a determined curmudgeon, up and down both steps and other hills, in and out of canyons, through whispering forests, on the second and third days. The first day featured rain, so I hiked on level ground.

Phone Story:

The one glitch on this journey was, wouldn’t you know, the phone, the one electronic that I did decide I did need to bring along. But, when I got my stuff to my room, I noticed that the phone was almost out of power. And, I had packed the wrong cord. Oh no! What to do? Will I have to get back in the car, plug it in there, and just drive around until the phone fully charges?

I rush back out to the car. Oops! Wrong charger there too! Not “lightning” but “USB”! Damn!

Nor does the main desk have the right charger.

I was feeling desperate. Given my advanced age, I must have my phone on the trail!

Aha! the Cleaning Department in the Inn had one. YES!

So that was the one glitch, and aside from the mostly boring food . . . breakfast okay, omelettes both days; lunch salad bar with soup, ok, not great; but dinner? Here, for example, is what I had for dinner, Day Two ($15): one piece of the dryest grilled chicken breast I have ever had to chew and try to swallow. (Gluten free: didn’t want it “breaded”) Plus two “sides”: a small dish of canned green beans; a small dish of not very crunchy, way-too-mayonnaisey coleslaw.

But it didn’t really matter. Because the wait staff was very nice, gave me plenty of hot water with lemon during each of my six meals there, and besides: I was thoroughly preoccupied with the book, staying for an hour at the same table each meal, feet up on a second chair, and noticing how details of each 19th century American Utopia internally resonated.