Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#2208 -
There was a great longing and loneliness
inside me. And as I delved into this loneliness, I asked,
“Is there an ultimate freedom?”
A few years ago, Jeffrey Sawyer quit his
job, sold all his possessions, and set out walking from
Hazard,
legs and mind. The birds began to sing early, and the mist lifted
from the sorrows of the valleys
to the bluing sky. Coal trucks streamed up and down the back
mountain roads twenty-four hours a
day, hugging each sharp turn with an uncanny precision, nudging
me closer to the edge. It was tough
walking in those parts.
There was a great longing and loneliness
inside me. And as I delved into this loneliness, I asked,
“Is there an ultimate freedom?” I would eventually walk
some thirty-five hundred miles of back
roads in the
nothing to do but die into this question. I’d never really
wished to be an explorer, yet this
inquiry moved me to let go of all that was not entirely new and
alive. So my walking journey began.
Though others may be able to look within
themselves without leaving job, home, family, and friends,
it was solitude that captivated me. I wished to give all my
attention to exploring the capacities
of the heart and mind. As I walked, a few questions became
predominant: Must a person work, and
what happens if one does not? What happens when one has no money
and no motive to get any? Is it
possible to live entirely free in this culture?
I had needed a vehicle only to drive to
work, so I had sold my truck to pay off my debts and given
away what else I owned. As I had no cottage in the woods to which
I could retreat, walking seemed
the most obvious course. For two and a half years I walked back
roads connecting small towns. The
roads and communities became a monastery of sorts to me, a place
for playful inquiry.
In the mountains I took trails to shorten
distances or provide a respite from the cars. But mostly
I stuck to lightly traveled roads. I didn’t hitchhike, but I
accepted rides if people offered them
of their own accord. It was a fine way to meet people. Also, it
seemed rude to decline if someone
was willing to risk pulling over for a strange man. Resting a
spell in the car was a treat, too.
In my pack I carried a mosquito net, a pair
of linen pants, a bathing suit, a blanket, two ponchos,
a fleece jacket and hat, a long-sleeved shirt, two T-shirts, a
pair of socks, some matches, and a
bit of flour and salt. I wore a pair of sandals. With these items
I could fit in anywhere, or at
least not stick out as an oddity. I carried no ATM card, no
credit card, and no tent. Most of the
time I had no sleeping bag and no money. When I did have money,
it was usually just a few dollars,
certainly no more than thirty.
“How do you eat if you have no money?”
people would ask me. At first, I familiarized myself with
edible plants and spent my days with my eyes to the ground,
finding things to throw into an evening
stew with some salt: chickweed, dandelion leaves, violet leaves,
wild onions, flowers, shoots,
acorns. I would heat them up over a fire and eat them in the
evening. With some flour, I would roll
the leftovers into dumplings and take them with me on the road.
It seemed that, as hunger arose, I would be
drawn instinctively to edible mushrooms and plants. The
more quiet and attuned to the environment my mind became, the
more effortless living was.
Early one afternoon, I was tired and hungry.
I’d already had a full day: cars and trucks flying by,
dead groundhogs, the smell of exhaust, cigarette butts, downed
butterflies, and jeers from a
passing sports car. I had also run out of food, and the nearest
town was some ten miles up the
Ridge Parkway
ponder the nature of hunger more thoroughly. I walked up to the
tree and looked around its base to
find a nice spot for my back. As I poked my head around the far
side, I spotted a great batch of a
wild mushroom sometimes called “chicken-of-the-woods.”
My spirits soared. I took out my little
pocketknife and cut into the brainlike orange fungus.
At first I thought I had best grab just
enough for a meal and let the rest be. Tomorrow would take
care of itself. Then I told myself I had better take a bit more,
just to be safe. So I cut away
three football-sized hunks of the heavy mushroom. It didn’t
feel quite right taking more than I
needed, but it made sense, since I was far from civilization and
didn’t want to be hungry again the
next day. I put the mushrooms in a bag and strapped them to my
pack.
Walking along a trail through the forest, I
found a fire pit and a log to sit on under some huge
hemlock trees. I stopped and sautéed the mushrooms with a bit of
salt and some wild onions. They
tasted just like marinated chicken. I couldn’t recall a meal
so delicious.
I thought it best to cook up some mushrooms
for dinner as well. While I cooked, I ate some more. It
was going to be a tough walk up these hills, and I didn’t
want to run short of energy. Surely the
rest of the mushrooms would not keep uncooked until the next day,
so I sautéed them too, eating all
the while.
While I was bagging up the cooked mushrooms,
I began to feel sick to my stomach. I was stuffed, my
belly aching. I lay on the leaves under the hemlock trees to
rest.
I had become greedy. I had carved out too
many mushrooms from the tree because I was afraid.
Because I had too many, I had eaten too many.
Still, I didn’t want to let food go to
waste. I tied the bag to the side of my pack. It made me
feel lopsided and weighed me down as I made my way up the hills.
My stomach was bloated. It was a
long walk.
The next day I woke and ate some more
chicken-of-the- woods for breakfast. For lunch, though I
wasn’t hungry, I ate a bit more. They tasted like duty now,
not the singing mushrooms they’d been
when I’d first eaten just enough. I threw out the rest,
which had begun to smell. As I pushed the
bag into a trash can, my mood lightened.
After a time I stopped worrying so much
about food and just walked north, talking with people along
the way. I ate what became available and soon became indifferent
to whether I ate or not. I came to
the conclusion that, for me, understanding was more important
than food. I may not have had a piece
of chicken, but I had a peace of mind. This attended to my hunger
for days, whereas when I had more
food without understanding the root of desire, it wasn’t
long before I became agitated, fearful,
and again hungry.
I usually had a dollar or less in my pocket,
but ultimately food would show up. A person would ask,
“You want something to eat?” or perhaps a loaf of bread
would fall off a truck. One time I found
ninety-five dollars along a curb. Sometimes there was just enough
money on the ground to buy some
fruit or soup. But mostly food came from unpredictable places: a
library pizza day in
a generous homeless man in
the Teamsters Union; venison from a man’s freezer in
I could gather or buy by my own doing was negligible in
comparison to the abundance that arrived
when I ceased making any effort at all.
~ ~ ~
Read more about his journey. All the above
material is from: http://carfreeuniverse.org/Members/jeffreysawyer/livinginquiry