In the Adirondacks

So, I've arrived at my new campus.

The scenery here is amazing. The Adirondacks are very rugged, and very cold. It's a wild place, and it seems that our species doesn't find it to be an entirely hospitable place. There is a town nearby. It used to be a bustling 'lumber town', with at least 1,000 people living in it. The population is now a little over 25, and it doubles when us Ranger School students are in the area.

My second night here, I felt a little intimidated. I'm from the Catskill Mountain area...the Catskills are beautiful, and I'd describe them as "soft", and "warm". They are a fine place to live, because the land is stable and the soil is usually quite soft. The climate is warm during the summer, and cool during the winter...in my experience, it doesn't snow an awful lot there.

The Adirondacks contrast sharply to this, though. The soil is gravely and sandy, and glacial till is a common sight. They are also very large and steep, and, at the moment (it's now late summer/early autumn), it is freezing cold. Today it reached a high of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

If I had to use an analogy to describe the relationship, I'd say that the Catskills are to the Adirondacks as Athens was to Sparta.

Usually, I have a fairly easy time of "feeling" the Goddess around me when I'm in a relatively "uninhabited" area, or at least outside with fresh air and lots of greenery around. (Note: These conditions aren't the only conditions in which I can sense Her...just the ideal). But, my second night here, I sat outside on the front lawn of the campus, in a traditional "Adirondack chair", overlooking the Oswegatchie river. Try as I might, I couldn't seem to sense Her. I felt alone, and isolated...but the more I contemplated Her, and the area I found myself in, the more I realized I was sensing an entirely new aspect of the Goddess. The Adirondack Mountains represent a tougher, wilder, darker side of the Goddess than I'm used to. If anything, they are a good physical representation of the Crone.

And, how appropriate it is. The program I'm in now is by no means easy. 24 credits a semester, 4-6 hours of studying per night, most of it taking place outside in the forest, where I'll be right in the lap of the Goddess. We will be in temperatures that reach below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and we'll be faced with steep climbs, jagged rock cliffs, narrow, wet trails, very dark nights, and big, big trees that could crush us in an instant. We'll also be faced with the wild inhabitants of the area... mountain lions, black bears, coyotes... It will be hard, and I will be challenged. Such is the nature of the Crone.

At first it was hard to see the spiritual side of such a modern thing, this program...but slowly I'm becoming used to it, and slowly I'm remembering myself and my place in the world.

Note: the picture I've put up is one of the Ranger School. That's the main building. It's a small, comfortable campus... only 43 students and 6 (or so) professors, plus staff.