It never fails to amaze me just how close we are to the peripheral hills. Even without the slingshot of the train, it is no great feat to cycle all the way into the back of beyond from the city centre. I often think that it is the complete opposite with some cities, that to get out of the city is almost impossible, like breaking out of a high security prison.
This 'high security' has a lot to do with it I imagine, for as soon as you leave your comfort zone - those places that you are familiar with and feel safe in - things can take on a whole different feel. One's 'bearings' are thrown off, and one's familiarity too is gone. In comes strangeness and uncertainty. Yet this is when your brain and body really starts to work, when it finds itself in unfamiliar territory. In the comfort zone, people operate on 'safe mode' which is why they can stare into their little phones whilst negotiating the landscape. But to be in an unfamiliar setting is to be on high alert, naturally. One's wits and werwithal prick up like antenae trying to get some feel for where you are and where you might be going. These 'antenae' have been corrupted if not entirely corroded by the imposition of (false) technology (that is not Nature herself). We have lost the ability to tune in to the land, to attune to the elements, to listen to the animals, precisely because we have spent too much time in the comfort zone. And yet, this comfort zone is actually some kind of prison that satiates you, that fills you full of nonsense so that you cannot feel any more. You become submissive, obedient, and needy, just like your dogs. It is thus that the human becomes a pet, and a domesticated (and thus dominated) being. This domination extends itself to the domination not just of the human but of nature herself, so that now, the only antenae that exist are the corporate ones that fill our heads so full of nonsense. Nature becomes threatening under the corporate mandate, good enough reason to cut it down and replace it with the reassuring safety of concrete and iron.
And yet, to enter a place where one has left the beaten track, where one does not know what lies around the corner is a real thrilling experience. In fact, that's exactly what it is: experience. We are experiencing...! Maybe for the first time in many years, maybe even for the first time ever. Experience can only ever occur when we leave the prison of our own accord.
Life itself, at least that life that man has made for himself, is all about the tunnelling out of, for the life that man has actually made for himself is not life itself but a kind of slow-coming dark. When you finally break out, after crawling through a kilometre of sewage, you will see the prison behind you, and Nature will consume you. The feeling will be one of deep joy, and release, a release that will soon inculcate a real ease with who and where you are, wherever that may be.
Freedom is nothing after all, becoming free heavenly....
