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Writer's pictureKevin Bolland

Taking a Hike Through God’s Organic Gift to Humanity


I stand before an impressive showcasing of stone steps at the start of the Bear Mountain trail. Each stone step was carved and placed down for an expiring heart. The hundreds of stone steps represent a granite wonderland with earth growing around it. With each step I took, I thought about the hard work and days of craftsmanship that went into this, so I refused to call it quits. Every time my foot planted on a stone step at an incline, I imagined all the laborers using TNT and other tools to excavate the mountain. I imagined each sweat that fell off their forehead while mine did the same, using the foundation they laid to reach the summit. 


After many steps upward on cut stone, the trail leveled out, and a wooden bridge connected to a trail's parts was in front of me. The wooden bridge resembles a science from a fairytale movie. I walked on the small bridge and let my fingers glide on the surface of the smooth wooden railing. I leaned over the wooden bridge as other hikers walked and ran behind me, looking up at the tree canopy of foliage that started to have a kaleidoscope pattern. With my endorphins rising out of my brain, the latter in from different colored leaves, and the elevation made me see the gift that is Bear Mountain.


A man stands at a railing with fall foliage in the background
Image Provided by: Michael Colon

Nature is where love and creativity showcase their eternal being manifested in the organic beauty of creation. The secrets of life are found where the purest forms of creation root themselves. In our case, this place is called Earth. The lush green forests are a playground for life and death to play their fateful game, which balances how our consciousness perceives physical matter. Majestic tree canopies, colorful leaves and flowers, and animals coexist. This is all just a single trail hike away. Our mind, body, and spirit yearn to connect with the source of everything, found in places where creation is abundant, like the trail. 


Our planet, this plane we inhabit, is a sacred temple we must treat with the respect it deserves to benefit our kids and grandkids' survival. Generations of future bloodlines depend on us to make the right choices so they can reap and sow the fruit of this planet's wonders. We share a home with an ecosystem teaming with life that deserves to live out its purpose the same way we do. The game between prey and predator must be played within the natural law and rules designed to keep this system going for as long as possible. In the story of Earth, the tiny leaf-cutter ant is just as crucial as the hawk patrolling the skies. Each creation has a purpose and origins for which it was made.


While on the trail, the trees, hundreds of years old, tell a story of longevity and wisdom of preservation through the harsh elements. Life always finds a way to grow and stand tall, but it does have a limit. In the meantime, the birds sing love songs to one another. The rocky path in front of us on the trail represents what has yet to be discovered—the elegant unknowns or, eventually, truths from scenic views that are healthy to the soul. The whispers of the breeze blowing the leaves around us explain how science and religion are wrongly in a tug of war to prove the other wrong while missing the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that everything living and breathing that is part of the systematic expression of cellular death and birth on a lush and awe-inspiring scale, although resilient, has a point of no return, and we need to take this notion more seriously.

 

This is why I implore everyone that whether or not they work in a career that involves plants and animals to make it a point to take at least a few times or once a year to do a long trail walk and take in the purity of what they are seeing. To better connect my philosophical and theological viewpoint of our home's greeneries, I point to one of my favorite hiking spots: Bear Mountain State Park. Upstate New York is a hub of forests and reservations. Born and raised in New York, I love having access to all these gifts.


During my first hike up Bear Mountain State Park I remember the streams of sunlight slipping through the gaps in the tree branches above my head. The drive to the state park through seven lakes road created an innocent excitement. The story of life is colored in illustrations of expressions of art to our world. When I exited the car, I wanted to run across the parking lot and the vast fields where families would have picnics and BBQs. The sounds of laughter and games being played dimmed as I approached the base of one of the bear mountain trails. An epic silencing that would begin the orchestra of nature, telling me a vibrantly illustrated story. As I made my ascent up Bear Mountain, I was greeted by other hikers from all parts of the globe to share the same appreciation of wooden bridges and hundreds of carefully carved stone steps. The higher I got above the earth, the more I found myself in paradise. Although the goal is the summit, the pages of this colored book I marched across to get there made the experience more profound.


Bear Mountain State Park is for all levels of hiker but tends to be a lot of incline. I would make sure your cardio is good overall before the summit hike up. Essential items to have during a hike up Bear Mountain are for safety purposes and to make the experience better for the hiker. 

  • A sturdy backpack to store items

  • Water bottles/gatorade

  • Protein bars/easy to pack food

  • Extra clothing

  • First aid kit

  • Bugs spray/sun screen 

  • A hiking stick 

  • Hiking shoes/boots 


With my body hurting in a weirdly satisfying way, I heard the murmurs of a crowd just up ahead. This extra wind filled my lungs to make the last grueling strides to the very top of Bear Mountain. From the summit, I can see the top of the entire forest. The Earth's scalp has ocean-like wave patterns that are a deep, intimate green with my head in the clouds. I felt like I was on top of the world. With dozens of people capturing memories of their personal experiences within nature using their phones, I did the same but not as a final goodbye, but to indulge in other adventures out there. When I descended Bear Mountain, I felt full of the soul food nature serves us when we respect and show the same love back. Recently, this past year, 2024, I returned to Bear Mountain State Park with my wife and friends. And the same magic never went away as we shared God’s organic gift to humanity. 


Thanks for Reading!

Written by Michael Colon


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