What to do on the night of a full moon? To sit, inside, huddled in our cocoons, safe, waiting for warmth, comfortable. Hesitation. Is this really a practical idea? Absolutely not. And therein lies the beauty. The temperature is sub-zero. The wind is howling. Particles of air, frozen in stillness and then whirled into motion like a blender chopping up cucumbers, spitting them into the air, disintegrating them into smithereens. There is energy in fire. There is energy in this life.
We are not the norm. We are not the mundane. You will not find us in office buildings, nor will we fall to your expected outcome. You bore us with your expectations. Because we will be so much more. Tonight, a pagan night. We burn. We send fire into the chill. We laugh more than you will ever laugh. The pulse, the heart beat, the youth. Never ever go. Memory. Don't die. Burn.
Fire. Cheeks burn. Wind pounds. Galaxies blaze, moons becon. Glow, glow, glow. It's chaos. The sledding is…wretched. The air – toes gone. And yet – we smile. We shake our heads in absurdity. These are the moments. I wonder if my young companions realize…how…unique…this…is. How can they? They have not lived through the mundane – well, in part they have…after all they have survived high school. But it's a different perspective. If nothing else, I hope to show them that there are other ways to live. And I mean – to live. As in, being alive. Most are not. A pitiful fate.
The best part of being cold – you know you are alive. When your cheeks burn and your extremities ache – you know…you..are…beating. You glow. The second best part? Warming up again. The fire next to you. The comfort. In life, you have to suffer a little to feel reward. Or, as the man in jail said – you have to lose everything to know how sweet it is to win it all back.
Tonight, we burn.
Alta Backcountry 