A Glimpse of Satori in the Great Smoky Mountains

View from Chimney Tops

"My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing." ~ Aldous Huxley


Nature whispers to us.

If, for example, you’ve ever stood beneath a behemoth sequoia in the Muir forest, or marveled at the vastness of the Grand Canyon, or gazed in awe at the countless stars on a clear night uninterrupted by ambient light, you’ve likely heard these whispers. You understand how they still our minds, erase our vanities, and remind us of our infinite Oneness with the Universe.

Sometimes these whispers meld reality and myth, too, as I discovered several years ago while day-hiking with my wife and two young sons in the Great Smoky Mountains.

We were hiking Chimney Tops, a popular trail that winds for two miles through old growth forest and rhododendron, crosses a couple of mountain streams, and steeply rises 1,300 feet from the trailhead to the summit. The second half of the trail is ungraded, less crowded with hikers, and requires a scramble across rocks to reach its top point. The view from the pinnacle, however, is well worth the extra effort.

While my family waited below the final rocky section of the trail, I continued to a flat boulder slightly short of the summit – a perfect perch for meditating upon the expansive view across the smoky, blue-veiled valley. I remember being struck by the profound silence there. Though a half-dozen or so other hikers had ascended to the top, it was as if the panorama before us demanded a reverential silence. A pious feeling like that you get when you walk into a great cathedral, no matter what your religious beliefs.

Then, from that silence, the sweet haunting sounds of a Pan flute began drifting across the valley. The music seemed to carry on the air currents: dipping into the forests one moment, swirling among the rocky pinnacle the next, soaring finally to the surrounding peaks. Time no longer existed. The satyr Pan piped somewhere within the pristine forest of eastern hemlocks. And, though I was firmly grounded to the mountain physically, I felt the lightness of drifting with that music through the majestic smoky vista before me. I felt the lightness of my being.

Descending the trail, joined again by my family, I encountered no satyrs – only a solitary hiker, resting on a trailside overlook, and blowing the soundtrack for my glimpse of satori on his bamboo pipes.