Marianna Shannon (5) - Similar Experience to that of Dr. Redick’s Spiritual Rambling

  Dr. Redick mentions throughout class how he had reflected and learned about himself and others the most through the journey of hiking. In class he briefly mentioned his essay Spiritual Rambling, which went over his experiences hiking, and how he embraced it more over his pilgrimage. My family and I often hike trails in the late summer or early fall in the Shenandoah area, ranging from easy walks to challenging climbs. We usually hike with an end goal of a waterfall or a breathtaking mountain view. I never really thought of it as anything more than a family bonding trip, but after reading this specific essay and listening to his lectures, I started to see it differently. One trail that stands out is Humpback Rock. The climb was so steep and rocky that at some point I stopped thinking about anything else. I was completely focused on just making it to the top and “finishing” the hike. Looking back, this is what Dr. Redick describes as “flow,” which is the merging of action and awareness where your self-consciousness disappears and all that exists is the next step. What also stood out were the people we met along the way; a grandfather running up and down for fun (which was incredibly humbling by the way since I was huffing and puffing on the way up), a family hiking with their baby on their back, and many others. Dr. Redick calls this communitas, which is the spontaneous bond that forms between strangers who are all sharing the same experience. I never hiked with any spiritual intention, but reading this essay made me realize the experience was happening to me whether I framed it that way or not.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kip Redick Example of a blog post 1

  I just had a few thoughts on what "wilderness of the soul" meant. In class we discussed that it meant uncharted territory within yourself and I thought of Freud's Iceberg analogy where most of the hidden unconscious is the part of the iceberg that remains underwater. There had always been a debate between psychology and religion in regards to what exactly a soul is. Some would say that the soul is the consciousness of the human brain, while others argue it is something spiritual linking us to God. But in response to the wilderness aspect, I do wonder how much of ourselves do we not actually know? I have always thought of myself as someone who knows exactly who I am, but since this class discussion I'm not so sure. Don't get me wrong- I am not upset about this, but I am certainly more curious. It's almost exciting to think about what else I could learn about myself, but also slightly nerve-wracking. What if I learn something new that I don't ...
Read more

Kip Redick Introduction

 Welcome to the Heroes and Mystics blog for 2026. Make sure to start the blog with your name and the subject of the entry (Just as I have done with this post). . Blog entries will be considered informal writing assignments and as such will be graded more in relation to content than style. Blog entries will contain questions and answers to questions, as well as reflections that relate to daily classroom discussions, completion of exercises, and reading assignments. Any questions the student has while reading or completing assignments should be written in their blog. Reflections may relate to connections the student makes between discussions in this class and those in other classes, between arguments raised in the readings in this class and those raised in other classes or from informal conversations. Students are encouraged to apply the ideas learned in this class to activities that take place outside of the class. These applications make great reflections. The studen...
Read more

Kip Redick Example of a blog post 2

  Page 4 Michael Taussig would suggest Juan's understanding of the meaning of a place emerges out of the process of an imitation of all the “differences” that we discern there. We mimic (in language and action) the full range of sounds, movements, and other sensory perceptions that come to us from the more than human world.” It’s hard to put a place that strikes us as sublime into mere words; we can try to describe it as a feeling and try to put language to that feeling, but sometimes the feeling of the beauty of nature or the power of a sacred space is too big to try to translate or make sense of. Would every place and experience be subjective, and would the discourse be the same? Would the mountain top make me feel the same as another? Or does my personal experience with the natural world and divine keep it intimate/ unique, or would my experience be relatable enough? The author uses the messiness, ambiguity, and mystery of people's deeply personal experience o...
Read more