Two crows cawed softly in the distance, the first bird calls of the morning, the first sounds to pierce the cloak of predawn silence that enveloped the vast Pisgah National Forest. I paused, listened, and felt a smile spread across my face.

What was it about crows cawing that made me smile? Was it a sense of familiarity, the realization that where ever I go in nature I always hear crows somewhere in the background? Or was it the sense that they too were just waking up, that they too were opening their eyes to a new day, that the crows and I were sharing a morning experience?

An hour ago I had awakened in a cozy tent, lingered in my warm sleeping bag, and heard the last bird song of the night, a great horned owl hooting whose awake, me too, whose awake, me too. Bird songs, I thought, always heralding the passage of time, the change of the seasons, the transition from night to day and day to night. Birds were the all-knowing town criers of nature.

Surrounded by the shadowy shapes of the tall trees I continued my walk along the paved road that led from the campground. A second morning minnesinger chimed in, a Carolina wren, a tiny brown bird with a big voice belting out its loud, bright tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea kettle. Surely, I was stepping my way into a new day.

I arrived at my destination, a wooden foot bridge that crossed Bent Creek near its entry into Lake Powhatan, a promising location I had discovered yesterday. It was a location with flowing water, streamside mud banks, thriving reeds and weeds, mixed height bushes and saplings, all of it surrounded by pines, oaks and dark green rhododendrons. This was just the kind of mixed habitat that usually attracts the greatest diversity of life, the widest variety of birds and animals. I thought it would be a good place to learn about the flora and fauna of the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains.

Setting up my camp chair in the middle of the bridge, I settled in and took in the view. Ahead of me Bent Creek widened gradually as it flowed toward the lake. Beyond the lake in the dim light a long ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains ascended skyward. Gazing at the sky-pointing forested mountainside I felt a surge of inspiration, a wave of euphoria interwoven with hope and optimism. I thought there must be some hard-wired, primal response to the view of a mountain reaching to the sky, a view that must resonate with the inherent urge of psyche and soul to scale the heights of personal and spiritual development.

Behind me the creek gurgled softly over a cluster of rocks. A mockingbird called a harsh morning squawk and then settled into its repertoire of repeated calls and song snippets, each repeated three times. Slowly the morning bird chorus arose; a white-breasted nuthatch toned yank, yank yank, Carolina chickadees squeaked and chanted chick-a dee-dee-dee, another Carolina wren sang brightly, a robin called tut, tut, tut, and a blue jay cried jay, jay, jay. It was a soothing, calming, satisfying morning chorus.

Clump, clump, clump along the trail to my left. A man appeared, a camper, attired in a winter coat and stocking cap taking little woofie for a morning walk. I felt a flash of irritation. He was barging along the trail startling the birds. He strode onto the bridge and suddenly I realized that my chair was too wide. It blocked the way. I felt angry at myself for not anticipating this problem. I stood up, turned the chair, exchanged a morning greeting, and watched and listened as he clomped away down the trail.

Bad scouting I admonished myself. I would have to move. I dragged the chair across the bridge and edged down to the side of the creek to try a different location. Once again I settled in to look and listen. Across the creek little brown birds chipped and flitted through the weeds and bushes. From this new spot I couldn’t get a good look with the binoculars.   Behind me a wreeet, wreeet, wreeet call. What was that?

Then, more clomping down the trail. This time it was a young woman jogging fast, breathing hard, clouds of steam forming from each exhalation, pounding down the trail and across the bridge. A plane flew overhead and then another.

I felt frustrated and annoyed. There were birds I couldn’t identify, a parade of people barging through the woods, and the noise of human machines in the sky.

A bird flew down and landed on a log near the stream. Binoculars up. I brought it into focus; small body, rounded smoke colored head, long tail flicking up and down, whitish breast feathers merging into pale yellow near the legs. This was an Eastern phoebe. I stared at it spellbound, studied its delicately shaded perfect plumage pattern. This was a scene of pure beauty, an aesthetic moment, an image so lovely that it was seared into my mind, an image I would carry in memory and whenever I recalled it I knew these same warm feelings would spread through my heart and mind. This view of nature felt like a gift, a gift of the true and beautiful.

From the woods, a tinny tooting enk, enk enk. I knew this call. It was a red-breasted nuthatch. The mnemonic of a child’s tiny tin horn helped me to remember it. An image came to mind; a little bird scuttling up and down a tree trunk grasping a little toy horn in its claw, tooting away. I laughed out loud.

More footsteps on the trail. A quick glance revealed an older couple all bundled up walking two old white-muzzled golden retrievers. Feeling annoyed once again I looked ahead determined to avoid eye contact and prevent any conversation. As they walked across the bridge behind me I heard a steady wheezing sound. Oh no, I thought. They are dragging their poor old dog along on their morning constitutional.

I glanced up and was stunned to see that it was the man who was wheezing with each breath. He carried on oxygen bottle on his hip with a tube extending up to his nose providing life-sustaining oxygen. I burned with shame at my unsympathetic response and felt an immediate and deep sympathy for him. As he and his wife and the two goldens walked slowly on I celebrated their effort and wished him good health.

Feeling humbled, I decided to try to recalibrate my emotions by focusing on my surroundings. I sniffed in a breath and detected the fresh smell of flowing water, the faint piney scent of pine needles, and the crisp fragrance of the first fallen leaves. I felt the chilly 42 degree morning air on my face and hands. Was there a wind? I looked over at some seed topped stems of grass growing near the creek. Yes, they were swaying slightly, pushed by an undetectable morning breeze.

A kingfisher darted above the creek chattering loudly. A trio of red-winged blackbirds flew over the lake calling check, check, check. A robin whinnied. Chickadees called. Soothing sounds all of them. And then faint zit, zit, zit calls from the top of a pine. Four little birds, maybe warblers or kinglets, flitted in and out of the branches. Binoculars up, but the birds darted from limb to limb too quickly for me to get a good view. Once again I felt rising frustration.

I put the binoculars aside and realized that although outwardly I was sitting peacefully in the woods, inwardly I was riding an emotional roller coaster. I had to admit that I was simply an emotional mess, ascending to heights of happiness with the moments of clarity and beauty and descending into valleys of anger and frustration when interrupted or unable to achieve clarity.

I recalled that Jon Young, the author of What the Robin Knows, had written that an hour sitting quietly observing nature inevitably leads to psychological, even spiritual growth. I wondered where the growth was in my roller coaster ride of emotions.

Then I considered that maybe it was good for me to see how quickly my emotions came and went, how rapidly they shifted valence from positive to negative. Maybe it was helpful to see how sensory input and ego needs constantly drove my emotional life. Maybe it was beneficial to witness, and then to honor that ever shifting emotional life that is simply part and parcel of being human.

The morning chorus gradually subsided. The morning chill penetrated my jacket. My fingers felt cold and numb. The minutes ticked down. I was ready to return to the campsite, start a roaring fire, warm my hands, make a steaming cup of black coffee, eat muesli and yogurt in the fresh autumn air, and look up at the sky through the branches of the pines and oaks.

This sit spot took place on the morning of October 25, 2018 in the Pisgah National Forest near Asheville, NC.