Big Sur Beauty and Poison Oak Madness

I spent the day down at Big Sur with two friends from the Center. Holy amazing place... I knew it would be, but it was still stunning. And it was such a gorgeous day. I'm still kind of intoxicated from the sun, the surf, the cliffs... and the poison oak. Whoops.

So the story goes thusly. When I was a kid, I was always a big chicken, afraid to take risks, climb things, be adventurous. Strong sense of needing to feel safe. Sometimes, I'm still that way, but I try not to be so much -- too much safe isn't good. So sometimes I do things that scare me.

This afternoon, I was clambering around on the cliffs by the ocean with my friend Ramnath. I was kind of getting into the climbing -- it felt good to use my body in that way. So there was a fairly steep face leading up to the top of a cliff, and it looked doable. So I suggested we scale the thing, thinking that at the top we'd be able to find our way back to the road somehow. It seemed like a good idea at the time. As I climbed higher, I realized that the top was pretty thick with brush, lots of it poison oak. I should have turned around then, but I had climbed high enough that the way back down looked even scarier than the rest of the way to the top. So I ignored my fear and kept climbing, grabbing onto sage brush (I think) and avoiding the poison oak plants.

Well, I finally got to the top, after brushing past tons and tons of poison oak (it was unavoidable). And I realized that there was no where to go -- it didn't lead anywhere, and I basically had to bushwhack through poison oak and other shrubs to move at all. So I resigned myself to having to make my way back through all the brush, and down the cliff face. I started having visions of needing a helicoptor rescue, because I really didn't feel too good about climbing down the way I had climbed up.

But yoga has taught me a thing or two, and of course I made it down. Keep breathing, focus on one hand hold at a time, plant your feet firmly before giving your weight, and don't look down too much. And of course I made it.

Now, I've never had a poison oak rash, but I've heard it really sucks. So I stripped out of my clothes and got in the river, and tried to get myself clean. And I put on different clothes, and I bought the requisite cleaner stuff, and I had a long shower when I got home and I think I'm just going to throw away the clothes I was wearing. And now it just remains to be seen whether I break out in a full-body rash for my final two weeks at Mount Madonna. Prayers would be appreciated...

I may change my mind if I get the rash, but for now, I would have to say that it was worth it. The exhilaration of climbing up there, and then back down, all by myself, with the strength of my own body, was worth it. And the setting couldn't have been any more beautiful.

I think I'm going to head to bed and commune with the crashing surf sound that's still in my head...