Mind Watching: Field Notes from Wilderness Solitude – Day 48

50 days of observations, insights, and contemplations...

by Tyler Volk

Tyler Volk’s “Mind Watching” Series Table of Contents

Day 48 Goodbye, Mountain Valley

In morning’s wee hours of my final night I wrestled with reality. The contest was difficult yet not unpleasant. I didn’t want to merely sit up and open a bedside book to read myself back to sleep. Hormones buzzed throughout my body. My mind felt intense and full of investigation and struggle. A lot was definitely not crystal clear.  

Sometimes I tried putting myself—my attention—into breathing. First I would focus on breathing, not on verbal or visual thought. Then I’d slide back into those dominant braided streams of thought. Then return to breathing. Attention cycled in this way.  

I apparently could shift myself around. It was not the “I” of the inner sentences who performed these actions of will that led to the return of attention to the breath. It was a larger I, not just the I of the physical body or the I of the ebb and flow of emotions, and, again, as noted, definitely not the I of the inner voice. It was some kind of primal or primary will. The shifts themselves occurred nonverbally, even though each thinking phase of the cycle often included inner speech. The dynamics of the shifts back to the breath contained a visceral sensation—a shoving myself around, an almost physical-like exertion as if I were climbing from one hill to another. And all while I lay there, as still as a fallen log in the bed of a forest.  

So it is possible to say “yes” and “no” to states of being without actually verbalizing “yes” and “no.” Sure, after any nonverbal yes (or no) that creates a shift, the impulse that creates a shift is often transferred into a verbal imperative. And even prior to the shift, one can say, “Oh, you shouldn’t be thinking of that,” or, “Stay in that space.” Such verbalizing often seems to assist and even cause the upcoming, visceral “no” of denial or “yes” of affirmation. It’s like posting those reminders that one wants to use as metacognitive reminders. “Individuality.”  “Creativity.” “Knowledge and imagination.” “Living in groups.” But the actual impulse that occurs with the shift, I found, which seems is a “better” state because it’s beyond, under, or above the whirlpool of language, takes place as an almost grunting or muscular response. As noted, the impulse can even feel strenuous, an inner exertion that moves the mental self. This impulse might be close to the workings of the overall evaluator of the streams of thinking. Perhaps the source of these impulses is a place to put identity, a source of one important form, if not the most important form, of “I.” Thus the evaluator becomes a state of being.  

At one point in the verbal intervals in between the times of pure attention to breath, the word “mind” entered my mind. “I am mind-shaping.” Then came a question: Is the impulse for this “I” that is shaping the flows of the braided streams of the mind something other than these streaming contents of mind? If so, what would I call it? Cognition? The larger self? Presence? Inner being? The master stream? Soul? Spirit? C’mon, let’s not get mystical here and say you’re no longer mere mind, you are now spirit! How can the impulse be other than a part of the braided streams? It is difficult to say. This level of being, the level that shapes the contents of consciousness willfully, is not easily definable. That’s why the possible names for it are so varied and fuzzy. Eventually I should try to better sense it, define it, and perhaps name it. It seems to be a cognitive thing or process that can be developed, perhaps what cognitive scientists called the executive function, a sort of master stream, difficult to sense yet strongly present and with the potential, so it seems, to become even more vigorous.  

When I finally rose it was still early, and I needed to do a couple hours of work to get my mountain abode shut down and ready for my upcoming absence. I drained all the water pipes, shut off the gas and electricity, did a final look around the property, and hit the road in mid-morning. Several miles uphill I stopped at an overlook to gaze one last time back on the little valley where I had lived for these past two months. There below was my physical basin for the mental whirlpools. Except for running to town about every ten days for groceries and errands, and the road trip to Arizona for camping and petroglyphs, my life had swirled within the bounds of that valley and surrounding canyon-etched highlands, limited by the road’s terminus at the nearby cliff dwellings and the distance I could hike in a day.  

In Silver City, I ran some errands and drove over to my friend Fred, who kindly provides me with a spot in his backyard to store my car for the winter. We went for a delicious lunch at the local Mexican restaurant we both like. Later in the afternoon, the local van service shuttled me the three-plus hours to El Paso, Texas. I slept at a basic airport hotel, surrounded by concrete block walls, buzzing highways, and the surrounding sprawl of a million people. 

© 2025 by Tyler Volk

SHARE:

PLEASE RATE: