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I just read a great book named, “The last season”. It’s a story about a Seki backcountry Ranger named Randy Morgenson. It’s a remarkable story, a very sad story and a very true story. In some ways, I really hate reading a good book because they suck me in so deep and then when it’s done… it’s just kind of a shock to the system. I want to talk to the characters in the book, I want to read more about what happened and why, I just want more. Anyway, pretty good book, great story. Randy was a Ranger for 28 years, a real Ranger, not like me and one day on patrol he just went missing.

One of the neat things about the book in addition to the fact that it describes some of the areas I frequent in the SEKI area, is that one of the backcountry Rangers in the story, Nina Weisman is the one that we met at Bearpaw meadows. Those two little facts, plus the similarities I see in Randy brought the book a bit closer to home for me. Here are two quotes from Randy that I enjoyed.

“All your life, someone is pointing the way, directing you this way and that, determining for you which road is best traveled. Here is your chance to find your own way, Don’t ask me how to get to McGee Canyon or Lake Double Eleven-0. Go, on your own. Be adventuresome. Don’t forever seek the easiest way. Take the way you find. Don’t demand trail signs and sturdy bridges. Don’t demand we show you the mountains. Seek them and find them yourself… This is your birthright as an animal, most commonly denied you. Be free enough from intentions to find goodness wherever you are and in whatever is happening. here for once in your life you needn’t do anything, be anywhere at a determined time, walk in a certain direction. You can now live by whim. Here’s your one chances to get lost, fall in the creek, find a beautiful place.”

One more on his own view of god.

“That a humanoid God willed all this into existence simply to glorify himself (a bit too egotistically human), and/or for us, his greatest creation, and our pleasure, use, misuse, seems not either to fit with the way I perceivethe world… I wish only to be alive and to experience this living to the fullest. To feel deeply about my days, to feel the goodness of life and the beauty of my world, this is my preference.”

I wish I had had the chance to have met Ranger Morgenson.

Time to try and get this storytime section back on track and off the angsty shit.

If I could ask God one question (assuming a generic religion neutral Omnipresent/Omnipotent being as God in this) I think I would ask him what babies dream of when they are asleep. They have no concept of self, others, objects, places, or time so what can be present in their dreams? If you watch when they sleep they move, twitch, make faces, and look just like someone who’s dreaming.

So are they dreaming, and if so, what do they dream of? What do they see in the dreams, what does a newborn’s worldview look like? Sure they can’t form rational, or logical thoughts, but who’s dreams are really rational, logical or even make a bit of sense? Do animals dream while we are on the subject?

I remember when my dog Dinkey would sleep in his old age, his legs would twitch like he was running, he would whimper and roll around and then wake up like he was startled out of sleep. Was he dreaming, if so, what did it look like and what was it of? Do babies dream or not, if so, what do they dream of?

God?