William James in the Church of the Redwoods

Abstract

Riding a bicycle through difficult terrain illuminates a paradoxical dynamic between human beings and nature. On the one hand, cyclists encounter nature's majesty and beauty with stunning clarity. Gliding amongst trees, flying downhill, and feeling the sun on her arms, the cyclist comes face to face with nature's graceful allure. On the other hand, cycling offers a direct experience of nature's terrifying and dangerous power. Churning up steep mountain passes and slogging through unwelcoming elements like wind, rain, and extreme temperatures, she knows a very real fear in relation to nature's impersonal force. The cyclist is simultaneously spellbound by nature's beauty and daunted by its destructive potential. I experienced this paradoxical fascination with and fear of nature quite vividly in the spring of 2004, on a bicycle tour in the American west. With two friends from college—Ben Kettle and John Franklin—I rode from Jackson, Wyoming, to San Francisco, California. After our graduation from Davidson College in North Carolina in 2003, we had been pulled away from the east coast by western landscapes, making a pilgrimage enacted by so many young outdoor enthusiasts before us and since. The following April, after a long winter of skiing and waiting for warm weather, we loaded all the gear we needed (tents, sleeping bags, food, a change of clothes) in panniers on our bikes, pedaled away from Jackson and camped our way through Idaho, Oregon, and the northern coast of California. It was an unforgettable trip, although very often it was also incredibly difficult and painful. In what follows, I'll try to make sense of the trip, particularly the difficult and painful parts. Though it may seem farfetched, I've come to the conclusion that William James's philosophy of religion saved the trip for me. At the risk of giving away too much, James got me over cold mountain passes and through high, windy deserts. Without James, I would have missed much of the spellbinding scenery and drama that the book of nature offered me, and I would have continued to misunderstand my place in nature's text.