DAYS 42 & 43 - Colter Bay Village, WY - 812 miles from home
- Esther Lisa Tishman
- Aug 16
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 18
"Manifestation" is one of those new age words that I've always been a bit allergic to... What some folks call The Law of Attraction - the capacity to conjure up the life we desire - implies an ability to manifest your dreams out of thin air. But what if your vision boards and daily affirmations don't bring you the white picket fence and the perfect green lawn? Is it your fault that reality isn't bending to your will?
Literally the word "manifest" just means clear or evident... Like the "manifest" of a ship or airplane - the list that clearly names all the passengers on board. But in its ancient Latin roots, "manifestum" means "to grab or strike with the hand": a sense of brute force and willfulness, as if things only become visible through violence.
I think I'm continuing to meditate here - as I did in my last post - about the force of human will. To what extent is our destiny what we "manifest"? Or is there an alternative? To what extent is life, love, happiness the result of our willingness to forego force? Instead of striking and grabbing, what happens when we open our hands and loosen our grasp?
AND YET - Kate freakin' manifested a bison on Day 42. There's no other word for what happened. It's astonishing, it was glorious, and it's true. We were in Yellowstone National Park, enjoying a long, luxurious break after an even longer day of hiking. Kate bought an adorable bison themed pillow in the gift shop - and a sticker that said "Don't pet the bisons!" - and then she quipped: Now I better see a bison on this trip! And then... 30 minutes later we're driving back to Ashton for the night, and a bison appeared - stately, absurdly, elegantly - on the road ... He passed within literal inches of our van. (And I know it was a "he" because he was close enough to take a peek downunder. Just saying.)
We've gone 800 miles - and we're deep in the mysteries now!
Day 42 brought us along the Ashton-Flagg Ranch Road from Idaho to Wyoming. This walk was perhaps my most joyous ever. A beautiful stretch of meadows and conifers, of marshy glens, of sudden and surprising bodies of water, sudden blasts of howling wind, streaks of dark rain clouds against vibrant blue skies. It was also a bit of what my husband Ezra calls "a thumper": enough elevation to get the heart pumping, to keep the legs feeling alive, blood flowing, thoughts moving yet going nowhere in particular. Body, heart and mind at full bodying-hearting-minding capacity.
And then, just like that, we'd 'earned' a true zero day. Day 43 we slept in, packed up, said goodbye to the wonderful Reverend Dale Clem - and to our respite in the Ashton Methodist Church. We stopped at a hardware store to get a new tie-down for our hitch basket, and suddenly, manifestly, providentially, serendipitously a man named Chuck Collins appeared at our van window - curious about Libby. That seems like the perfect size rig. (Oh yes, Libby is Mary Poppins on wheels: practically perfect in every way!)
Chuck is a cyclist, a hiker, a writer, a mentor for folks in backpacking and cycling communities - and someone with a strong vision of civic community and of the importance of the "We" in "We the People." (He has a project in that vein that he's getting ready to launch; stay tuned.). A quick chat became a longer conversation, became Chuck suggesting our route for the day, became our running into each other - without any advance planning - several hours later at the Jackson Hole REI.
I mean, it figures that we might all end up at that retail mecca, but still: it was wild and fabulous to reconnect several hours down the road.
And so, thanks to Chuck, we drove up and over Teton Pass, into Jackson, and out into the Grand Teton National Park. And, for these pilgrims, gobsmacked by the extraordinary truth of the Tetons, it was a dang near perfect day. The community unfolds.
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