Topo

In sub-zero temperatures, I sorted boxes at my storage space, looking for a specific cardboard tube of maps. A group of motley topographical maps. But I rely on them. Maybe I need perspective. How do paper maps compare to our GPS understanding, of location? I was so relieved, to have my hands on them, the physical maps. Back at home, I carefully uncoiled them. One set, given me, by the then road commissioner of the town of Washington, VT. An antique collection, showing where the old town roads had gone. He’d shown me his pistol too, because he was fed up, at that time, with complaints. And maybe being entrusted to safeguard maps was something he wished to pass on. For what is a map? But a representation of boundaries & a clear validation, of the old working farms. Farms meant a whole different thing back then, which eventually became clear to me the longer I worked to decipher the lands I was unraveling into my lexicon. Taken by foot, then, for years, to the best of my ability, and without advice. The pine cathedrals, planted during CCC, the apple trees still producing, in fields and forest. I came here, not with any need to imagine anything. It was, from the start, an undercover mission. I figured what I could imagine, was not going to be nearly as majestic, as what was here. And I’ve been right, on that point. It could be applied, to much of the world, today. That you don’t know what you think you know, based on the networks, & outlets “you trust”. Oh, dear God, we are so far off the mark. A half a world away, is a world you do not know. And I’ll stamp that, with my stamp, on the honor of trees. The puppetry that enslaves us, that supports us to be infants, that urges us to wobble forward, teetering on high heels in a maple syrup paradigm, this is a bubble we must overcome. Never truer was a lie to be told, than in the angelic republic of Vermont, even in parts of NH. And so I ordered the newest USGS maps I could find, thinking at least, to be corrected as to the “known roads”, and verifiable cold water basins. The new graphics will be disturbing to some - dumbed-down at first glance, and less detailed by all accounts. But in a few years, these maps will be considered dinosaurs, or perhaps, a mere relic, & therefore, of value. To a handful. Holding on to some measure of history, that can still, reputedly, be walked or skied. And since we are in the business, tonight, of the cautionary tale, I would only say this. Educate yourself at minimum, to a place of neutrality and/or humility. Consider the strange fantasy, that you may have been born into a matrix. I know you liked the movie, because I did, and what’s not to like about it. Unless you’ve been craftily forced into blindness, and can’t see anything now, that is real.
— Ridgerunner
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