blissful hiker ❤︎ inspiring you to hike your own hike
Long-distance solo hiker Alison Young knows hard-core backpacking as few people do. With footprints on six continents and memories from trails like Te Araroa and the Pacific Crest, she is a member of a very small and prestigious group.
In a series of personal essays coupled with found sound and her own flute playing, this podcast explores her journey of self-discovery as a middle-aged woman, sharing the sometimes unglamorous but vital truth about empowerment, inspiring others to blaze their own trails in this journey we call life.
blissful hiker ❤︎ inspiring you to hike your own hike
Inhabiting the Vulnerable Space
As Blissful heals from a bilateral mastectomy due to breast cancer, she reflects on the person she wants to be going forward.
- Blissful is incredibly lucky in only having to undergo a radical surgery to rid her body of cancer.
- Step by step walking through her neighborhood, she slowly recovers back to her hiker self.
- The American writer Joyce Carol Oates speaks of the moment we realize that loss is part of our experience. “When that starts to happen to you, it is quite stunning.”
- Being out of control with illness is falling-to-the-knees humbling for Blissful and it's a challenge to stay positive and "bad ass."
- But she's inspired by the late actor Julian Sands who spoke of climbing summits as "not so much a celebration of oneself, but the eradication of one’s self-consciousness. And so on these walks you lose yourself, you become a vessel of energy in harmony, hopefully with your environment.”
- What a way to live!
MUSIC: Poema del Pastor Coya by Angel Lasala as played by Alison Young, flute and Vicki Seldon, piano.
