It is amazing what lengths human beings will go to hoping to find happiness.

Unfortunately, many of the directions this takes them are dangerous and destructive.

The human mind is capable of moving in a never-ending, complex and often bizarre vortex of ideas. The progress in technology, health care and other fields moves forward constantly. That’s the good side.

The bad side is it can go off the tracks in directions that are harmful.

Lust, money and power are the biggest but others we won’t mention abound. God, knowing this ability to think, move and decide is essential to our happiness, our free agency, also knows that of the infinite directions possible for our thoughts and actions to take, they must be directed or channeled in the correct direction.

Sadly, many rebel against a wisdom far greater than their own and mock what is sacred, ignoring the plight the world is in because of man’s pride and rebellious nature.

So, what gives me joy, what is harmless, satisfying and constantly brings anticipation, excited preparation, planning, friendship and success? Why, as you may have guessed, it’s the outdoors! God’s backyard, so to speak.

YOU’VE HUFFED AND PUFFED your way up the hill.

No fun, but it’s satisfying simply because it’s great exercise, healthy.

But that thought is deep inside and not in your immediate consciousness.

Somewhere close a big gobbler is roosted. The wise old bird gobbles infrequently, knowing he’s drawing attention to himself, some of it dangerous. His girlfriends are roosted close by; no need to make a ruckus.

A large maple looms up beside the trail; you sit and catch your breath.

Silence settles around you, a palpable blanket in the darkness, strangely comforting. Overhead, the stars still twinkle and in the east the sky is just beginning to lighten and glow.

Below you, down the valley, unseen homes lie silent, their occupants soundly asleep, warm and contented. A smile twists the corners of your mouth upward. It was difficult indeed to leave those warm covers, but this ridgetop, in the pre-dawn, is exhilarating, invigorating, somehow magical.

What is it, this feeling?

Searching your emotions, it’s difficult to sort through them, describe them.

Peace? Oh, yes, a peace is filling you to overflowing. Sifting your jumble of emotions further the word healing pops up. Healing? Yes, you feel healed, whole, happy in a way that can only be experienced on a high ridge at the break of day with the air crisp and clean.

Simplicity? Of course, there’s no distractions, the everyday day is far away and irrelevant at this moment. Your thoughts slow, then stop.

Peace, healing, simplicity.

The feeling inside grows stronger as if recognition of these feelings has strengthened them, strengthened you.

The light grows rapidly, previously indistinct, vague forms taking shape and substance. Trees, saplings, bushes, rocks and fallen trees appear.

The flat ridgetop stretches before you, the hillside falling steeply away to your right.

A few small birds peep welcome to the dawn.

Across the valley a previously unknown turkey gobbles. Ah, there you are and immediately try to pinpoint his location.

Hooting like a barred owl draws another gobble, then another, which triggers the bird you’re after.

A deep, bold, brash gobble thunders out making you jump. The big bird’s close — too close, really. Frozen, hardly breathing, knowing any motion no matter how slight might reveal your presence you find yourself tingling as if an electrical current has passed through your body, and an excitement as old as man himself surges powerfully immediately behind it.

The moment, the gobble, the turkey and you suddenly fused into an intensity so strong you sizzle inside, so very, very alive, pure joy filling every cell. Oh, a life experience pure and exhilarating!

ANOTHER MORNING, spring is in the air, the days are longer, the temperatures warmer. Woodchucks have woken, robins fill yards and fields, the hillsides taking on a red twinge as maple buds grow and swell.

Standing on my porch the cardinal perched high in the spruce tree, a brilliant red in the morning sun. He’s singing his heart out for all to hear, that spring melody perhaps more than any other testifying the long winter is spent and that the earth is awakening and soon to burst forth in the year’s first flowers.

Indeed, as I look, the lilies of the valley are already blooming and, on many hillsides, leeks will soon poke through last fall’s leaves — not only a symbol but a taste of the glories soon to come.

My entire being yearns to stand on a hurrying stream, rod in hand, immersed in the tradition and beauty of trout fishing. To hear the water rushing by, so eager in its haste to reach the far-off ocean. It hisses through drowned willows, gurgles over rocks, chuckles and laughs in the urgency of its travels.

The water pushes at my boots, swirling around them and I feel its power shifting smaller gravel under my boots. Across from me, bouncing on a slender bush, a redwinged blackbird trills, his song as traditional a part of fishing as the rod in my hand and the stream itself, transporting me back to my youth and conveying me into the future. It’s magical and inspirational.

Happiness? It surrounds us on every hand if we but take the time to seek it.

Wade Robertson