[LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 9] Reading a poem about death in the woods

A deer carcass decomposes on Jeju Island. Courtesy of Rachel Stine

By Rachel Stine

If you think the "Mama Universe" stuff I mentioned in the last column sounds like the ramblings of a California 'psychonaut' ... you're right! I got the idea from Duncan Trussell.

One day, while walking down an olle, watching the orange sun flicker over the cattails, I found myself struck by his podcast comments:

"Who loves us? Who's been loving us … who loves us, all the way into all age? That's the Earth. That's the Universe. It loves us until we dissolve right into it …

"…we are in the embrace of the most incredible lover. A lover that has formed an entire universe around us. A planet around us. I mean, what's sexier than that? A lover who's decided to be all our lovers? 'Oh, don't worry. No, I'll be every lover you've ever had. I'll be every mother. I'll be every father … I'll be your child. I'll be your birth. I'll be your death. I'll be your thinking; I'll be your intelligence. I'm gonna be it all.'"

His words would return to me on Olle Trail 15-A, as I walked along a wooden platform in Nabeup-ri Forest. The ground under my feet was slippery with moss. Ferns grew beside fallen trees, and the air was silent and heavy and fertile.

Everything seemed to be spiraling towards the one true center, fast or slow.

I felt intimidated. The trees were so tall they blocked out the sun, and the air smelled like rotting wood. I kept envisioning my own corpse fertilizing the soil, just like the trees beside me, or the skeletons in the Jeju graves, or the fallen deer at O'Sulloc.

There was no city static to drown out the truth. Life was, in that moment, just a long hike back to This Place.

"That's right," I thought. "Why did I get upset about that Reddit thread?"

Eventually the forest walkway ended in a raised platform. Local children had printed poems on big banners for passersby to read, and I stopped to examine each. (I may not be a perfectionist anymore, but I still never pass up an opportunity to practice Korean.)

Suddenly, I heard yelling in the woods. I jumped into a standing position, craning my neck to see who was coming.

A middle-aged lady with shabby hair was walking alone, off-trail and yelling. As she approached, she noticed me at the top of the wooden stairs, and a smile bloomed across her face. She bowed her head in greeting. I smiled back. As she passed, her expression darkened into a scowl again, and she grumbled to someone who wasn't there.

When she was gone, I glanced down next to me. I had reached the end of the children's poems.

The last was entitled "Death."

After hiking Olle Trail 15-A, I became acutely aware of the graves scattered across Jeju. These burial mounds sit beside parking lots, schools and even restaurants. When I first arrived, I was shocked. How do people indulge in beer and BBQ next to some dead guy?

Yet a few months after arriving, the graves stopped creeping me out. I remember leaning over a cafe balcony and thinking: "Man, look at that rosemary … growing strong on that 'yangban' out front!"

Eventually, I started to wonder who these anonymous skeletons were. Did they marvel at Mount Halla in winter, when the mountain wears her robe of snow and mist? Did they eat snacks by Ilchulbong Peak at sunset? Did they sit in the 'gotjawal' (Jeju subtropical forest) at night, listening to the deer and wondering how they would be remembered?

But of course they would be remembered. Passing tombstones is a constant reminder that our own time piloting a skeleton is limited. In this way, hiking the Olle Trails reconnects us with our physical bodies.

After walking 20 kilometers, sleep comes more deeply and fully. There's less pain in our knees because our joints acclimate to climbing oreum. Trail silence teaches us.

I also started to notice how YouTube was negatively affecting my moods, and so on the last few trails, I barely touched my phone. I no longer wanted to be sedated with the internet. Instead, I wanted inner clarity that seemed inaccessible in Seoul.

City living can turn our subconscious into a noisy upstairs neighbor. We wake up at 4:30 a.m., hearing banging noises overhead and seethe. "What in God's name is my brain doing at this hour?"

Well … sabotaging your life, probably.

LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 1 How hiking Jeju's 437km of trails changed my life
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 2 Fighting agrarian anxiety attacks on Jeju's paths
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 3 Carrying a grandma through Yaksu Station
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 4 Going full white lady in the woods
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 5 Getting ice cream and umbrellas from strangers
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 6 Discovering deer carcasses at the tea museum
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 7 Healing perfectionism on Pyoseon Beach
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 8 Confronting OCD in Woljeong-ri
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 9 Reading a poem about death in the woods
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 10 Confronting the subconscious saboteur
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 11 Worrying about comments section chaos
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 12 Saying goodbye in Gueok-ri
LIFE'S OLLE TRAILS 13 Walking back, fast or slow

Rachel Stine has volunteered in the North Korean human rights sphere for over a decade. Her writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, The Korea Times and other major news outlets. You can view nature photography from her journeys around the world at flickr.com/photos/rachelstinewrites.