Great Smoky Mountains National Park Archives

The Magic of Memories

By Simone Lipscomb | November 17, 2020

The other day a friend of mine commented how a video on the Fontana Lake Cleanup brought back such good, childhood memories for him. As my canine companion, Buddy, and I walked at Deep Creek today I reflected on my happiest childhood memory.

My immediate family, mom’s sister and her family, grandparents, aunt and uncle and another extended family went to the Smokies together…14 of us in total. One day in particular was amazing. My cousins, brother and I went tubing on Deep Creek. The water was so cold yet I couldn’t bring myself to get out. Our parents were watching from the picnic tables and we were having a big time.

Before my dad got sick and before all of the adulting there was this magical time in the mountains that became my most treasured memory of family.

When I was feeling the pull back to the mountains, I was trying to find a place around Asheville, where I had lived before, or Black Mountain and there was absolutely nothing that worked. My house in Alabama was getting attention but nothing was working out for a sale. For over 18 months I looked and looked and couldn’t believe the dumps with high prices for sale around Asheville.

So I finally got a contract on my home and had to find a place. As I drove past the sign for Dillsboro, Sylva and Cherokee on my way to Asheville, I heard a question: Where did you always want to live as a child? But I was worried that living an hour away from Asheville would be difficult and too scary to start over…again…far from everyone I knew. But as it happened, a cousin saw my social media post about looking once again in the Asheville area for a home and he said, You gotta meet our cousin in Sylva. And in the end, it was that question I heard that opened my mind to hearing what my Sylva cousin had to say about the area.

Yesterday I sat at the dining table in my little cabin and gazed out at the mountain ridge of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. I live here, I said aloud. My childhood dream realized. Eight miles via the back way into the Deep Creek area from my door…that’s how close I live to my happiest childhood memory.

It’s hard to always know what calls us to certain places. But this time around, I felt I owed it to myself to align with the happiest place I remembered. My love for the area grows as I celebrate my one year anniversary here in five days. There are other reasons I’m here and I’ll share those in another blog, but for today I’m smiling at those treasured, magical memories.

the simple things

By Simone Lipscomb | October 21, 2020

When life is finished for each of us I predict the simple things will be what we treasure. The time the sunrise was pink and lavender; the morning the clouds were cotton candy pink; the time the spotted dolphin brought her baby up to me and used sonar to vibrate my headache away; the humpback whale that did yoga with me before sunrise 90 miles off the coast of the Dominican Republic; the moment I held my daughter for the first time; that time I lived through what I thought I couldn’t.

I wonder why we tend to make life much more complicated than it needs to be. Why we accumulate ‘stuff’ and work so hard to get more when the accumulated ‘stuff’ isn’t what builds the real foundation of a full and amazing life. At least it isn’t for me.

The bull elk stood and made eye contact with me…or was it the cow in the meadow? It doesn’t matter….all I know is how my heart felt when we were face-to-face.

That time the manatee rolled and farted…who could forget that? I snorted so much water in my flooded mask from laughing and this dead-pan ‘little’ friend just carried on gazing into his own beautiful reflection in my dome port. Now that’s a good memory.

The accumulation of stuff requires so much energy that there’s little left over to actually enjoy life.

The investment I’ve made has been more in travel and exploring. My grandfather told me a couple years before he died that his one regret was not traveling when he and my grandmother were healthy enough to go. So I took his advice to heart and used money he gifted me through his death to travel to many places. That has brought joy and filled my heart with gratitude.

I remember sitting at a burial tomb in Ireland with nobody else around because it started raining. I sat there and played a newly-purchased Irish low whistle with gratitude to the ancestors. I witnessed clouds roll around the small area and the storm parted as if in response to my acknowledgment. I won’t ever forget that.

It was worth arising long before sunrise to drive to an overlook in the Smoky Mountain National Park to witness pink and lavender skies. As I invest in connecting with Nature with my heart and whole self I find richness filling my life in ways a fat bank account never could. It’s really that simple for me.

The Sound…

By Simone Lipscomb | September 28, 2020

The sound of water flowing over rocks was the first thing I noticed as I opened the door. Before I put my foot on the wet pavement the wonderful sound ahhhhhhhhhhhhhgreeted me and began to unwind me from the inside out.

It had been nearly two weeks since I walked at this water-place, this sacred place. The things that kept me away from this flow seemed important. I had been working election setup in my county, working in my yard, going to Asheville to walk at Biltmore gardens, attending online yoga teacher training…all great things but I was starting to become tight and felt my body gripping and unhappy to be boxed in.

As I walked I wondered…is the water making the sound as it contacts the friction of the rock or is this the sound of rocks laughing as water tickles them as it rushes down, down, down.

Walking nearly every day at a place it’s easy to allow the sounds to blend into a background hum but when we are absent and return those things that stand out to new visitors greet us again and we are re-aquainted with their wonder.

In this area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park the sound of water is never far away. In fact, you have to really work hard to find a place where there isn’t some sound of water….rushing, roaring, dripping, tinkling, booming.

As the trail moved away from the creek…all the crescendos and percussion and the ahhhhhhhhsound of water faded a bit and then there was birdsong. Birds were awaking from slumber and sweetly welcoming the day with singing and insects of the night still vibrated and sang under the dense cloud cover and mist. All these sounds touched some part of my being and created an invitation to relax.

When I lived in coastal Alabama I had a front porch that was my yoga practice space. At night I would go outside and sit in the darkness and listen. Chirps, drones, peeps of tree frogs, pond frogs and toads vibrated the space along with crickets, cicadas, grasshoppers and katydids. The chorus would immediately put me in an altered state of calm and stillness. During my nightly sessions I heard an inner voice remind me that these sounds help balance humans and when we cut ourselves off from the sounds of nature we become out of whack–off center, off balance.

Finally, after the vibrations and sounds helped unwind that inner spring, I noticed I was smiling. It wasn’t a smile simply on my face but my heart was smiling and every cell of my body was smiling. To be in this rich symphony of nature sounds is healing.

The sound of water rushing over rocks….purveyor of bliss.

When Miracles Happen…Preview

By Simone Lipscomb | December 1, 2019

Never in my wildest dreams would I have dreamed that this view, from my favorite sunrise overlook in the Smoky Mountain National Park, would be where I am now living. I remember being in awe of the pink and lavender sunrise and writing about it.

Now, many years later, I sit at my computer looking out a window across to the point where this image was taken. To the far left from where I sit is Clingman’s Dome but to the near left is the overlook where my favorite image of the Smoky Mountains was taken.

It’s been just over a week since the move and every day I am discovering more delightful and deep synchronicities that led me here. During the past two months there have been miracles that make my jaw drop but for now I’ll just say I’m here. Where I belong. It took a while with a lot of ups and downs but I’m here. And grateful to the depths of my being.

Right now the fog that was at higher elevations when I started writing this has settled into the valley. Like the fog, I’ll settle and write more later in the week but I want to allow the words to come and right now I’m still rather speechless. And grateful. Profoundly grateful.

Fog and Cold Water

By Simone Lipscomb | September 11, 2014

The final day of my re-wilding retreat began on Clingman’s Dome at an elevation of 6, 643 feet. The only day I chose to wear shorts and the air was literally a cloud of 50 degrees with high wind whipping it into frenzied, cotton-candy fragments. Thankfully I had fleece and a warm jacket and boots with wool socks that replaced my flip flops.

I wandered around the lower part of the trail and decided against a hike to the top. Dodging piles of bear scat deterred me, especially since it was densely foggy and I didn’t want to surprise a bear during his or her morning constitutional outing. If there had been other hikers I would have gone but there was simply too much bear energy afoot for me to venture up the steep trail with heavy camera and recording gear by myself.

But I didn’t feel cheated. I captured some sweet bird song with my new recording gear and even got some decent wind recordings. The images I took were also fun; however, it was simply the experience of being in the high elevation in a fogged-in situation that made it so lovely. Smelling the coniferous rainforest smells–the fir trees–always takes me to a higher level of experience. That smell is big Medicine for me.

I stood in the thick clouds, surrounded by white mist. My hair became drenched by the moisture and droplets could be heard falling from fir branches like rain. Blissful, sweet dawn…healing dawn.

After a while I made my way down from Newfound Gap and finally found myself under the clouds. The sun was bright and the air much warmer. I stopped at a favorite spot to send prayers of gratitude to Spirit and to the powerful presence of nature energies found in the protection of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

While wading in the clear, cold, rushing water I paused and placed my hands in the water. I felt the completion of a cleansing that began when I arrived a few days ago. With it came a renewed sense of joy. It’s amazing what these sacred mountains offer, the least of which is fog and cold water.