12. The Old Trail (3:39) Words and Music by Steve Gillette & Charles John Quarto

One more co-written with Charles John Quarto, this one was also recorded by Don Williams in a charming duet with Kathy Mattea. The premise of the song is a walk in the woods and a celebration of the treasures of the natural world worth preserving.

I believe that nature is the best model for a personal philosophy. Spending time in the wild is restorative. A walk in the woods is clearly a good thing. In many cultures, separation from nature is seen as insanity, or worse. Not that all aspects of nature are supportive of every human concern. But in spite of its dangerous denizens, from the aardwolf to the zebra shark, it is the true medium in which we live. It is our nature. By that I don't mean that we own it, I mean that it is what we are.

To deny that we are all natural beings and that our behavior (which is much more devastating to each other and to the earth itself than anything found in the animal kingdom) is somehow of some other realm is not only false, but ironic, since we are the only ones who claim to be able to distinguish between good and evil.

As a Boy Scout I hiked the Silver Moccasin Trail and the Golden Arrowhead Trail and climbed Old Greyback (Mt. San Gorgonio, 11,503 feet) on paths used by the Chumash, Cupeño and Cahuilla long ago. Since then we have hiked in every state, in the Canadian Rockies, the Maritimes, the Cliffs of Moher, the Pyrenees, the Dolomites and the Alps. (The photo on the cover of the CD was taken at a warming hut in the foothills of the Matterhorn) I slept through a chance to climb Mt. Fuji with a group of musicians where Paul Winter played for the sunrise, a chance that won't come again.

From the Tor at Glastonbury, you can see for miles across the English countryside in all directions. There is a metal plate there with the names of a dozen or more Ley lines that intersect on that spot. It's believed by some that these represent ancient paths, trade routes, even guides for the positioning of sacred sites from neolithic and bronze-age cultures.

(BMI)

Read more on my About the Song website here