I've heard heard that some sizable percentage of people (maybe 10%) of people who hike the AT do so for religious or spiritual reasons. This includes all kinds: Christian Missionaries, recovering alcoholics in search of a higher power, Buddhists, Hare Krishnas, Born Agains, Muslims, and various other pilgrims of all kinds. I find this fascinating, and inspiring.
What's your story? Are you hiking to become closer to God, or to nature? (Do you see a distinction there?) Are you hiking to 'find' yourself, or to overcome that kind of thinking? Or do you "hike just to hike," which is in itself a philosophical stance (a la Zen variety).
A little bit about me: I spent some time as Buddhist monk in Burma (for a brief time), and spent another 6 months in Bodh Gaya, India, learning walking meditation. The "long green tunnel" is, for me, an opporunity to more closely observe myself and my surroundings, to live in the everchanging present. In doing so, i hope to watch those constructed identities (self, other, nature) break down, if only in some small way. If there's a modicum of clarity and peace and balance out there in the woods, I want to find it. (Plus I have always loved the Appalachians, ever since I was nine or ten years old...)
How about you?
Note-Poll was developed by member Tom Alan and later added w/permission of OP-Alligator