- Editor’s Note #134 // The Bardo - 09/16/2024
- Editor’s Note #133 // The Great Outdoors - 06/28/2024
- Editor’s Note #132 // The Hurt Cycle - 02/15/2024
Mark Wellman and the Bardo: Killing time with adventure
For those steeped in Yosemite adventure history, Mark Wellman is a well-known hero. In 1989 he became the first paraplegic to climb El Capitan. With his partner the late Mike Corbett to lead the pitches, Wellman did thousands of pull-ups during a sustained effort that took over a week to ascend a route known as The Shield.
Wellman became a paraplegic a few years earlier, the result of a fall he took while mountaineering. In a bold rescue, Navy pilot Philip Amrhein and a crew of medics pulled Wellman’s broken body from a precarious ledge, deep in the High Sierra.
When he woke up in the hospital a few days later, the harsh reality of his fate came crashing down: Wellman would be wheelchair bound for the rest of his life.
In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the bardo is an intermediate state between death and rebirth, where the soul undergoes a period of transition and experiences various visions and states of consciousness.
Just as the bardo is a liminal space where the soul faces challenges and opportunities for transformation, Mark Wellman faced his own bardo while lying in a rehab facility. Would he rise to the occasion and accept his fate as a paraplegic, or would he sink into the depths of despair?
As we were putting together this issue, I spoke with Mark on the phone. The call lasted over an hour but it seemed like five minutes. Mark is possibly the most inspiring person I have ever talked to.
Mark’s bardo was in the rehab facility as he stared into the abyss of hopelessness. His body was permanently broken. Now what? To overcome the tendrils of depression pulling him into the abyss, Wellman devoted his life to defeating the limitations of his wheelchair.
He climbed El Capitan and Half Dome, competed in the 1996 Paralympic Games on a sit-ski, and travels the world as an ambassador for adaptive athletes everywhere.
What Mark and I discussed that day was that everyone faces the bardo. Every life has a challenge or multiple challenges that will push us to the brink of despair. Whether it’s an eating disorder, or the death of a loved one, or crushing loneliness, nobody escapes the bardo.
That’s where adventure comes in. In the same way Mark Wellman HAD to climb El Capitan to escape his inner demons, we all must rise to the adventure in our lives. Whether it’s getting up at dawn to pull on a wetsuit, racking up at the base of Half Dome, exorcising your demons on a mountain bike, facing your fears on a double black diamond ski-run, or hiking the John Muir Trail, outdoor adventure is how we transcend the bardo.
Welcome to issue #134, finding a more powerful version of ourselves in the great outdoors. We choose to challenge ourselves because slipping into despair is not an option. By facing our fears we help others find courage as well.
Every issue of ASJ is handcrafted with love, and I hope you find inspiration in these pages. Nature is a place to find everything you need, and that’s why we treasure a noble lifestyle built around outdoor adventure.
I won’t lie: life is a series of bardos and every day brings a new challenge. But we know where this path is headed. A beautiful fate awaits those who rise to the challenge.
In the influential book Siddhartha, written in 1922 by the German seminarian Hermann Hesse, one of the main characters describes seeing the true essence of nature for the very first time. The lesson, after a lifetime of struggle, is that what we seek is the death of time itself:
“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere, and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future?”
Dear friend, if you are reading these words, rejoice. You picked up a random magazine and rediscovered your own divine purpose: to overcome the bardo, and to transcend time itself while you experience nature with the mind of an astonished child.
Thanks and be safe.We hope you enjoy this issue and embrace the outdoors!
— Matt Niswonger
matt@adventuresportsjournal.com
Read past Editor’s Notes Here.
