All passages, unless noted, by Don Boucher:
Varied Thrush
I'm projected into February mornings
Ethereal whistles, different pitches, tinny vibratos
And all other manner of vocal cornucopia
Drawn into one wavering tone.
The Varied Thrush (Ixoreus naevius).
Its song never starts or really ends
It's like a wave travelling in a wire or thin tube
The note comes unnoticed and fattens as the volume increases
And then, carefully, begins to contract again
Sometimes increasing, maybe decreasing
In tone, so gently, don't know
How could it have ever returned to silence
In Early November
Drops fall regularly on the forest floor
even when it doesn’t rain
November is dark, clammy, rotting, drippy
November is also life’s second wind
Subterranean fungi blossom into
tiny mushrooms which poke
up through the bed of oak leaves
Witch’s Hair now thrives in the fog
on leafless oak and ash branches
Investigations in heavy fog
follow the "caws" of unseen crows
An even gray tone suggests a field
Psychiatrists should prescribe chickadee watching
for patients who suffer from depression
A gray squirrel’s chirps and expressive fluffy tail
The Junco’s chipping is the
sound of coins striking together
The fog hemisphere
follows me wherever I go
Forest and Rain
We spent a day recently on the coast hiking in the rain. The drive North up highway 99 west was pleasant. A flooded field yielded hundreds of tundra swans resting after their migration. In another field there were many Canada Geese as well. In the same field we saw a bird the same size and shape as a blue heron without a crest and darker over all there was no shoulder to pull over and look to see what it was and holding binoculars still enough in a moving car is impossible. I was delighted to see, perching on almost every span of telephone wire along these fields, an American Kestrel with its bright rusty colors and typical, striking falcon markings on the sides of its head. I had also seen one hovering. I barely recognized the red tailed hawk perching on a fence post. The hawk’s feathers were all rustled in the wind and it was the same color as the post. Western Oregon is a popular migration destination among mostly waterfowl.
Our destination was Cascade Head. It is located near the mouth of a small river, called Salmon River, flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the coast range. Cascade Head thrusts 1,500 feet out from rocky, cliffy beaches into steep grassy meadows and then changes abruptly into rainforests of Engleman Spruce, Western Hemlock, Red Alders and many epiphytic plants and lichen. Part of the area is owned by the Nature Conservancy. We saw a winter wren in the thickets of current bushes chirping its warning call at us. I thought I saw a Varied Thrush. We both saw a large bird soar below us from the river to the beach. Through the binoculars I identified it as a Bald Eagle. That was the first time I saw an eagle soar viewing from above. I’m sure the eagle didn’t need binoculars to identify us. I watched a distant heron fishing in the river below.
Oregon Coast rain is serious stuff. Other climates are known, often cherished, for there extremes. People complain about Oregon rain as if Oregon is stuck in some kind rut. I think the rain is fabulous. Old growth forests with mammoth Douglas Firs are the product of pounding torrential rain. It rained about an inch while we were there that day. These steep forests can get 100 inches or more of precipitation a year about 80% of it rain and the rest from fog.
Fire and People
On one October morning, before dawn, I was out for a walk and had a flash of insight, which had me thinking for months about an aspect of civilization. On that day I wrote in my journal:
I was overlooking the city westward. Behind me was Chip Ross hill. What a contrast, the hills quiet until the birds awake, darkness is the tone. The city hums with its traffic and glows with artificial lights. This moment was the first time I became conscious of a spirit aura of the city. There’s a sense of something other than human activity and structures. There is something beyond civilization’s impact on the Earth and its inhabitants. It seems extraterrestrial, an invasion. It is a foreign spirit not exactly evil but menacing and dangerous. Humans are not "It", they are caught up in it unaware. Something is going on here, albeit sudden, possibly brief.
I remember camping in the Appalachian hills as a boy and overlooking the cities in the valleys stretching out as far as the horizons. I was and still am mesmerized by the twinkling lights and distant roar of collective sounds. I remember one of my camping buddies, Rich Hlavaty, telling my while sitting, mesmerized, watching the campfire " Fire is really something ya know. What is it about it? It glows, waves and crackles. Its a pretty simple thing but I can watch it all night."
I realize now that the same feeling occurs both while watching the city from a distance and watching a campfire. That "thing" about a campfire is its spirit. That same fire spirit is present in the glowing and roaring city. That spirit I wrote about in my journal wasn’t really extraterrestrial but it was something other than human, separate from human. The lights, the cars, the smoke stacks are all fire. Fire is controlled, diverted, changed and propagated by humans but it is not owned by them. I’ve heard stories of the first peoples to have fire and they are warned in their folklore that fire is a gift to use with respect and care. Civilization is not doing this. Our constant craving for fire in all its forms is causing us to consume all life and resources in our path.
Look at the city from a distance at night sometime. Concentrate and you will feel the presence of fire. You will also sense that it is out of control.
Mary's Peak
I spent the day hiking on Mary’s Peak. This trip was of particular interest because I had spent a few days there alone almost exactly six months ago.
In July it was the hottest it had gotten there all year. It was cloudless but terribly hazy from pollutants. Today it was quite cold and the air was crisp and clear, which brought us up there. For the first time in all my visits I could see the Pacific Ocean. With binoculars we could barely make out the surf on the beach. Looking eastward across the Willamette Valley, the majority of the Cascade volcanoes could be seen. Starting North, Northeast, Mount Rainier to the right of that the shattered peak of Mt. St. Helens. Panning southward the view lead us to Mt. Adams, then Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson, Three Fingered Jack, the pointy tip of Mt. Washington, The Three Sisters including Broken Top, Mt. Bachelor and finally Diamond Peak. All peaks contrasted the blue sky and forests beneath them with pure white winter snow and ice.
Soon, exposure to the sub-zero wind-chill forced us to leave the impressive vista for a hike in the sheltered forest. For me, Mary’s Peak lives up to the Kalapuyan name of "Tcha-ti-man-wi" or place of spirits. It’s a botanical wonderland. In summer it bursts with diverse and often delicate greenery. The stand of old growth Noble Fir (Abies procera) is unique in that it is one of the most extensive in the world. The trees are spruce like in color and I’ve read that they are one of the most massive trees in its old growth state. The relatively open canopy has a cathedral like understorey which is unchanged in winter.
The animal life observed on this wintry day was limited to a few croaking ravens which hadn’t changed their behavior in any superficial was since July. I did long to hear the flute songs of the Varied Thrush which I heard in the summer amongst the groves of Western Hemlock.
On the trail there was a fir tree fallen somewhat recently and then cut away to make way for the trail. The water saturated log had icicles hanging from its cambium which were a translucent honey color from the pitch of the tree. I tried carrying one back with me but it kept sticking to my glove. We collected tiny Western Hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) cones and lichens which had fallen form the trees due to winter winds.
As the Sun angles low. I glanced back at the rays and remembered an experience I had in the summer when I stared into the sky and saw what looked like particles of sunbeams streaming out like spokes from the Sun. To my delight the streams of particles are still there.
Been There, Done That
I would like to retaliate upon the popular obnoxious phrase, "Been there, done that." It implies the world is dull place not worth a second look. My revenge will be in changing the meaning of it to all who read or hear this.
I traveled back to my childhood home in the Pennsylvania Appalachians in autumn. I lived there from age five to eighteen, so I could easily say: been there, done that.
Been there in these woods before and I see new perspectives from being older and more experienced. Done that birch bark scratch and sniff thing and I’ll tell you I’ll do a thousand more times if possible. Been there on that cliff overhang overlooking my childhood rural neighborhood and it’s like no other cliff I’ve stood on in the continent. Done that feet swishing through the leaves thing and the noise is as exiting as memory can recall. Been there at that stone wall next to the quarry up in the hill, but now lies the ashes of my grandmother. Done that fall forest photo shoot thing and the pictures look better every time.
Been there, done that. How exiting!
"The real voyage consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
-Marcel Proust
Autumn Leaves
When I got off the bus I decided I would gather some leaves. Last year I took some into work and made color copies by placing the leaves directly on the copy glass. This year I resolved myself to the same thing. Perhaps I can make this an annual ritual to celebrate the autumn colors.
I always felt that autumn leaves are a divine occurrence. It’s no coincidence that autumn leaves are brilliant and that people enjoy them. No matter what your perspective is, it still has to be an intentional relationship. Leaves could have been created to turn bright colors to cheer people up at the end of summer. People may have been created with the propensity to enjoy the colors of autumn. I’m leaning towards the latter but perhaps it is a little of both scenarios. I’ll sum it up like this:
Autumn leaves are beautiful and breathtaking and it’s a grand thing, not just something that happens to be so.
In the spirit of this divine frivolity I send myself off on a crazy autumn leaf scavenger hunt downtown before work and the rush hour starts.
I was scanning the ground in Central Park looking for bright colors like a hound sniffs for the trail of a rabbit or quail. I leaped to grasp rusty red oak leaves from boughs just out of reach. A Japanese Maple supplied me with miniature stars of ruby, brown and hints of green. The excitement accelerated as I gathered. I was aware of some strange looks I got as I foraged on the sidewalk across the street from Sun River Coffee Company.
I could have spent all day doing this but there are only so many copies that can be made and I had to get to work. When I arrived at work and started making copies, I soon learned that I had the urge to make copies indefinitely.
Reality, the whole picutre
I’ve made it a point to be all there when I write, in mind and especially spirit. And the same goes true for art and many other endeavors in life. I focus on spirit because so much of daily life is involved in suppressing the spirit. Spirit at work (depending on the nature of your work) can make you seem flaky or undisciplined to many folks, although I believe the opposite is true. I’ve learned to accept the misjudgments of others that I’m not playing with a full deck or in the best case scenario, that I’m dreamy.
I’ll claim dreamy with pride. To me dreamy means something quite different than what would be commonly regarded someone not in touch with reality. This is because 'reason' is often seen as synonymous with reality when in fact it is only half of reality. The other half is the heart, the part of you which dreams. Dreams are as real as food and bank accounts, if you don’t spend time addressing your needs for them, you could wind up in a lot of trouble.
I use my heart, I live by it, or I at least I take serious consideration consulting it. It is important to be prudent, practical and pragmatic. Without these qualities, dreams come to a dead end. These qualities however are tools. Like tools they should be portable, handy, and put away in a neat box when not in use.
Some people cannot let go of their tools, they’re afraid to use their heart for life’s tasks. They believe pragmatism is always the right thing. Always! I know a man, and I’m sure you know someone also, who believes nothing is worth doing unless it can be done with a computer. Everything in life can follow course something like this:
-Problem identification
(Enter the Computer)
- Data entry
- Analyze
- Screen display requirements
- Select software
- Printer specifications
- Computer Display
- Web Page
- Fax
- Printout
- Problem solved! Next.
Nothing good to the heart happened in this exercise. I should say nothing worth while happened at all!
2/8/98
Human Intelect
Prompt:
I shall take your mind on a journey. It is a journey of comprehension, taking us to the edge of space, time, and understanding. On it I shall argue that there is nothing that cannot be understood, that there is nothing that cannot be explained and everything is extraordinarily simple...A great deal of the universe does not need any explanation. Elephants for instance. Once molecules have learnt to compete and to create other molecules in their own image, elephants, and things resembling elephants, will in due course be found roaming through the countryside.
Peter Atkins, from his book "The Creation" - beginning paragraph
I haven’t read Mr. Atkins’ book. I found this paragraph in another book I read by Richard Dawkins. Before I go on, I must declare that I may be taking this paragraph out of context. If this is the case, then my apologies to the author. I intend to use this paragraph as a representative of ideas which fascinate me.
I find parts of Mr. Atkins’ thoughts presumptuous and other parts which capture my imagination and that I whole heartedly believe in.
He writes, "there is nothing that cannot be understood, that there is nothing that cannot be explained and everything is extraordinarily simple". This kind of faith in the human intellect is quite common among scientists. I believe it’s been part of western thought since the teachings of Aristotle and his belief that any mystery can be solved through reason. I argue that the human intellect is but a narrow window on the universe with a finite set of tools (i.e. science) both in the past and yet to be discovered. I am however convinced that people can approach understandings never even conceived before. I believe we should not set limits on our own minds. Although this seems contradictory, all I’m really trying to say is that we must strive with our intellect but also be more humble and not believe the human intellect is the only way. When revolutionary discoveries are made which change the we look at the universe it usually provides an answer to a question but leaves society with the emptiness of how they feel about it. There is so much is left undone that many perfectly reasonable and provable discoveries are either slow to be accepted (such as the world is round or the Earth is not the center of the universe) or not fully accepted at all (evolution and natural selection, which are either not believed at all or badly misunderstood). It is almost as we’re going half way, answering partial questions. I don’t expect scientist to also act as spiritual and emotional leaders, although a few may be. Science is a focused endeavor and it might be that scientist need not be concerned too many things when conducting some aspects of their work. I do expect scientists not to elate themselves with idea that their process should be an end unto itself. The name for that is reductionism. My point here is to say that for all of the energizing concepts and perspectives science offers, I don’t see enough humility as value on intelligence.
The second aspect of Mr. Aktins’ thoughts is the incredible process of life and how it changes itself. An elephant is an amazing thing, with its size, physical complexity and, as humans can identify with, its intelligence and behavior. When you understand the process of natural selection and study its examples, you find that wonderful things like an elephant, or a coral reef, are inevitable. Given the amount of time available, and we’re talking long time, change and accumulated complexity lead to a positive feedback situation. The key word here is "accumulated" when it comes to complexity. The chance of an elephant coming about from inorganic matter is more than astronomical. An elephant however has had 3.5 billion years of other complex things as its ancestors whom did most of the work. Each generation a step more complex and/or different than the last and all the time never losing a seemingly clever adaptation accumulated along the way. All an elephant had to do in becoming an elephant was to become an elephant was to take the simple step (or series of relatively small steps) of growing a trunk.
This process is capable of quite a bit considering the conditions (i.e. gobs of time and accumulated complexity). The mystery is how this all got started. I’ve heard hypothesis which in some cases seem to be on to something, but none of them offer any satisfying conclusions. Religions have offered answers but don’t hold up to a good bout of inquisitiveness. This is probably the next mystery for someone to solve in such a way that many, perhaps most (for I doubt that all) people will accept. While scientists are busy working on this in the intellectual manner, I’d like to get started on how I feel about it without drawing any conclusions, so that we have a balanced process:
Mammoths and Trilobites
Beyond access of contemplation
Maybe my yardstick needs an extension
Forget that, it needs multiplication and exponents
I use these tools to see mammoths and trilobites
I will never walk up to a live mammoth
In a mammoth’s world
People who walked and talked and loved
Like I have, have been with mammoths, knew them
I will not know them
My ancestral people and mammoths
Knew nothing of the likes of a trilobite
Yet trilobites were around
Many, many times longer,
And more diverse than people or mammoths
I will not know them
A trilobite did not know how it got there
I hold a stone trilobite in my palm
Each plate, cell, and each pore
Replaced with stone
I know as much as a trilobite
It never knew me
I cannot know it
Neither of use know how
Stones and fire become life
Anticipating Migration
It is that gray light when color vision is useless. Mostly shapes and shades, no details. The first bird up is a song sparrow amongst the oaks over the creek. Then a Bewick’s Wren debuts. Wrens can output more decibels per ounce than any other vertebrate. I figure if a small dog were proportionally as loud, its would as loud as a fire truck. The light increases and English daisies open making their magenta, underside tips less visible. A whitish two inch snail with a dark brown shell crosses the sidewalk.
The summertime outfield of green grass is now gurgling marsh where sedges and rushes ought to be growing. My heels make loud sucking noises as I raise them up for each, next step. The light is still quite dim and what seems to be a porcupine quill ends up as a grass straw with a rotten, pointed end. "Fee beee beee bee" says a chickadee. A hand full of bird species, and a frog or two, can fill the air with morning.
Water trickling all around me. The stream runs across a silted, grassy area avoiding its small gorge which it has flowed through over the years. The answer lies just ahead where tire tracks in the mud have redirected the flow. Last year’s herb still standing like a pagoda with leaflets like tiny roofs stacked. A Chinese pheasant clucks its raspy "craughk".
Rotten, hardened rose hips and black berries drip. Spring is just around the corner.
Spring Sky
I rode home in, just cool enough to have to wear gloves but not a jacket, weather.
The sky was bright with powder blues
Sunshine
Metallic, gray, cloud, saturated sponges
Heavy columns with crowns
Whisping into the sky
To put a crick in your neck
A Turkey Vulture soars
With its confident wings
In front of the column
Not so concerned as I am
With beating the storm home
A vulture thrives on these thermals
The same energy that gives life
To a storm larger than the sky
The wind will carry
The vulture and the storm
My legs will carry me as
Fast as they can ‘cause I
Don’t have my rain jacket on
Silk Thread
Some bug hit me in the eye as I was riding my bike. I tried brushing it away but then realized it was a spider and its silk thread, which was used to keep it airborne, was tangled in my eyelashes. I got a hold of its thread and it dangled from my hand. All the while I was still cruising along. Instead of stopping to let the spider free, I hooked the thread on a branch from a passing bush. I guess when you take to the wind with a long silken sail you never know where you’ll might end up. I imagine a web will be built in the vicinity soon.
Earth Day
Greetings and warm regards for Earth Day....one day late. Just want to take a moment to reflect on the importance of Earth Day. Its an ultimate celebration of home, especially the collective home..Earth.
Consider that Earth is a tiny place and quite hospitable no matter where you go on it (with a few exceptions). Consider the alternatives, empty space or some boiling or unimaginably frozen planet (Consider that Earth was once on of those inhospitable places and may very well be some day). Consider ourselves lucky. Imagine what it means to cherish this home and keep it as our home: safe, happy, familiar and sustaining.
There are many troubles on this home, many home improvements to be made, and some of the damage these troubles have caused is irreversible. Consider that we are not the only tenants in this home and that we humans have not always been here and will not always be. This home has had some incredible catastrophes in the past but life pressed on and we are part of that legacy. Let us pass along that legacy to the future inhabitants of all kinds.
Happy Belated Earth Day
Weeds to Wildflowers
Can't say I can mark a date when wild creatures turned from beasts to companions. I do know that it was a passage of perspective and not a change in their behavior to me. A similar transition happened when weeds became wild flowers and herbs. I regret that I did not notice when this happened because it certainly would have been worthy of celebration. Like getting a driver's license or graduating college it was a rite of passage.
It is obvious to me weather someone has made this rite or not. Although it may not be immediately obvious, the truth reveals itself in a person's perspective on things. That perspective which has not made the transition is selectively hateful of certain things. The hater of dandelions is an example of the "weed" mentality. Weeds are clearly understood to this mindset as put on this Earth to cause mischief, reap damage; the product of the devil himself. This attitude extends to mice, rats, roaches & starlings. If I can somehow share this world with these beings, you can see their situation and not the beings themselves as vermin. Dandelions grow like crazy because we try like hell to stop them from doing so. If we didn't care where dandelions grew they'd be scarce and bluebirds would be crowding out starling nests. I'm not saying that Nature is so spiteful but she surely will sending lessons to us when we act disrespectful to her. Those lessons are in the form of dandelions and clovers in our unnatural Kentucky Bluegrass Hybrid lawns and the hordes of starlings and pigeons occupying suburbs and cities which were once undisturbed wild lands. The first step in learning this lesson is that we shouldn’t hate these "vermin" for they are just like us and a result of our propagation and increasing human population. See them as individuals as beautiful as a butterfly and amazing as a whale. They are, because they are the same life force on the same path of balance we must strive for together.
Summer Night
I try to imagine cedar green
And the hues of a poplar
But in reality it is all black
The shapes are crisper
And more visible than ever
Swaying lines and patterns
Show me the wind that chases
Away the heat which has been
Charging up in the ground all day
Hissing moisture from leaves and soil
A bat excites the eager sky
Gradient of cool blue to gray
Last bits of hasty magenta
Which are tethered to the Sun
Meet it below the horizon
Tracking History
Consider the track of an animal, maybe a raccoon. Follow its hand-like prints through the mud in a creek side. The claw marks go up the stream bank, across the road, which the stream flows under, down the other side into the creek again. Your first instinct is probably to follow where it is going. In so doing you imagine catching up to her going about her raccoon business.
On the other hand, imagine following the tracks backwards. Back to where the raccoon’s been. A rich story unfolds. In reality, if you keep following, the tracks will become unreadable due to age and wear. From this point, I’ll ask you to imagine that you can keep going and you have all the time in the world, without any track degradation. All throughout the countryside the tracks go, through the years of travel.
Eventually the tracks get smaller. They may be amongst other prints the same size. They are the tracks of her siblings and the larger ones are from her mother. Then the tracks disappear into her mother’s as you approach the time in which she was born. Follow her mother’s tracks as they go on and on in a similar way.
The tracks never end, you follow them back in time. Generations pass, the landscape changes and the tracks change too. The tracks don’t resemble raccoon tracks as much and they keep changing until they bare little resemblance at all. They meet and merge with other tracks of all sizes. Some time the meet with the tracks of bear ancestors, wolf ancestors, cat ancestors and primates. The meet the signatures of flying animals as well as swimmers and sliders. Keep going as far as your mind will allow.
Now, stop, ...turn around, ...track forward, on and on through many generations. This time let the tracks lead unto your own.
Where are your tracks going?
Late Summer Noon
A maple tree
Bright sunshine cutting out
Pointy edges of leaves
Leaving crisp shadows in the grass.
Follow the sunshine
Back to its source, millions, miles
This energy, pushed away from
An unimaginable surface
So hot it warms the back of my neck
Here on Earth
It strikes the globe of air
We dwell under
Scattering in all directions
Creating the blue, glowing sphere
The dome of our existence
It feels as if the light emanates
From this sky, a sky that seems
To contain all things heavenly
It is only a skin of blue
A filter, the last step before
The light soaks a leaf or enters an eye
Autumn Shadows
Specks of rain bless a cheek, an eyelid, or a forearm. Gentle moisture hangs in the air and soothes the lungs with each deep breath. The air and the darkness coat the grass, the leaves and the skin. A hoof, which falls on a crisp leaf, announces the silhouette of thin legs and an ear twitch. The doe in the shadow, almost unbelievable to the eye but her presence is marked to anyone who chooses to be quiet and patient. I follow her nuances as she nibbles on this and that. The meadow throbs slowly from the collective sound of early autumn crickets.
There is a man I admire, he is a roll model. The person of choosing is a man because so am I. He is also hypothetical but but based on something very real. But his community is my model too. His wife, his children and all his relatives and many friends. He respects his neighbors and honors their homes and lives. Some neighbors are hostile to he and his community but somehow, he respects his enemies too.He does what he can to avoid conflict with them or perhaps avoid them altogether.
His life is not simple. He has troubles of many men. Sometimes making a living is difficult and precarious. He and his wife have diffuclty communicating at times which frustrates them both. He has all the anxiety of a parent of an adulscent child. And there is the slow and demanding process of politics in his community and this tries his patience because he cares for what’s best for the community now and in the future.
He honors his ancestors. He is a teacher of the stories his father and mother told him of his liniage. He knows where he comes from and has a vision of where his own liniage will go. He is a man of faith and prayer. He cherishes his home land for all its character and bounty.
He has a good sense of humor. He loves to tell stories and jokes. He likes to make things.
Pine Tree
Scaly bark and sticky pitch. In disgust, I feel my fingers sticking together, dirt caked on. I frown because the pine tree ruined my clean hands. After I’ve forgotten my hand for a while and reach to scratch my nose. Sniff....hmmmmm! My attitude toward pine-pitchy fingers changes when fresh , volatile pine odor saturates my brain. I’ll keep the sticky fingers for a while. Once in a while I’ll reach up for another whiff and I will be reminded how gooey pine sap can be so clean and refreshing.
I see an old ponderosa pine, growing next to a boulder. The bottom part of the trunk is curved and the bark has a split about five feet long. Just what I’m looking for, years of pitch seepage hardening into knobs. I break off two knobs and they fill my palm. Of course, gotta smell them - ahh! I place them in my sac along with dry, rusty-colored pine needles and a few cones. These will help me start my campfire tonight.
"This pine tree by the rock
must have its memories too:
after a thousand years,
see how its branches
lean towards the ground."
-Komachi
Which came first, the boulder or the tree. The boulder has been there a long time. The boulder has flaked off and around its edges and down slope is a collection of its own debris. This rock has memories too. I suspect that it remembers that one winter, after the snow melted, that pine sapling was still strong. It had germinated the previous spring. The tree remembers the rock for its shelter and guidance in which its roots followed to find water and minerals. Although they won’t come right out and say it, this rock and pine tree favor each other. They found a warm partnership which they want to keep for each other for a long time. Now the tree helps shade the rock and protect it from rain and wind, slowing its erosion.
In Wilderness, IS the World
As a child, I discovered I loved being in the forest and swamps and fields and thickets and even at night. My friends and I were soon camping and spending time outdoors and truly appreciating it unlike many other kids. As an adolescent and than a college student, I discovered I loved wilderness and I would backpack as much as I could. Then later began intellectual and artistic pursuits which matched these endeavors.
I got the feeling that I had some calling for wildness and that I stood out because I would happily turn down normal human amenities and be exposed to the outdoors and confronting wild creatures. I even got the idea that I had some connection to the past as if some part of me was still a caveman or hunter-gatherer. Maybe, just as others have looked at it, this was some guy thing, an affection for the robust life style.
I was wrong. I am a caveman. I am one who should use stone tools and live by a circle of fire stones. I am also wrong in thinking I stand out, we all are this way. This isn’t a guy thing, it’s human thing and more human than any other way of being. I don’t have an attraction to the outdoors, I have an attraction to THE WORLD. The world my species has lived in for very long time.
We humans have been this way for many tens of thousands of years with no change in our intellect or abilities. Global circumstances have lead to the rise of civilization and a rise in human population. It is an anomaly, when an ice age ends the situation changes and so did ours. We will return to wildness, maybe not nomadic hunter-gatherers, but wildness will return to our hearts, as it has in mine, or we will die.
Wind Spirit
I went cross-country skiing. I was at Santiam Pass in the Oregon Cascades. It was quite a pleasure to get into the motion and rhythm. I focussed on my posture, applied more kick wax to suit the conditions. The sound of sliding skis, ski poles planting in the snow, my breath and my heart pounding. Chickadees pierced my concentration and I stopped to spot them but they were hiding from the wind in the tall crowns of Lodgepole Pines. I pressed on, determined to get my $6 worth out of my trail pass. Few people were out there, probably only a half dozen throughout the course of the whole day. I had to break my own trail when I wanted to go in a new direction.
The wind gusted buy occasionally and tempted me to zip up my collar. I climbed a small hill and at the top I stopped to catch my breath, and to enjoy the peace. I slowly glided down the other side and the wind caught my attention. Each gust wandered in the stiff, conical pines and firs. Instead of being a single entity, "The Wind", each "Wind" had its own character and had their own path and sound. I followed each one, one after another, as if I was watching a procession.
Someone had written in the snow, "MOCHA". Perhaps they were anticipating their return to the lodge and this hot drink they coveted. I decided to write my own message in the snow, "This land, wind spirits". I wrote this not in English but Chinook Jargon, knowing that the next passer-by would not likely understand it. I was hoping that they would stop and ponder this. Maybe by interrupting their routine, they, on their own, would notice the wind on the same level as I did.
Sometimes the most powerful messages come when no message is expected at all. I have climbed peaks and prayed in the night sky to seek messages. As powerful these experiences are, I have been spoken to the most loudly when I was just "Ho-dee-dumming" along, consciously unaware. Messages, however, will not come at all if you are not tuned. They will not come if you don’t pray for them at other times, for in prayer, you tune.