Lake LaCrosse Trek {Sip 3: Serenity}
October 10, 2016
In late morning the light is full and generous. Reading by the water, the grass is like a cushion and the
pages turn to peach with the sunshine glow of my bare skin. Erica is there
beside me in her own silent fulfillment, watching the
click-click-click of grasshoppers jumping their jagged arcs of fear
and joy. But—the short crorking chortle of a pair of passing crows
cuts right through the quiet! I strip and plunge into the crystal
waters, nerves aflame, now running through the meadow naked and
exulting as the sky drinks the water from my goosebumped skin. The
sun showers us in warm kisses until the only thing we can do is drift
asleep in her soft lap.
Fly buzzing
through silence
--lazy heat.
In dreams I think, the second biggest lie we're ever told is that
this bottomless thirst in our spirit could ever be filled by the
stuff of possession. I think, the biggest lie is when we're named.
Upslope across wandering streams that trickle along and suddenly
plunge into stonecutting canyon. Ground grades into wall as I scramble up what seem like ancient
trails, set down with the gentle grace of age, grasping slick sedges
and loose rock and the hope that things will turn out just fine.
Around me now are the far horizons of mountains; they're curved
downward like spines, Farallon Giants bowed in adoration to something
far greater and more terrible than even their own ageless power.
Reaching the ridge, I see it. Mount Anderson's silent mass—Great
Tombstone Mountain! It's clear now to whom those lesser peaks are
praying. Immense & stony-faced, glacial nesting majesty, jutting
at unbelievable angles out of the skinny dark valley below. Monuments
of ice hang from His peaks, spilling at mineral speed over rocky
cliffs, each instant grinding away at His hard flesh. Yet He sits in
monastic stillness, unflinching. Mortality does not scare him! No
churn of mantle, no gape of tectonic jaws can make his blind eyes
blink. He is mortality itself! Sunset licks her many kings, and the
dried-mud precipice stares into me like a mirror. I blink, exhale.
Back.
The whole twilight expanse of the tree-toothed eastern Olympics is
there before me, but I can only watch my fragile feet, whistling
nervously as I stumble downhill in the deepening dark. Somewhere on
the slope the sound of tumbling rocks gives away two elk. They're
also headed back—and in an instant the path to camp is clear and
safe. I've been following all along the old etchings of their broad
hooves, the paths of their ancestors, and of mine. I thank them
deeply for showing me the way one more time.
White twilit butterfly
wings flapping
together into darkness.
September 26, 2016
Camp broken under
starscape crevasses—firs' towering darkness. Racing the rising sun
up the final push of the pass, make it just a little too on time for
the red of first light against the far peaks. Flurry of photos,
flustered, and on to breakfast.
Almost asleep in the
gentle grasses at Home Sweet Home, sun warm and strong against our
skin. We lay there together while time drifts away on the breeze.
Sun's already high when we're back on the trail. Brain prickling
with ever-shortening days.
Long day with the
old growth spirits—through solemn
sacred forests of trees with
bark like scales of an old dragon who long ago sat down in
meditation and let his
clawed feet
grow into the earth. Impossible
not to imagine the kami living in these trees, their silent
tinkering with the luck of travelers. Call out—just in case—with
a humble prayer for their blessings as we pass through their woods.
All that's lost is regained in turn, and so we climb back up from
Duckabush Crossing to the alpine country, LaCrosse Basin and Mt. Steel.
Even with our
dawdling, we break timber just before the peak of the long autumn
sunset. Heron, Grouse, Bear, & Rising Moon come to give us their
good blessings, and we know this is the answer of the mountain
spirits. We set up camp again in the dark, now casting shadows in
silver, and rest our tired bones.
September 22, 2016
on the rocks
a feather's dreams
of fledgling's
plumes
Leaves & shadows
shiver in the restless wind, the rippling water scattering light
madly. Old Fir coils around his dead brother's woody bones. Yes, each
step brings us farther into the Forest; farther out of self, further
into Self. Everything and everyone is dressed their finest: the
river's thunderous skirts & ferny crowns; the waxy vines,
lustrous and luxuriant; the mossy maples draped in their cascading
regalia; the bushes jeweled with berry-gems, even the Devil's Club in
its thorny formality. Yes! The dress of right now is by far the
finest, and each second is a celebration!
At Nine Stream the
trail turns its eyes up and past the slide crossing sprints upward
to the pass. We try to match its energy and with typical frailty
barely keep ourselves moving forward. Near the end of our climb,
we're rewarded with a view of Mt. Skokomish's elegant curves. The elixir
of the mountain! The sight is all we need to finish out our day's work.
Make Two Bear late, with smiling exhaustion and ravenous
appetites—campsite flush with fresh huckleberry bliss. The early
moonlight darkly lights the slope across from our camp. For us, it's
not yet risen.
September 5, 2016
The two Matriarchs of Pettit Lake illuminated by the golden rays of cloud-piercing dawn. On such a morning in the Sawtooths, you'd best be careful or the mountains will cut right through your ego.
Turqoise waters, shallow
& unending, even in stillness you can't
step in the same lake twice.
September 1, 2016
Pears
for
Nikki, Katie, Julie, and Pat - Thank You
We left in morning,
sun at our backs,
roaring down the
coast,
howling & skin
exulting
in the sunshine and
sylvan air
swirling in through
open windows
riding high in the
saddle of
the Great Vehicle of
Creative Destruction
(Coyote, Kitsune,
Raven, three thousand blessings)
Each moment dying
and living
in the way only
bodies know,
over tide's fingers
and clearcut hills
over concrete
piers—the mouth of Old Columbia itself!
timber ships passing
down below
bellies full of fire
of ancient trees,
burning into poison
air,
humming with our
motor,
beautiful.
-
There,
on the river's
hills,
I left you with
another family.
Their generosity was
immediate,
overwhelming. They
gave me
this bag of Asian
pears
from their garden--
the taste! Crisp and
quenching
in the warm blanket
of august noon
Like new stories
among old friends,
like underground
rivers, like light
and water embracing
there, in the
leaves, at last,
in mutual pleasure
I stuff myself
the whole way home.
August 25, 2016
Today is the National Park Service's 100th birthday. What a codger! In all truth, it is pretty darn cool that we've had an institution dedicated (more or less) to conservation for so long. But equally as cool is the legacy that the Service has built up in its century of existence. The United States' National Park system has been hugely influential in international conservation, serving as a model for other nations in creating their own parks systems. So for my contribution to today's celebrations, I thought I might take it a little sideways and share some images from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, a National Park in Botswana and the second largest game reserve on the planet. I was fortunate enough to spend several days there in back in 2014 as part of a college research trip.
CKGR is a place where you can feel with your whole being the heart-filling expansiveness of the morning sky. It's almost dream-like, the abundance of space and life. There's an unbelievable remote feeling, like what you get when backpacking, but for hundreds of miles in all directions. Despite the presence of primitive roads, it's true wilderness. As a testament to the sheer size of the park, just take the fact that out there it was hard to find an elephant.
Just walking on the same ground as all of those incredible animals was exhilarating, seeing Lion and Leopard and Elephant tracks in the dust and knowing that they were out there somewhere living their lives in accordance with their nature. You get this real sense of how inhabited the world was before the spread of human civilization: every inch, even in the arid semi-desert, teems with life. It makes you endlessly grateful that there are still wild places. That there are still parks.
So in thinking of all of that life, and all of the life around the world sheltered by the ever-expanding Parks system, I'd like to extend my own personal bow of gratitude to the National Parks Service and all of the people within it. Thank you!
CKGR is a place where you can feel with your whole being the heart-filling expansiveness of the morning sky. It's almost dream-like, the abundance of space and life. There's an unbelievable remote feeling, like what you get when backpacking, but for hundreds of miles in all directions. Despite the presence of primitive roads, it's true wilderness. As a testament to the sheer size of the park, just take the fact that out there it was hard to find an elephant.
Just walking on the same ground as all of those incredible animals was exhilarating, seeing Lion and Leopard and Elephant tracks in the dust and knowing that they were out there somewhere living their lives in accordance with their nature. You get this real sense of how inhabited the world was before the spread of human civilization: every inch, even in the arid semi-desert, teems with life. It makes you endlessly grateful that there are still wild places. That there are still parks.
August 16, 2016
Seen through the
windshield, first shooting star is precipitous, unbelievable. It
appears at the hazy edge of vision and even before my eyes in reflex
dart to see it it's gone. It is a thing of transcendental frailty,
like an orb of dense magic, or a grain of sand in some stellar
hourglass. And so come the rest, plummeting now through the
atmosphere in Jupiterian rhythm, the weight of their celestial
histories burning up behind them. Flowing eons in the comet's cosmic
stream ended now (for now) by the deep graviton tides of orbiting
Earth, strange new home.
How long is a
moment?
What is
impermanence?
Look northeast on
a late summer night.
In the trail of a
falling star it's all laid bare.
moonless forest
dark flowers, above
comet's silent
stream
One-lane road,
headlit tunnel through trees, til trailhead. Sweating in the
torchlight, more climb than hike through firs, canopy only known by
the starlight shapes left uncovered by needly boughs. Suddenly whole
expanse of nighttime sound is laid out before me, twinkling
electronic moonlight metropolis. But trail kept up. Make peak as the
first predawn orange swell silhouettes Rainier. Not long til Cascade
sunlight crests radiant. Day.
Mountain goats
lounge on Ellinor's shoulder, digging for food and cool earthen
relief, August sun's now blaring. Quarrels now and then arise
abruptly from obscure breaches of protocol, or simply hot blood, but
are forgotten just as quickly. Introduced Species. I wonder if they
feel how alien they are to this place? If they long for their natural
Northern Rockies in some vague way, for not having to dig away from
the heat quite so much. If they feel in that way the burden of their
presence here, the karma we've given them in our uninvited meddling.
They too were drawn here, by forces beyond sight, beyond memory, to
this strange new home.
last snowbank
resting under
goat's clever smile
August 10, 2016
Out
over the treasury. Where creek & tide meet, ten thousand
sandstone coins worn flat & round, vast wealth of beauty. Stones
shrinking as we spread, like the snowmelt strength of creek's spring,
over this flat expanse, til only sand is left to be carried by the
swooning current's alluvial fingertips. Beach. The twice-daily winter
of low tide. Huge carpets of anemones huddle into themselves, colors
muted in the fresh air, while crabs watching winged shadows crowd
into the last watery cracks of the sea-stack rocks. With unfair power
we step carefully; in this place each inch could be alive, or more,
the only difference between object and organism, life and death, is
how closely we look.
Cormorant,
resting wings drying
--clap
of ocean spray!
already
gone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)