The Real

...For the settled, in their suburbs, steeped in that stagnant and tepid sink, time is sluggish with routine: a bleary sunrise and a blearier sunset. There, the past is framed in a fixed photographic grin, and the future is tamed with a pension plan. Nothing in nature is suburban. Nothing wild is phlegmatic and complacent. Nothing compares to the grotesque infantilism of the suburbs, sucking the dummy of the supermarket and every week squirting out the waste into giant plastic nappies, the bulging trash bags by the closed gate. In the suburbs, the alertness of all wild creatures is degraded into neurotic curtain-twitching. The curiosity of all animals degenerated into bingeing on Sky News. Queasily obedient, here life is just dull lull, tethered to a bungalow, an index-linked nap between two sleeps.
[...]
We were made to walk through our lives wildly awake: our minds mobile, quick, changeable. We all are mercurial, our minds as winged as our feet, receiving signals and responding, volatile by nature; sunshine and showers, storms and dog days, we are various as the wild weather on the way and wet with it."

--Jay Griffiths, Wild: An Elemental Journey

Does dreamtime ever seem more real to you than objective reality? I don't mean just sleeping-dreams, but the dream-state like on a forest walk when your mind breaches its usual confines and curls out like mist and flirts intimately with the birdsong, the Aspen leaves quaking in the wind, the sound of each step landing on soil and snapping twig ringing so crisp, your breath, the mind clearing and emptying and connecting to this ever-present realness; or a daydream state one can fall into while watching the leafy tree shadows dance across the curtain when you find yourself lying in the middle of the made bed on a Tuesday at 1:00PM, in momentary rebellion against Zoom meetings and answering emails and "being found well." This state, it's the least we can do for our overstimulated modern minds, the precious things, bless them. What an era we've been born into- we, who are still archaic up our spines, staring into various blue-lit screens and trying to make sense of this big new world, giving all sorts of diagnostic names to what boils down to going too fast, having too much [but never enough], and feeling alone.

The world is a weird place these days, and maybe it has always felt this way to the people of each time. But I don't think so. There are so many accounts of indigenous cultures talking about the connectedness they once felt before time and money were ever introduced to them. Depression isn't heard of. Not even back pain! Somewhere in the world, right this minute, there is a woman who has birthed a baby and is being tended to by the other women of her village. She doesn't have to look or act a certain way, be edgy nor politically correct to be loved by them, they have grown together, they know one another's grandparents and have sang songs together under harvest moons and on amber-lit dewy mornings, and she isn't alone in the threshold-crossing, or ever.

I don't feel lonely, and I think this is because of my connection to the land and nature around me, which I feel so fortunate for as any reader of this blog knows well, but I am aware of what we have let go in some distant past, and I do long for that, and reminisce...

Do you remember the mornings the village would wake singing together and the song would be carried throughout the day, like in Los Angeles circa 1870, each person stepping in as needed to keep it alive. Such songlines are in our blood, and in our bone-memory, we can recall how it felt to sing the rain in, to sing the morning in, to sing a weaving song, a wheat threshing song, to meet our lover in a shared song, that dissipated into a hum, then a rhythm of breaths, that boulder-old sacred dance of oneness, mmm. 

"It was the custom of the town of Los Angeles in all of the families of the early settlers for the oldest members of the family to rise every morning at the rising of the morning star and at once strike up a hymn. From house to house, street to street, the singing spread, and the volume of musical sound swelled until it was as if the whole town sang."

-- The West, Season 1 episode 7

We are made to move and we are made to have meaning in every single act of life. We are made to rejoice and cry and be held and to hold, to sweat and be covered in wild dust from dancing around evening fires with our kith and kin.

In Old Tahiti when Europeans had first met the place, it was written how the people, those mystical Polynesian bloodlines, were upright pillars of health. I read an account of the women bathing in the natural pools, rubbing the oil of coconut over themselves, and scenting their skin with the gardenia blossom. Can you feel the warm sun of that pre-industrial past?

Can you imagine the vitality of a Mongolian reindeer herder riding out across the grass steppe, a song forming in his throat, harmonizing with his horse's whinnying. All he knows is freedom, and light, fur of beast, and hoof-printed earth. 

Or the Himba people, still holding onto the remnants of root-gathering women, sitting relaxed on the earth in the mid-day sun, braiding each other's hair. At night, dancing together, singing, happy, celebratory, in harmony still with a natural order.

All of the unique cultures of the world are now being blended together under globalism and multiculturalism and as boundaries blur and world travel becomes a norm, we lose these distinct lifeways, each unique color of the palette smearing together into a muddy blah.

I crave the richness, the distinction, the sharp raw realness of life lived true and potent, under the sun, sprinting barefoot through the woods, singing with galloping untamed voices. I want to be with my husband in some highland canyon at noon in the nude, not in front of a computer screen. We need work that is real, and we need to sit together around fires and not worry about seeming some certain scholarly Western way, but just opening our hearts in song and dance and earnest connection. We need true rest, and we need ancient rhythms.

This society is dying for something to change, dying for some heart to come back into life. I don't mean Sunday morning in a building singing hymns kind of heart, but a divine daily exuberation that was once inherently ours, before we domesticated transcendence, before we tamed powerful pure expression.

Do you remember the look we once had in our eyes before cameras and mirrors everywhere made us so aware of our own faces? It was happy and honest, curious and present.

We are weakened by too much artificial light, too much noise, too much complacency. The world now a mere simulation of the myths and tales we used to live inside of, so we curl up on couches alone clutching our wine glass, desperate to find some story we can fall into, some other story, one that is not our own.

It breaks my heart to see a man who would have been a valiant warrior, you can see in his eyes, now made soft and skinny by the modern world. Or a woman who could be out under the sun growing flowers and vegetables, taking a noon swim, smiling instead of furrowing her brow behind a 9-5 desk. 

We wanted progress and we wanted to extract, and we wanted these things because we wanted to ensure our survival, but at what cost? The long-term vision is blurring, if ever there was one. Now we are unwell, and we've normalized this way.

I don't type out this stream of consciousness tonight because I'm unhappy. I feel contented in life while also noticing utter societal disfunction and having-gone-awryness. I have made peace with what is and am grateful for my work, my home, my love (who is thankfully as untamed at the core as I), this land. But, I have a  streak tucked down in me that is alive and sometimes writhing with restlessness, so writing about these thoughts is an antidote I suppose to disrupting my safe routine, which is needed, which I must maintain, to function well in the world as it currently is.

From my little campfire at this mountaintop to yours, a light in the dark, a flickering in the foggy night. Is that vital force still in you? Don't let it go out. Remember the wild water, the freedom, real laughter, how your body feels when it's strong and open, how your mind feels when it's clear and serene and confident, remember loyalty, and honor, remember pure love for no gain whatsoever, remember sacrifice, remember dark starry night, remember the dew of morning, remember divine connection, remember what is at the center of you that wasn't born and doesn't die, because it will be there when the sun casts a flare that shuts the modern world down and we have to return to something more real, when we have to rely on one another again and lay down all the pettiness we currently have the gluttonous leisure of wasting so much destructive time on. Remember goodness. Remember non-destructive pleasure. And the sacred balance of all of it.

For goodness' sake

"Pettiness is a serious malady;

The average man has no greatness of soul

And cannot know how the noble man feels --

How he experiences pleasure, or the blows of fate;

How he looks on the meaning and depth of things,

Accepts his destiny and trusts in God"

—Frithjof Schuon, Autumn Leaves and the Ring, 51.

A stream in the snow, by Oska Bergman, 1910

Some--most--need others to hold them accountable for good behavior.

Someone I used to know told me that morality doesn’t apply when it’s a life or death survival scenario, but that seems like a weighty conjecture. On the contrary morality might matter most when the situation is intense, dire, exaggerated, life or death.

The world has probably always been full of deceit cloaked in virtue. But my observation in modern times, the only time I can truly observe, is that deep and real goodness is .01% of the population. Most people cannot be trusted, and the more one masquerades as good it almost seems to imply the opposite- in my experience it is the pastors and deacons of churches who have the darkest skeletons in their closet, and it is the women who preach “female support” and “sister love yasss queen” who will be the first to try to seduce a taken man; so-called humanitarians who abuse children in other countries. In the end, most of us are mere slaves to our desires. 

Goodness does not have to imply dogma or a puritanical life. Goodness can be wild, as it exists naturally, not boring and not mundane and not beige. Goodness is aligning with truth and virtue, yes, but are those things not high and beautiful and the very threads that run through reality? Is truth not exhilarating? Why do we see "darker" behaviors and aspects of reality as intriguing and exciting? Is it the mystique of the hidden?

We use each other to hold ourselves accountable, but I find such beauty and strength and honor in the rare person who is good and righteous for goodness' sake. No one needs to hold me accountable for right action- I find joy and fulfillment in frequent house cleanings of the mind and spirit, of keeping that vertical axis centered through my spine and up, up, up. Of course, there is a reward for living this way. It is felt behind the forehead, it is felt in contented smiles worn throughout a solitary day for "no reason" at all, it is felt in divine connections and relationships, it is felt in the ease and depth of the breath, the upright torso not weighted down by an unclean conscience and a sick desire to gobble up what it can for itself. 

Here is a question to ponder, especially if you consider yourself decent: what would you do if you knew no one would find out? If there was no one around to judge or label, what sorts of acts would you delight in indulging in? It's good to be honest with ourselves, at the very least. And ultimately, let us learn to be principled without the presence of others, as a divine pact, as soul-nourishment, in celebration of the goodness and beauty and truth of this life that we're currently getting to wear a while.

Tired September

 "We are lived by powers we pretend to understand."

--W.H. Auden

Have you ever learned something new, but simultaneously had the sensation you knew it before?

I've had a couple of these experiences that are easier to explain, like coming across a piece of alternate history that resonates so deeply it seems like it aligns with a timeless memory that lives somewhere at the core of me.

And then there have been occasions that are more difficult to explain. I'm thinking of moments riding passenger with my husband, listening to a song, looking out at the forests pass by, with their angles of light striking this land that I love, and feeling something I've always known come into me, like a download, like an orb of knowing that just then inserted itself into my spine, but I could never put words around or make sense of in any linear timeline, or categorize under any specific branch of knowledge, and usually I'm moved to tears, but joyful grateful tears. These are lovely moments, but I wish I understood better what is happening right then. Despite, I welcome it.

I've returned now to my home, to this golden mountain land that holds me best, and it is a similar feeling here- I've long felt I knew this place, even when I first came upon it. I learn of a Davidson family who were one of the first settler families in Chesaw, and grin. There is Tiffany Resort a few miles north from here. I hike to the top of Tiffany Mountain, in the Tiffany Range of Okanogan County, and think, what are the odds? 

I know that much of this existence is shrouded in mystery, despite us thinking we've got it figured out. And I like to brush alongside that mystery all throughout the day. What finer, more inspiring, more charming companion is there? I like to figure out, and I also like to let be, and to wonder.

Back in the mountains I know and love (and who I like to think feel the same way back), and I got to spend one lovely day with my husband before he was abruptly called back to wildfire camp.

We have spent only a handful of days together since mid-July and are at such an exhaustion with it all. Were it not for work keeping me so busy Monday through Friday, I think I'd be struggling much more so. But the loneliness and longing and missing creep up sometimes and I feel anguish, then irritated, then sad, all before managing to distract myself and get over it.

I'll not groan on any further about that, though I certainly could, instead I'll mention the lovely Sunday we did get to spend together recently, riding down the roads we know so well, in the land we love, to our favorite spots in the middle of complete nowhere together. We had breakfast at our favorite little place on Bonaparte Lake, then Eric did some fishing while I photographed rosehips and light hitting the water and all the other things. Then we hush-walked through the forest hunting grouse, and sang our favorite songs up into our Chesaw Highlands. And it felt so...good...to be with my husband again, in our life, our place, our way... and I'll hold tight to that until he finally gets back home for good.

I have learned something about myself: I don't just love big, wild places, but I require to live in one. Nothing pleases me more or connects me to What is Real so much as being in a quiet and undisturbed land, and that being my home. I spent the summer living in the most quaint spot, and I have a love for bucolic towns and even the rolling green hills of my old Kentucky home, but I can only spend so long in even these places as each day I feel a special part of my spirit slip away, bit by bit, and I don't know why it's this way. The countryside is nice anywhere you go, but I just get so much inspiration from big open landscapes where there is hardly any sign of human life for big distances. It feeds into me like the deepest nourishment imaginable. I also find that my health vastly improves in the high, dry Rocky Mountain landscape. Here in our Okanogan Highlands, we're perfectly nestled between the North Cascades and Rocky Mountain ranges, rarely dipping below 3,000 feet in elevation even in the valleys, with very low humidity, and it has done wonders for my sinus health. When I spend more than a month in lower elevation, wetter climates, I start to feel bogged down, watery inside, like my head is a fish bowl. But this is just a lot of almost-midnight digressing, isn't it?

This does make me think about something I find interesting, though. Something I truly wonder about. It's an observation that I've looked at from several different angles to test, and it seems that it is really the case. Maybe you can chime in with your thoughts. I have wondered about our affinity for development. When I say 'our' I mean primarily the European culture, and particularly Americans. I've long picked up on a sentiment from family members of a clear preference for development, and for the marketplace. I recall riding in the car with my grandmother once and her pointing out that the [undeveloped] forest felt "sad" to her. I've noticed that even a plowed field feels better to most than just a purely wild or untouched area that has simply been left alone. Better even than a plowed field though would be a new neighborhood or restaurant. Most everyone I know back home would find this land that I love and call home to be terrible, or empty.

Then, over the past few months I watched Ken Burns "The West" series. And maybe it's propaganda or one-sided not in favor of the conquerors? Certainly possible. But the stories seemed very real, many of them firsthand accounts, and I noticed there too this natural tendency and preference for development amongst "my people" (this is a long and nuanced conversation of course, as "my people" were arguably themselves conquered long ago as Rome took out the Gauls). 

I'm certainly not anti-development. But I am anti-development for development's sake. If development is thoughtful, well-planned, considerate of the future, beautiful and helpful, then yes, yes! But my goodness- that is rarely ever the case, and especially here in America. And I can't help but notice how consumed we are with all of it, this development that makes us crave more, and distances us from any kind of divinity. Yet, so many think that development is "God's way" and that this is bringing order. 

I find order in the architecture of a medieval cathedral, sure, but I truly find it standing in a grove of Aspens as the wind whips through and the leaves quake, dropping to the ground to cover their own root-feet for the incoming winter. I am witness to order in the gliding hawk and the rattling tail of the snake, and the doe who licks the urine from her fawn to keep predators from noticing. This order too is in the predator, the emotionless way it kills, unlike us, no hate or psychosis pulsing through its blood, just hunger- simple and innocent, and orderly.

 

And now that I've rattled on past my bedtime, I'd better scurry off and get myself to sleep. Tomorrow morning I lead my hiking group out into the mountains, then Sunday I go help a friend harvest and clean up a large greenhouse jungle-garden. 

Wishing you lovely Fall days, as the sun falls lower and lower. I'll be back here soon.

x

Pothos

Outside the night is still and dark, with Venus visible again in the evening sky, and fog horns echoing from the bay, which is never too far away on this skinny island I inhabit now.

 

Here, life is very easy: the temperature lingers right around 70 most of these summer days, there is a salty brackishness in the air that feels soothing to the respiratory system, the eyes consume a constant feast of mountain, cerulean sea, and fertile fields, the shops are interesting, the food is diverse and healthy, magenta foxgloves grow wild along the roadsides, speckled fawns nibble on blackberry bushes, I swim under the moonlight in Mystery Bay in a sea of neon-blue bioluminescence... there is just so much storybook goodness.

One recent afternoon, in the local theatre, which was originally a vaudeville house opened in 1907, I sat in a velvet chair in the very back row, with a bowl of organic buttery popcorn, as thick black curtains were drawn over the big windows looking out over the sea, a projector slowly descended in front of the room, and the show about to begin.

Earlier that afternoon, I had stopped into a favorite tea shop to grab a proper scone with clotted cream (they were out) and some fennel tea while I read a chapter of my book, a maritime book of course, which is the only right thing to read when you're living on a little island just off the Olympic Peninsula in the far northwest reaches of the contiguous United States, and "town" is a Victorian seaport village.

Then, last week I took a sailing class, and while I love old wooden boats and tales of sea voyages and shipwreck, I found it to be complicated and not something I care to put effort into learning at this point in life. Shame because a nice man at the general store down the road offered me his 29-foot sailboat, in good condition, for $1.00 (!).

What’s happening in this video is called heeling, where the boat is tilting. As you can see here, the other students were not too happy about it, but I thought it was the funnest part of the whole class!

So you see how idyllic life is here on this small bucolic island, and yet...I miss my home. I ache for my husband, and our beloved Okanogan Highlands.

As beautiful as it is here, so explicitly, so obviously beautiful... the spirit, the essence, is lacking somehow. I miss the rugged wild, the vast expanses, the untouched natural order, the toughness, the warmth. It is certainly the strangest and one of the deepest relationships I've known in this life- being so tethered to a place, to the point that I almost feel I have no say in the matter, I have to be there, even though it is often difficult, even though no houses ever come on the market for sale, even though the summer wildfires come, then winter snowpack, nature always striking fiercely, and life lived right to the bone, it is so truly my home, and I knew it when I first arrived there in 2012 on a weekend exploratory drive. I remember driving from Portland, where I lived at the time, through what seemed like hours of scablands, finally arriving in Omak for the evening. I wasn't impressed, but a serendipitous conversation with a hotel worker that night led me toward Republic the next day. I remember climbing up from Tonasket that morning, driving a while, the forests returning to the landscape, and some feeling I had never experienced beginning to permeate the air. We rose into Wauconda and it felt like a dizziness, like how a wave of deja vu feels destabilizing for a moment, and I felt so enamored by what I was seeing and feeling, like I knew it and had been waiting for it. We drove further, exploring the area all weekend, and the feelings deepened, the land beckoned, I felt in my blood that this was home.

The American West, the interior high dry mountainous areas, are a world away from the bustling west coastal towns. Every single thing is different, in fact: the people, the climate, the landscape, the lifestyles, and certainly the spirit.

We've hatched a plan to reorganize the reasons why we came over to the coast this summer to begin with, and soon enough I'll be back home. Eric is away at fire camp now, living in a tent beside a lake at night, a lake that he bathes and swims in each evening to get the smoky dusty residue off. I miss him so deeply. Having grown up an only child, I'm quite proficient at being alone and keeping myself contented, but despite being together for almost nine years, we long to be close, as lovers, and as best friends, I miss his warmth, his love, his very essence.

So, it's turned into a summer of longing. I planned for a summer of swims in the freshwater lakes I know so well, and picking gallons of huckleberries for the freezer, harvesting fireweed and fermenting the leaves into Ivan Chai, hiking with the womens hiking group I just formed this Spring, nurturing the connections that get forged more and more with my community each year... just enjoying the cycles as usual. But, things have gone differently.

Now, we wait. The right timing and circumstances need to be aligned before we reconvene. So, I'm left to my longing for home and for husband, and like the ancient Greeks I too believe there to be an intrinsic value in the unfulfilled longing, which they called pothos. Longings put us into relationship with the beyond and add another dimension to our days, even though the chest can feel heavy and the world one is in more grayscale than the one longed for... there is still something important in it, and I have the good fortune of knowing this particular longing will be fulfilled soon.

"The steed upon which to journey through this valley is Patience."

.::*::.

Before I sign off, I realized I never showed my most recent embroidery here. This is "The Sacred Marriage"...

...Rebis, the individual containing lunar and solar principles in perfect balance...

the Great Work, realized and embodied. Wholeness remembered and regained, while corporeal.

~

I hope your summer is going well, and less scattered than mine! Now it's off to bed with a hot mug of nettles, to read a little then doze off into that mysterious world that sleep returns us to each night. I'll no doubt get woken by distant fog horns a time or two, a hazy reminder in the dark that we're all out here, just trying to illuminate the path ahead, moment to moment.

x

Edges of things

Edges have always been fascinating places to me. I love to meander the liminal space where a field turns into a forest, where the plant life feels diverse and abundant. A close friend just moved to a town in Colorado right where the prairie turns vertical and erupts into the Rocky Mountains, and I can't wait to visit her there. 

I like my conversations and relationships to contain edge, by which I mean: a cutting through the usual topics and stances and arrival to what feels like a more real, raw, honest, open space. I love to walk figuratively hand in hand with another into new lands, or at least to the edge of the field of the status quo or popular thought, where nuance and imagination and a sense of playfulness still flitter about. In years past, before I had developed grace and compassion to go along with this tendency, my incentive was probably rather righteous in spirit, wanting to teach or to prove, whereas now, with some time-obtained grace and compassion having been developed, my deeper desire is to connect in a more meaningful way.

Edges. Out here in our treasured Okanogan Highlands, we're mere miles from remote Canadian border crossings, and looking westward, the Pasayten Wilderness extending into the vast Mt. Baker wilderness area, placing us right on what feels like the edge of civilization. Next week, I move to a small forested island in the Salish Sea, another edge-feeling place, floating in the northwest corner of the contiguous U.S., solid ground, yes, but nearly ocean. 

Maybe you've heard tales of Selkies- mythological creatures in Celtic and Norse lore who can take the form of a seal, or of a woman. I think this speaks to something deep in the human psyche that contains dual natures, perhaps even contradiction. If we aren't able to reconcile the various worlds that exist in us, to lace them together into one beautiful and functional fabric, then the edge becomes a place we avoid, feeling pressured instead to always choose one or the other, rather than face potential ostracization of being perceived as an outlier. 

But I think it's crucial for each of us to deeply honor who we are, without influence as much as possible, and to bring that fully to the table of life. Usually this will involve a degree of fringe living, of edge-walking, but I've found that all the best people, the most interesting thought, and unspeakable beauty are all contained there. 

Lives and Longings

At the end of March, a wild little whim grabbed hold, a whim that smelled of old maritime magic and fishy brine, a whim whose cold salty wind beat against our cheeks and froze the tips of our noses, a whim to head over to the coast, to our former home, that we loved a lot, and still do.

From our high dry highlands it's a 7-8 hour drive and a substantial chunk of change, but we decided it was worth it to quelch the longing (longings are like that, aren't they?- easy to justify). 

The whim took hold on a Wednesday afternoon, and by Thursday at midnight we were driving--a little cross-eyed--alongside the Hood Canal, almost to our destination, and to the promise of rest.

Something I think about a lot is this: that there are many, many lives worth living. I imagine all of them for myself, sometimes in the span of one week- I could live my life on a Greek island, my bare feet against the warm stone each day as I walk to the market; or back in my home state of Kentucky, in a little country house, caving in to the humidity and allergies, but being there; or I can see myself as a mother, loving so deeply and glowing with that self-sacrificing beauty that only mothers possess; or I could move to a city and put all my efforts into career, enjoying the city offerings such as dance classes, theatre, philosophy meetups, cafes...; I could forsake it all and become a nun in Montana, or Tibet; I could be a surfer on Tahiti or Hawaii, living in a little bungalow, my skin stained sunny gold; I could live happily in a little adobe casita in the desert southwest as an incense-maker; and then there is the vision of myself wandering the heathered Scottish highlands or the Yorkshire Dales, my little white stone cottage and farm in the distance à la Hannah Hauxwell or I could certainly be a lighthouse keeper except the era for that in earnest is really over; or, another one that I ponder very often: I could live a maritime life, on a boat or some stormy northern coast, pulling my food from the water, learning the ins and outs of my vessel and of marine navigation, rocking back and forth to sleep at night, swallowed up in that old brackish aroma, my mornings smelling, like Dylan Thomas wrote, "seaweed and breakfast." 

All of these, and more, I could do. But it is my nature that no matter which of the paths I went down, I would always find myself longing for parts of another.

So this particular trip was not only revisiting an old home, but immersing once again in that northern maritime sea-life imagining.

We hopped onto ferries and whale watching boats, our noses well-coated in salt and our eyes delighting in light waves of azure blue.

And when our feet were on solid ground again, we'd smile across the table at each other with tired but invigorated adventurers eyes and relish in some delicious fare before heading back to our little yurt for an evening of hot baths and reading.

Some afternoons we'd dip into a peculiar shop or two and hunt for unusual little treasures to take back home.

A drawerful of crosses

Himalayan marionettes!

And more than once, we walked to the lighthouse, a favorite spot from the past, and sat on the rock wall, gazing out across the mystery, imagining what we would do if a tsunami came (we'd fully embrace one another and surrender to our fate), and watching the full moon set over the North Cascades to the east.

And I started a new book, a fiction this time, a maritime classic, appropriately with the sea lashing the rocks beneath me.

(I finished this trilogy just last week, a little under two months later, and do heartily recommend it if you're in the mood for a good story that really transports).

And finally, we took our wobbly sea legs and coaxed them into navigating brake and gas pedals and getting us back over the mountains to our home in the blonde highlands.

Here in the high, dry Okanogan Highlands, Spring is waltzing in charming us all as usual. You can feel the buzzing energy everywhere, in everything.

Sometimes I sit beside a glacial erratic or a pine, and feel a love and warmth that is like family, and like belonging. I smell the Ponderosa Pine baking in the warm sunshine and am dizzied by the sensation of passing through another life that sometimes feels more real than this one. It is like I know this ground, like the mountains were my grandparents, and I've been steered back here by some unseen force, a formless path that I walk and turn to matter. 

Here it is rugged and difficult and right to the bone, like boulders the size of sheds that crash down onto roads you travel often, or like what happened on easter Sunday...the symbolic day of death and rebirth - when we came upon a young bull elk, still as large as an adult buck deer, lying on the side of the road with his foot tangled in a barbed wire fence. My husband and another man held him down and managed to get his foot out of the fence, much to our relief, but as we backed away expecting him to jump up and run off, he instead just continued to lay there. We thought maybe he was in shock and just needed some time, so we backed away and talked gently, giving him space to gather himself again. 

A few minutes passed and we inspected further, piecing together marks in the road, a scuff on the neck, a puss-filled eye, and an inability to move, realizing he had been hit and knocked into that barbed wire fence. 

Something seemed to be wrong with his neck, causing him not to be able to rise despite an urge to try every few minutes. 

It was brutal for me to watch. 

We are hunters, but I've come to believe that a wild animal facing its end by a well-placed bullet is the most kind form of death available to them - the other options are being eaten alive by wolves or a cougar, a drawn out injury that slowly separates them from their herd and likely leads to the aforementioned scenario, or --as we witnessed with our young bull elk here--is hit by a vehicle and left to lay on the side of the road with something broken, unable to move. In that scenario, a bullet is a welcomed respite. But despite, it is still a difficult experience to handle. And on that particular day I was already feeling especially tender. 

The herd of about 40 or 50 had moved up to a far hillside, but when we started working with the injured elk, they rallied and ran back toward us- a sight to behold! Raw, intuitive, unspoken power. I could've taken pictures, but the moment felt so potent and real that I only wanted to show up in respect, not capturing, despite the cinematic scene all around us. 

At last they settled close-by, watching attentively and eventually easing into grazing and looking up toward us from time to time. After the young bull elk was freed from his suffering, they slowly began to move away again, as if they sensed the completion. I hope that we were able to bring comfort to the elk, despite his horrific situation. I do know that as I stroked his head, and talked softly to him, that he began to close his eyes and drift off, being rubbed at all by a hand was an altogether new sensation to this wild creature, and I hope comforted and eased his passage before my husband performed the inevitable dispatch. 

It is easy for me to read this and wonder if I'm being too soft, but when we can assist a helpless being, or any other being, shouldn't we? 

We could've just walked up and shot him and moved on, but as a firm walker on the spiritual path, the non-physical world that is always in concert around us, impacting and interacting with us constantly, is very real to me. I know that I can change the field around me, and I know that the spirit, or essence, or soul, of that creature could benefit from a hopeful peace being brought to him, prayers, comfort, and wishes for the after-journey. 

This is how I choose to live my life- with depth as much as possible, and with consideration for all that conducts reality, not just the five senses we perceive, and certainly not just the abrupt and rational American way where time is money, so don't waste any time comforting an elk, silly girl, just be done with him, butcher, and move on. Surely there is a middle ground, too, but on this day, I felt tender and had the time, and wanted to pass on whatever comfort and benefit I could. 

I'll never forget that little bull elk.

This feels like home on such a deep level for us, and we have endured and been patient for years attempting to build a certain kind of life here, but it feels like this phase of life might be coming to an end soon.

 

There is so much chest-heavy sadness in this realization, but with a new plan laid for the winter, we're focusing our vision on the future and opening again to the world, to engagement with others, and to service.

It is far too soon to speak publicly of this plan right now, but suffice to say our sadness in potentially having to leave this area is balanced with a forward-looking excitement of the possibilities ahead.

Until then, all we have is now anyway, so we submerge into the seasons and the place as always- pulling fish dinners from cold mountain lakes, dipping in the snow melt rapids of Sherman Creek, and soaking the sunshine back into our bones. 

No matter where the path of life leads, it's hard to imagine ever finding such a special place, one that feels like it is us and we are it, yet something in the breeze whispers that it's time for change.

It is a blessing and it is hard to love so many things, and so I circle back around to how I started this post, with different lives and longings, yet we must choose and go full in to that choice, otherwise we never show up intimately to any of it.

So here's to being able to love where we are--physically, mentally, emotionally--so completely, being ever present, and when the time comes to detach and fork off on a separate path, to then transfer and redirect that love and presence, taking it with us fully, not letting parts of ourselves linger. If we linger across too many paths, we become scattered and incomplete, deducting something from every place and interaction. We owe it to ourselves and to others and to every place to arrive whole.