There are times, not infrequent, when I love my life. On the other hand, there are times when I
wish I had made different choices. Right
now I love my life.
Didn’t stay long at the tailgate visit yesterday; wasn’t
where I wanted to be just then. Drove
several more miles up the valley, then north on a feeder road to an old staging
area. From there it’s a two hour walk to
a place where a snow melt creek drops through a small saddle. That spot is special for several reasons, not
the least of which is that I found evidence here that humans have been coming
to this spot for a very long time.
I was brought here for the first time—it would be virtually
impossible to find your way here without some help—I was brought here for the
first time by a Coast Salish friend. She
told me that the people of her nation had used this as a purification site
forever. The traditional healing circles
of many North American aboriginal peoples use a physical and mental cleansing process
that involves meditation and a sauna.
The structure used for this is called a sweat lodge; not as sexy a name
as sauna perhaps, but the principal is the same. In this case, the sweat lodge is a small,
temporary hut constructed by pushing twigs--usually alder here on the coast—into
the mud beside a creek or river, and bending them over to form woven
arches. The idea is to keep doing this
until you have a rudimentary framework that is then covered with cedar boughs. The size is determined by the number of
people expected.
I have been here many times since that initial invitation,
sometimes with friends, and sometimes, like today, on my own. I can even manage a crude sweat lodge. Last night and again this morning, I carried
out my own version of the cleansing. The
ceremony involves a type of mindful meditation that helps keep me grounded in
an increasingly complex and discouraging world.
By immersing my mind and body in the four elements of Earth—ground I sit
on inside the lodge, Air—what I breathe, Fire—source of heat and light inside
the lodge, and Water—life giving moisture, I feel at first overwhelmed, then
gradually I can feel myself becoming less and less tense. It’s not for everyone, but is works for
me.
Seems to work for Butkus as well even though he refuses to
enter the lodge. While we were walking
back to the truck this morning, we came out of the woods into a meadow that was
full of mountain sheep and white tail deer.
We both stopped, expecting the animals to run, but they didn’t. Instead they kept grazing. Since they were between us and where we were
headed, there was no alternative to but to move slowly across the open
ground. Amazingly, neither the wildlife
nor Butkus seemed agitated by each other’s presence, and we were within 20
yards of the closest animals before they moved.
When they did, the flight was spectacular. The two groups—sheep and deer—had been
grazing intermingled, but when the ran, they created two distinct sets, each
fleeing in a different direction. It
was like watching two mountain streams flow into one another. And even though they did this at a full
gallop, there were no collisions.
Amazing.
The rest of my was pale by comparison.
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