November 20 – Meeting the powerful stranger in Weed, California
- lukeleeburton
- Nov 21, 2018
- 3 min read
This poem was sent last week by our friend Tara. It is appropriate to the flavor of this last part of the journey.
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
-- David Wagoner
We have had the great fortune of being the caretakers of this magical place in Weed, CA for the last 10 days. Out our front window, after a lovely back yard with a fire pit and a bocce ball court, is only bushes, scattered trees, rolling hills, and a “very high threat” volcano that is Mount Shasta (according to the US geological survey). Inviting us into the magic every day, at least twice, sometimes 4 times, is Sheba, a Bullmastiff, weighing 10 pounds more than Margo.
Sheba and I, sometimes with Margo, walk this landscape, created from another volcano, that collapsed 300,000 – 500,000 years ago. The ground is sandy, like walking in the desert. I’ve poured tablespoon amounts of sand out of my shoes and wash my feet in the bathtub after a walk. Sheba and I eventually started walking in silence, becoming more attuned to the other life around us; robins, spotted towhees, ravens, flocks of ground doves erupting from the bushes at all once, this amazing jackrabbit (the ears are huge!), bounding deer, and wood rats with their stick pile homes. Scattered throughout the sand are pumice stones, volcano aftermath that float in water.
Sandy trails lead all through the shrubs, many leading into prickly bushes too thick to get through, some leading from one sacred place to another, where LIFE is felt more acutely, more expansive and connected; the prayer tree - a ponderosa pine I started praying at every morning, a burned out tree that felt wise to me and so got named ‘the guru tree’, the juniper grove beside its altar-like sand mound; the jagged protruding rock pile on the ridge. These places are connected mostly by deer tracks, which makes me feel closer to life that lives out here, that we are drawn to the same places.
Tonight, our last night here, Sheba and I go out at dusk. I’m concerned it will get dark and I’ll lose her, or we’ll both get lost on paths that lead to thorns so I’m trying to stick to a familiar route and keep the walk short. When we get out of sight of home, she decides to passionately dig a big hole – the first time she has done this. She ignores my calls to get going long enough for the light of day to disappear then comes up beside me momentarily before taking off through the shrubs. I run and chase her, at first to not lose her, then, because I’m delighting in the game of trust she has invited me in to. Her path turns and twists, her head down, likely following the trail of some little creature who could pick out a tiny path through the prickles. Amazingly, we made it to a familiar dirt road and slowly walked home together. Thank you for everything Sheba, I will miss you.
We did two incredible day trip hikes too that are worth mentioning, because they were magnificent. The first to the summit of Black Butte, the second into Pluto’s cave. Both are the way they are because of volcanoes. Black Butte seems like the whole thing is a massive rock slide.
Pluto’s cave is a lava tube, a mile long with areas of 60’ cathedral ceilings.
Margo said she felt cradled by mother earth, like being in her womb, particularly when we turned our headlamps off and stood in the profound quiet, and the darkness so black that our eyes never adjusted to it. She said the silence created a sense of deep peace like she has never felt before.
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