One of my favorite songs that reflects my love for the woodlands is an old folk tune by Buffy Sainte Marie: “My Piney Wood Hills.” Having grown up in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, and having lived in Denali National Park, AK, I am mountain born and bred and love to spend hours hiking in the woods. It is the easiest place for me to tune into my inner-voice, Spirit, the Source, etc. Buffy sings: “I'll return to the woodlands, I'll return to the snow, I'll return to the hills, and the valley below, I'll return like a poor man, or a king if God wills, but I'm on my way home to my piney wood hills.”
Looking for new hiking territory to explore, I moved to the Roaring Fork Valley in the Colorado Rockies. The area I landed in, called the Sopris District, includes parts of the Collegiate Peaks wilderness area which contains more fourteeners than any other wilderness area in the lower contiguous 48 states. The red soil of the Rockies was something I’d never seen on the east coast, or in the midwest, but I dreamed of it prior to setting out for Colorado. Based on this dream, I wrote a poem (below) which turned out to be a foreshadowing of my journey to the Rockies. A few days after writing the poem, I saw a documentary about an Amtrak passenger train that runs through Glenwood Canyon in Colorado, and knew I had discovered my chariot to the West. The canyon scenery is nothing less than the most spectacular geologic formations. A sense of history and mystery transported me back in time as I scanned the natural architecture of the canyon. I half expected to see the ghosts of Ute elders emerge from caves to scale the canyon walls, serving as sentinels of this primal beauty. My first hike in the Rockies was filled with the scent of sage, bringing to mind memories of "smudging" (cleansing and purifying) ceremonies with indigenous peoples in Alaska and with the Lakota Sioux in South Dakota. With my mind set on communing with nature, I started up a natural staircase created by recent snowmelt. Hiking off the beaten path, near Glenwood Springs (30 minutes northwest of Aspen), it was still a bit chilly at the beginning of Spring, so I headed into the sun and higher ground (literally and metaphorically). Most of my hiking, prior to arriving in
Colorado had been done in the old foothills of the Adirondacks, in the Shenandoah Mountains of Virginia, and some in Denali National Park, AK. In these places, my hiking experiences were more overland, than straight up a mountain, as it is here in the Rockies. It’s not just hiking, as some basic climbing skills are also needed. I learned to choose each hand and foot placement very carefully because, as I found out, what often appears to be solid - is not. Halfway up the slope, I stopped to take stock of where I was in the larger scheme of things, (a good idea in life in general.) However, when I stopped mid-slope to look across the valley to enjoy the glacier-sculpted splendor, I looked down and got an immediate case of vertigo. Before it could grow, however, I quickly shifted my focus and reconnected with the soil right in front of me. I lost my footing and slid down the mountain a few feet as it was the beginning of Spring and things were still wet and muddy. When I finally got to the top of the ridge, the soil was soft, dark, rich, and pristine, rather than rocky. I wished I was wearing moccasins so I would leave a lighter tread. I had crossed a threshold into another world; somebody else's turf. There were deer and elk tracks and scat everywhere. It looked as if a whole herd had been there recently. (What if I came across of herd of elk? Would they know I was benevolent, or would I be trampled!?) I decided to follow their tracks to see where they might lead. Soon, there was CRUNCHY snow everywhere. I thought: "every critter in paradise will know I'm here with all this racket!" I decided to keep following the tracks into a ravine where there was no snow, but a lot of long grasses. Then I stopped cold. There was no sound, not even a bird or a squirrel scampering, nothing at all except for the slightest crackling noise. Was it the herd?! I bowed my head and listened acutely for the source. Following the sound, it turned out to be the tiniest babbling brook I have ever seen. It was barely a trickle of water really, but it was the most peaceful, pure sound I’d heard in a long time, and it was the only sound. With greater attention, the sound became magnified, as if I were inside it. I followed the stream to its source and thought about the fact that the sound had a source, and that the water itself had a source.
I wondered: “Do 'sources' keep rippling outward (or inward) through the universe, leading back to the original Source?”
The source of the brook was a deep hollow, filled with snow, encircled by the roots of a grandmother tree. As gravity did its thing, the most delicate, zen-like brook was created.
I'm willing to wager that the tree and the snow and the hollow did not have to negotiate an alliance in order to co-exist.
The scene seemed to embody my fondest dream for the planet: Living beings co-existing, each fulfilling his purpose, without any force or control being applied. "Imagine."
Looking at my watch, I was shocked to realize I had been hiking for four hours, but it seemed like only forty minutes.
I love that about the mountains: the Magic, the Beauty.
The mountain and I make a great pair.
We are equals. We share energy.
We give and take. It’s a good relationship.
Dream Reality By Kathryn Preston
I escape the hullaballoo one day racing down the highway.
Fields of sunburnt daffodils seduce my senses.
I abandon the straight and narrow knowing I’ll find what I wasn’t looking for.
Relaxing into the afternoon under a surly Oak,
whimsical winds caress my hair.
Hypnotized by moody clouds, I think I see my mother’s face.
Spooked, I run.
Tearing swiftly through tangled branches,
lupine ears upturned,
ancestral whispers strike my drums like ancient amulets,
crescendoing to chaotic climax.
Trance-like, I am transported through the crack in the universe
to another point on the continuum.
I climb a spiral stair into the void, toward the unknown.
Emerging, I straddle the brink of two worlds.
The vista: endless, undulating:
like fragments of earthenware, sculpted by hands of ancients, strewn across time.
While red earth flows through fond fingers,
My soul’s laughter howls across a full moon.
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