White Oak Sinks: Goals v Experiencing

Conrad Anker said that if he makes three attempts to summit a mountain and is unsuccessful, then it is not meant to be, and he moves on. Elise and I made three attempts to find the back way out of White Oak sinks. Each time we ended in a pathless tangle. The third time we were sure we were near the trail junction. We could see the blue sky of the ridge line, but we couldn’t find the way to get there. And I became nervous. I know people with much better mountain skills than me have gotten disoriented in the turns and twists of mountains. I didn’t want to be the subject of a rescue party. So, again we descended.

Elise and I met for the first time yesterday in the parking lot of El Jimador. A mutual friend had enlisted us to colead the SMHC outing to White Oak Sinks next April. It is a delightful area, but I had not been there in many years. Elise had been there just once, so we, with good reason, felt the need for a scouting hike. A hike is multifaceted. It is about the destination, the goal. It is about being in the woods, experiencing. The hike is visual, our eyes rest on trees, evergreen, bare, and some with a few leaves clinging. We walk along the pretty creek, and admire the rolling slopes and sink holes. The hike is auditory. We listen to the rippling creek, fluttering air, bird song, and squirrels dancing across the leaves. The hike is feeling the sensual kiss of the mountain air. It is about the physical act of walking, mile after mile, laboring uphill, balancing downhill.


Today it is also about talking, learning about each other, having time to explore different topics as we make our way along the trail. We kept coming back to one thought. Goals can detract from experiencing. Many people walk each hike as a step in the goal of coloring in the whole trail map---walking every trail in the park. I had long ago realized this wasn’t for me, and Elise has recently realized it is not for her either. We want to enjoy each hike for itself. If we want to come back to the same trail five, ten times, we don’t want to worry that we are “wasting time!!”

Conrad Anker, the big mountain climber, where one would think the goal of summiting is everything, has also found that sometimes experiencing the joy of the day IS the goal. Perhaps we will return later to find that pesky back trail out of the sinks, but today was a fine day. A good hike in a beautiful place with a new friend, nothing could be better.

There was a time when the humans on the earth were smaller in number, and made a  lighter footprint on the earth. One small band of humans had carved a home for themselves, and learned to grow food in cleared fields, and keep some animals to supplement their hunting and the gathering of wild plants.  Seasons passed into generations, and the people lived as they always had. Religion was a dance, celebrated with body, mind and soul.

************

The days were getting longer, sunrise and sunset crept northward on the horizon toward the  stones marking the furthest points the sun would reach. The fields were planted and green with new growth. Excitement stirred in the community, it was time to prepare for the midsummer's night festival for the Goddess.

The gathering ground in the middle of the village was swept clean. Sacred stones were retrieved from the pile in which they they were stored between festivals. Deirdre, the priestess, directed the young boys as they laid the stones out in a large spiral, working out from a sacred inner circle. Wood was brought for the fires,  the small Goddess fire in the center, and the two large fires to mark the sunrise and sunset points at the outer edge of the spiral.

Every man in the village, from the youngest, who had just done their manhood ceremonies at winter solstice, to the wizened, shriveled old grandfathers who still carried the hope and desire to honor the Goddess, carefully prepared their dancing masks. Feathers and fur, previously collected and stored, were brought out and carefully attached. Crushed rocks were mixed with oils to paint vivid colors. Horns and tusks saved from slaughtered animals were attached, so that when the mask was placed on his head, each man would become the Horned God.  
The women gathered flowers and leaves to weave into garlands, to adorn their hair, waists, arms thighs.  Deirdre set several young girls to grind ochre to make the red paste for painting Goddess symbols on bodies.
As the heat of the day waned, a supper of bread, vegetables, fruits and beer was served. Everyone would need nourishment for the long night of singing, dancing and lovemaking, but wouldn't want to be weighed down by a heavy feast. The little children were put to bed, with some of the older children charged with watching them. Others of the older children would be allowed to stay up late, taking turns playing the drums and rattles and joining in on the songs and chants.

The solstice stone glowed orange as the setting sun passed over it, and the sunset and sunrise fires were lit, As the drums started a slow throbbing, all the people gathered at the edge of the spiral,  forming a large circle.  Each man proudly wore his horned mask, and the women were beautiful in their flowers. The youngest boys clumped together in a shy, nervous bunch, but the mature men stepped between them, dividing them. "No Goddess will step out of the spiral if she sees all you babies waiting for her," teased Broka, the village smith, "she has to have some hope that a REAL man will be stepping up to worship her."

Priestess Deirdre walked first to the sunrise fire, then to the sunset fire, pulling some burning twigs from each. She approached the entrance of the spiral, and stopped. The drums silenced. All the people breathed as one, as Deirdre stood with head bowed in silent prayer, asking the Goddess' favor on the ceremony.  Deirdre raised her head, raised her arms holding the tiny fires, and stepped into the spiral, turning in slow circles. The gibbous moon cast silver on her long unbound hair woven with flowers, her  heavy breasts, belly softly rounded from childbirth, and wide womanly hips, as she circled round and round, slowly making her way deeper into the spiral.  Drums began again, softly, as Deirdre sang:

I am  Mother
Sing my praises
Worship me with body and soul

From my womb
Pours blood and water
Giving  life to all the land

Grain and fruit grow
From my blessing
New life thrives at my command

I am  Mother
Sing my praises
Worship me with body and soul

Celebrate 
the gift I give you
Light the fires of life again

As Deirdre finished the last verse, the four oldest women of the village entered the spiral and started the song again. More drums picked up the beat, and all the people in the circle joined in the song, slowly stepping  counterclockwise around the spiral edge, clapping hands in rhythym with the song. Next, five women of the village who were heany with pregnancy stepped forward and entered the spiral. These were the  blessed of the Mother.

When Deirdre,  the crones, and the pregnant women reached the inner circle, she knelt down and lit the Goddess fire. The women first attended her, rubbing the ochre over her body, painting a spiral on each breast, and painting the downward pointing triangle on her pubis. Then Deirdre and the crones painted the Goddess symbols on the pregnant women's breast and pubis, and large spirals on the mounds of their bellies.

 Again the drumming stopped, as did the singing and dancing. All was silent except for the soft crackling of the fires. Again, the whole community breathed with one breath. Deirdre lept  over the fire and became the Goddess. The celebration had begun.

The dancers continued the slow cicle around the perimeter.  As a woman would approach the entrance to the spiral, if she were ready, she would leave the circle of dancers and start to spiral inward. Slowly turning as she spiraled in, singing and clapping hands. some of the women brought with them gifts of food and drink for the women in the Goddess circle.  Deirdre stayed in the circle to welcome some of the arriving women. She helped the crones and pregnant women rub on the ochre and embraced each woman as she jumped across the fire, becoming the Goddess. Soon though, the circle was filling, and it was time to spiral back out, Deirdre leading the women, singing, dancing ,skipping and leaping, spiraling out and out.

The men and a few of the women who had not yet started to spiral in continued the slow dance around the perimeter, chanting and singing Goddess songs. As Deirdre rounded the outermost ring of the spiral, she admired all the circling masked Gods. She timed her exit from the spiral so that a beautifully crafted mask carried on a well muscled chest and abdomen with long sinewy arms and legs and  approached the exit. Deirdre was pretty sure she knew who's face was under that mask, and he was a young man who could use some expert teaching on how to best honor the Goddess.  She stepped out of the spiral and held out her hand to the young Horned God. He took her hand in both of his, knelt before her, and kissed her hand.  She signaled him to rise, and holding his hand led him out of the light into the moonswept darkness of the field.

Autumn Afternoon in the forest



The oak forest sits, still in the quiet fall afternoon,

A canopy of yellow brown leaves.



Suddenly, the dull fall leaves burst into a new dimension.

As the setting sun dips to an acute angle,

The treetops catch warm golden rays.



Light touches the leaves and gives them life.

Each leaf becomes radiant, glorious,

As if encrusted in diamonds.



The entire forest is transcendent.

It shines and dances

In the gentle touch of the setting sun.

reworking--from original, Nov 2008.

Wynton Marsalis: Blues Symphony
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, January 14, 2010
At Martin Luther King Auditorium, Morehouse College

Symphonic Music. Total immersion in glorious sound.
Dressing up. Sitting between mother and daughter
Flanked by father and son in law. Surrounded by hundreds.
Every seat filled. Every heart rapt. Everyone is family.
Beautiful, spare hall. Organ pipes in geometric harmony.
Rich rich sound filling the hall, filling the hearts.
Spano, with black shirt rolling and flowing
As he dances his direction.
Rhythms of America.
Bluesy horns, syncopation.
Washboards and whistles.
Hand claps and foot stomps
Written in the score.
New Orleans and New York.
Oh, the clarinet--wailing, crying.
Soul lifts as music moves from sorrow to joy.
Faces light up. Bodies want to dance.
The musicians having FUN with the music.
Celebrating humanity. Celebrating the uplifting
from mundane to sublime through
Glorious music.

When She Was Good……….

Yesterday Daphne, Phoebe, and I drove through beautiful south east TN to Blue Ridge, Georgia where we met Bobbi, Joe , Bruce, and Ellie and Tiny for breakfast and a 5.8 mile hike in the dog friendly mountains of north Georgia. Ellie and Bobbi are taking a dog training class, so Bobbi was full of wisdom regarding dog-think. After a bit of early walk shenanigans, I got Phoebe to more or less heel the entire hike. Ellie never did take to the idea. I believe her view was “I’ve been pulling Mom for eight years, surely this is the way things should be. Why would I want to walk behind her.” I did take advantage of my hounds pulling power during a long climb towards the end of the hike. I felt like a dog musher, just sailing up the mountain behind my two locomotives.

Bobbi was so impressed by Phoebe’s excellent behaviour, especially since our first hike together, in December, was cut short because I was exhausted trying to control Phoebe as well as Daphne. I, though, remembered, our big story this week, and recited Bobbi a rhyme from childhood:

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good,
She was very, very good
But when she was bad,
She was horrid.

Phoebe, a nine month old hound mix, has the wandering gene. Last month she escaped and was gone exactly one week before showing back up as if nothing were amiss. Happy, healthy, just the same Pheobe whose tail I had last seen a week previously running towards the far corner of the yard. After three weeks of lock down, she again escaped when I wasn’t careful enough about getting her in the door. She made a 180 degree turn out of my hand and bolted, again for the far corner.

My emotional state was better on this second Phoebe vacation. I adopted a “Que sera.” If she doesn’t want to live with me, she’ll have to find her own way. Daphne and I reverted to the pre-Phoebe life. A little quieter, emptier, but a good life.

Friday morning Daphne and I were in the living room when she started making a whining fuss. I opened the door to let her out and heard a dog crying in the distance. Daphne was quite concerned about it. I let Daphne free so she could follow the sound. I tracked behind her on the street. Daphne led me to a place where, when I looked up, I saw a shed building on the ridge, and a brown hound crying on the roof. Phoebe….. On a roof…..

A fence blocked my path, so I walked back to my house, picked up a leash, and then walked down the other street to approach the storage sheds on the back of the neighbor’s property. Phoebe was on a second story roof, but the shed had a single story area. I walked around the building, trying to find a way to get her. I also walked into the building (no doors, just lots of JUNK). I could see how she probably got on the roof. There were stacks of ummm stuff, that made a precarious ladder (certainly nothing I would climb, and apparently nothing Phoebe was willing to descend). Above the stacks there was a hole in the roof. Phoebe looked down at me through the hole, and cried some more.

I developed a plan. A tree grew beside the single story part of the building, and there were lots of tires lying around. I stacked three tires on rims next to the tree, and lay a couple rimless tires next to my pile. I hauled myself up the tires and leaned against the tree for balance. The roof hit me at mid chest. I reached up my arms and lured Phoebe to within grabbing range. It actually took her several attempts to get to me. She was afraid of the slope of the roof.

When I got a paw, I started sliding her to me. There was a good three inches of tree litter on the roof, and all of that slid with Phoebe, drowning me in dirt, leaves, and twigs. After a few seconds of firm pulling, resisted mightily by a frantic Phoebe, she slid enough that I could grab her shoulders and swing her off the roof to drop in the waiting tires. She bounced off the tires and galloped around ecstatically to celebrate with Daphne her release from the roof.

Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge

(photos with permission from Melinda Fawver)

The French Broad breathes a sigh as it exits the North Carolina mountains. It leaves off ripping through valleys, no more rocks, rapids, eddies. It meanders, easing its way along the valley floor on the way to join the Holston. Sometime in the early 1800’s a farming family followed the river out of the mountains and found a peninsula in one of the crooks of the French Broad, where some bumps in the land stick out into seven small islands in the water.

The land was tended by generations, but then life in America changed. The city of Knoxville was sprawling towards the peninsula, and farmers (or the children of famers) all around the peninsula sold their land to city people who built fine houses on the water front.

I don’t know how Knox County became the owner of this peninsula. But the county owns it, and has preserved it as a wildlife refuge. The hayfields are turning into meadows of native grasses, and birds come to winter. And people come to walk, to sit by the river, to let their children look through the old barns, to climb the hills and look out over the river, the seven islands, and across to the mountains.

Last summer I agreed to lead a hike scheduled for January 2009 for the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club at the Seven Islands. I had never heard of it, and had to research even how to get there. I enlisted my friend Rae, who remembered hiking there several years ago, and we found our way to the refuge, and spent a day scouting around, planning the hike we would lead in January. It was a gorgeous October day, and we had an excellent time, even though we made several bad route choices. That’s what scouting a hike is all about.

Yesterday, January 4, was the day of the scheduled hike. Rae had injured her back earlier in the week, so I was without a co-leader. The day dawned cool and gloomy. I met my friends Peggy and Julie in Maryville and we drove over to the rendezvous place on Asheville Highway. When we got out of the car we put on jackets while we checked in hikers, got everyone in a carpool, and headed the ten miles to Seven Islands.

Julie had to navigate from the back seat, to keep me following the green signs. I was hoping nobody remembered that I had said to turn left at the end of the interstate exit. At least I had said “south” towards the river, but it was a right turn. After that, Julie clearly announced upcoming turns when she spotted green signs. She’d figured out I wasn’t reliable. I did manage one serious navigation error. Just when we pulled into the lane that would lead to the Refuge, I turned down a wrong lane, followed by my four sheep. When that lane ended at a house, we all had to turn around and try again. Fortunately there was a wide turning spot, and it was only a quarter mile in.

Several hikers met us at the parking lot, and when all signed in, we had a group of twenty. I asked Mindy to sweep, and she graciously agreed. During the few minutes drive from Ashville Highway to Seven Islands, the weather made an abrupt change. The sky was cloudless, a warm sun beaming down. What happened to January? This is like October. I shucked my jacket, and was wishing I’d worn a lighter sweater, and brought sunscreen.

I herded us up, explained the general route plan and started up the hill. We quickly “summited” (if you can claim summiting a 200 foot hill), and enjoyed the views along the ridge line. When Rae and I scouted in the fall, we missed a pond marked on the map. In January, there was no trouble seeing the pretty pond. My excuse is that there was still enough leaf cover in October to block my view. We reached the “viewpoint,” and admired the distant mountains, and the islands in the river. Charlie noticed that if we went through the brush we would reach a place which was both higher and closer to the river, so we did a little “off-trail” (picking our way across tractor mown brambles and a little patch of woods) to the edge. Unfortunately, the hill was tree covered, so the view wasn’t that much improved.

The most difficult part of the hike was descending from the ridge to the bottom lands. The trails in the refuge are tractor paths mown in the grass. It must be a powerful tractor, because the path pretty much goes straight up the side of the hill. Those of us who maintain mountain trails were critiquing the trail design. It was muddy, slippery, and susceptible to wash out. The sad thing is, there was plenty of space for switchbacks, and that would have made both the walking easier, and been better for the land. Tim and I talked (only half jokingly) about writing to the county suggesting they make switchbacks.

Everyone safely navigated the descent, and we walked a short trail to the river. There was a small clearing with a bench at a bend in the river. The French Broad was full to the rim, and was ripping along. December’s rains are being carried out of the mountains. We made this beautiful spot our lunch stop. Alice told her story of how the French Broad got its name. She said French trappers followed a woman out of the mountains. Funny to hear that from this darling tiny 80ish woman.

The trail follows the river upstream to the point of the peninsula. There are some cliffs across the river, and at one point is a cave midway up and shaped just like an old fashioned key hole. Yellow stains come out of the cave and stain the cliff to the river. I announced that this was an old goldmine, and the yellow stain was residue gold. Tim improved on my tale, saying all the recent rains had opened up a new vein, and it was just pouring out.

We did see a few birds as we walked, but not as many as I hoped. I don’t think we had many “birders” with us. We just walked along, talking, marveling at the glorious January day. The trail turns back on itself after it rounds the point, and climbs a small hill to another ridgeline, perpendicular to our first ridge. We walked along this, enjoying the views across the meadows to the river. I was walking along with Alice when suddenly she was sprawled out flat on her face. I experienced a moment of terror, but then she said “I’m ok, I’m ok”, refused help, got herself back on her feet, dusted herself off, and took off again. What a woman. Alice’s trademark is her umbrella, which she uses as a sun shade. It is the prettiest site to see a beautiful old woman walking through a meadow, shading herself with an umbrella. She and I conjectured that it is because she hikes so often that she can take a fall and keep going. So many people her age would even be afraid to walk on rough ground for fear of falling and breaking bones.

The trail led to the “homestead,” and we walked right through the barn sheltering the monster tractor. At the homestead we descended to the paved lane and used it to walk the last quarter mile to the parking lot., just tired enough to know it had been a wonderful day.

Two takes on describing perceptions of a drive through the park, and thinking about the word "transcendent, " which came to my awareness listening to Colin Powell's best speech of his life.

Autumn afternoon in the forest

Your love brightens my heart
Like the sun setting on an October afternoon
dapples the golden leaves.

We are beautiful, those leaves and I
Until touched by that light, by that love.
Then we become transcendent.

No longer ordinary yellow leaves
We are glorious. We are golden.
We shine. We dance.
We glow. We are radiant.

We reach for the joyous touch
Of warming love, golden rays,
and become more than we are.


Autumn afternoon in the forest

The oak forest sits still in the quiet fall afternoon,
The canopy full of yellow brown leaves.
As the setting sun dips to an acute angle
The tree tops catch warm golden rays.

Suddenly, the dull fall leaves burst into a new dimension.
They transcend yellow.
They transcend leaves.

The light touches the leaves and gives them life.
Each leaf becomes radiant, glorious
As if encrusted in diamonds.
The entire forest shines and dances
In the gentle touch of the setting sun.