I Have Traveled a Good Deal in Wonderland

          My sister Laura Martin blogs at naturebasedblog.com. Last week she wrote about not being able to travel with her husband this year, as they had planned, so she took a trip around her own yard instead. It's like Thoreau saying he had "travelled a good deal in Concord." Laura's pictures inspired me to take a little journey around my own land, which I call Wonderland, and see what I could see.

In the garden, the echinacea was eye-catchingly beautiful.

A rose on the fence had a delicate beauty.

 Even the lowly zucchini was worthy of a tourist's glance.

Outside the garden I found wilder beauties: milkweed under the apple tree 

chicory in the field

grapes dangling on low-lying Oregon grape bushes.

There was also bear scat under the apple tree. Maybe it doesn't make a beautiful picture, but no tourist would pass the opportunity to prove such proximity to a bear!

But it isn't the garden or the wildflowers but the woods that make Wonderland a wonderland—just simply the trees.

I found other beauties of pattern and texture.

and a touch of art in the Zen garden.

At the end of my journey, back at the house, impatiens greeted me with exotic color,

and the mountain, as always, gave the final blessing on my travels around Wonderland.

Ritual for Mike in the Red Buttes Wilderness

         After Mike died, I thought immediately that I wanted to swim in a mountain lake, but until recently weather and circumstances prevented that swim. Then my son, Ela, came down from Washington state to visit and hiked with me to a small lake in the Red Buttes Wilderness Area, a favorite destination during his childhood and one of my favorite places in the world, a lake that will remain nameless here to help preserve its pristine nature and the solitude that is more and more rare there.

          From the beginning of the trail, where phlox massed the shady forest floor with deep pink blossoms,

All photos by Ela Lamblin

to the meadows of paintbrush, lomatium, penstemon, Oregon sunshine, and many other flowers, the wildflowers were as rich and vibrant as they had been the year before, when Mike and I  hiked this trail. This time I counted fifty-four different kinds of wildflowers. The weather was perfect for hiking, and the views—snowy Mt. Shasta rising over the dark green forests of the Seiad Valley, sections of fire-blackened trunks rising through green undergrowth in a striped pattern with still-green forests, the stony red peaks of the Red Buttes—were stunning.

          After walking for two and a half hours, we climbed over the rocks just before the lake itself.

Bear grass and azaleas with the lake, center, in the distance.

Then it lay before us, small and round, deep blue, lined on one side with pastel-red rocks and on the other with white-blooming azaleas, interspersed with plumes of bear grass, in thick green shrubs under the looming red cliff of Kangaroo Mountain. 

          I swam with my head above water so I could breathe the azalea-perfumed air and keep the mountain in sight. The cold blue water was the balm I was wanting. I swam around and around and around. Then I swam close to shore and asked Ela to meet me on the far side of the lake with my towel and the vial of Mike's ashes.

Swimming. The ritual was under the tree just to the right of center in photo.

          Sitting with Ela on the red rocks above the lake, under a large Jeffrey pine tree, I began this ritual with one of the poems I had written after Mike died, called "Cut." It ends with these words:

                    And oh, my heart, my heart

                    sliced open with grief's keen edge

                    on what altar can I lay you down?

                    Where find cure for such cruel cut?

As I looked at the lake and mountains in front of me, I realized that there was the altar on which I had laid my heart, that the hike, the swim, the presence of such beauty, and the companionship of my son were the cure for such grief. With that thought I thanked Mike for all he had given me in our life together, blessed his presence in this place, and released his ashes into the air towards the lake. 

          Ela said a few words to and on behalf of Mike, expressing regret that he hadn't known him better (as so many of my friends have said) and speaking about his strength of character and good nature. Then Ela tossed the last fine-dust ashes into the air.

          We hiked back at a faster pace. Mt. Shasta shimmered on the horizon. My body felt fresh and alive from the swim and the walking. My spirit was calmed by the ritual. I was at peace.

       

Garden Ceremony for Mike

          The next ceremony for Mike's ashes, after the spontaneous ritual I did at Azalea Lake (see post on June 21, 2020), was with four of my closest women friends, in my garden, where the flowers were blooming yellow and lavender, and the lettuces, peas, and broccoli were flourishing. I seated us six feet apart, as much in the shade of the apple tree as I could get us. I had bought a rose bush for each guest to plant in a pot of soil in which she would incorporate some of Mike's ashes and had asked each friend to bring something to contribute to the ritual.

          Janet, Mike's and my yoga instructor, went first.

She told stories from yoga class about Mike, a novice to yoga, emphasizing his tenacity and willingness to do poses that were difficult for him. Then she read a quote from Pema Chödron, one of her favorite Buddhist writers: "To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest." (Oh, yes, I thought: as I have been by losing Mike). She planted the Royal Dane rose, which later graced me with a beautiful pink-orange blossom.

         Tracy was next.

She talked about being impressed with Mike's intelligence the first time she met him and with the way he was able to "keep up with" me, meaning also the physical activities we so enjoyed together (hiking and skiing). She played a YouTube rendition of Leonard Cohen's "If It Be Your Will" that started my tears flowing (but it was an appropriate time for tears!). Tracy planted the Ginger Syllabub rose.

          Kate talked about seeing me turn down other men during the years she has known me (that made me laugh!) and then watching me fall for Mike.

She sang "Spring and Summer," from John Denver's "Season Suite," as a reminder for me that I will find Mike in all of nature. The rose Kate chose to plant was the Rock Star.

          Joan was next.

She talked about the long friendship she and I have shared and what a joy it was to welcome Mike into my life. She read a poem about Mike she had written that morning and planted the Champagne Cocktail rose.

          Then it was my turn. Before reading my poem, "Arcs of Grief and Love," I explained what chiasmus was (the arcing patterns of this poem: references to me at each end of a line with two references to Mike within that arc, as in the first line, "My love could not conquer your cancer, and your illness could not succumb to my tenderness"). Then I read the poem and talked about what Mike had meant to me and how much I will miss him, repeating what I have said many times: Mike was the best companion I have ever had. I enriched the soil of the Dame de Coeur rose with a good bit of Mike's ashes and a splash of my tears before planting it.

          After the ritual we moved from the garden to the deck of the house, where my flower boxes  of petunias, lobelia, cosmos, and impatiens provided rich color and joy. For lunch I served the dinner Mike always prepared after yoga class: crackers with a variety of good cheeses, and fruit with yogurt. My good friends ate, talked, and laughed with me before exchanging air hugs and going on their way.

          I tend my roses carefully. They are doing well.

Royal Dane rose, first bloom

                    

               

Six Helpful People

            Earlier this week I drove 12 miles up a gravel road to Greenstone trailhead for a seven-mile hike on the Jack-Ash trail. The trail, new to me, was stunningly beautiful, with glorious long views of the Siskiyou Crest and unending displays of flowers. I strewed Mike’s ashes over the flowers overlooking that view.

            It was late afternoon when I drove the 12 miles of gravel road back down the mountain. Just before I reached the paved road, my car started making a horrendous metal-grinding sound. I stopped immediately, then tried driving again, then stopped again in alarm. Clearly I shouldn't be driving the car. I pulled to the side of the road to call AAA. 

          No cell service. 

          I had friends who lived a mile down the road, so I started towards their house for help, but when I passed a house, up the hill from the road, with some people in the yard, I called up to them: “Hello! Can you help me?”

         A man and two young girls came walking down the driveway towards me. I courteously put on my mask and explained my situation. They immediately jumped into help-thy-neighbor mode, becoming, cumulatively, Helpful Person number 1.

          The girls, Allie and Caitlin, told me the names of the goats and the dog as we walked up to the house and assured me that the dog was so friendly he would want to lick my face. At the house, their grandfather, Jim, handed me a cordless phone. Allie showed me how to use it.

            I had a momentary second scare when the AAA telephone person said the member number I gave wasn’t valid. I was afraid I had forgotten to renew my membership, but then she looked me up by name instead (becoming Helpful Person number 2, since she could have just sent me packing). When she verified that I was certainly a member, she said she would send me a tow truck but since I couldn’t ride in the cab with the driver (COVID-19), could I find a ride with someone? 

            The first person I called didn't pick up the phone because she didn't recognize the number. The next person picked up when she heard my voice and said she would meet me when the tow truck got there, in about an hour and a half. Helpful Person number 3.

          With many grateful thanks to Helpful Person number 1, who had acted like I was the person who should be thanked for giving them an opportunity to be helpful, I walked back to my car. The tow truck arrived within an hour. 

            The driver loaded the car, then waited with me, qualifying himself as Helpful Person number 4, till Kate, Helpful Person number 3, came. Then we all drove to Mike’s house, where I would leave the car and spend the night, since it was too late to go to the mechanic's that afternoon. 

          I had visions of the car being at the mechanic's for no telling how long, my having to rent a car in the meantime, money pouring out of my pocket.

           That's not how the story spun because when the tow truck stopped in front of Mike's house, Mike's super-helpful neighbor, Simon, came running out to see if he could help. He said he would take a look at the car after dinner. He said his wife was making burritos; did I want one? 

            He brought me a burrito from Helpful Person number 5, his wife, Debbie. He put WD40 on the front-door lock for me because he had seen me having trouble with it, then took a look at the car. He drove it fifty feet. Debbie, Helpful Person number 5, said the noise sounded like a rock in the brake pads. Simon agreed. He told me I should drive the car ten blocks to Les Schwab in the morning. Simon was a very big Helpful Person (number 6).

            The next morning the folks at Les Schwab took the rock out of the brakes and sent me on my way. They, of course, were helpful people, too, but they were, courteously and helpfully, just doing their job. All the other helpful people in this story were being helpful just because they wanted to be kind to someone in need.

          May we all always do the same.

Bone of Your Bone

Bone of your bone

Fire of your blood

Ash of your flesh

     Next week I will have a small ceremony at my house to scatter some of Mike's ashes in a new rose bed. This summer his daughter and I will hike the East Applegate Ridge Trail, which Mike and I helped build, to scatter more of his ashes there. And a friend I've been hiking with lately suggested that whenever I hike, I carry a small vial of ashes with me to scatter in a beautiful place.

          With that idea in mind, I did the twelve-mile hike to Azalea Lake yesterday, carrying a small vial of Mike's ashes with me. I was alone at the lake. The azaleas had already started to bloom. An occasional fish broke the surface of the water with a small plop. I took off my clothes and swam.

Bone of your bone

Fire of your blood

Ash of your flesh

          I swam to the middle of the lake, then stood upright, treading water, looking at the mountains around me, the burned-out forest with its lush undergrowth of greenery, in which shone hundreds of white plumes of bear grass. Suddenly, out of the anguish of missing Mike, I called for him—"Mi-i-i-ke!"—throwing my voice into the mountain, which tossed the name back to me. I spun slowly in the water, then shouted his name again, to the Red Buttes in the distance; then spun, then cried for him a third time, to the blue sky with its white clouds, and spun slowly again.

         I swam the rest of the way across the lake. On the way back, I dove underwater and shouted Mike's name, burbling it three times through the water: for the fish, for the newts, for the frogs.

          When I emerged, I bent close to the ground and whispered his name to the azaleas, to the bees, to the thin blue dragonflies.

Bone of your bone

Fire of your blood

Ash of your flesh

         A young osprey splashed into the lake for a fish and flew away, empty-fisted.

         I stood with the vial of ashes at the edge of the lake, my back to the water and to the wind, facing the mountain. On the first hike Mike and I made to Azalea Lake, I had felt the seed of love opening as I saw how easy it was to be with him, how much we had in common, how much I liked him. Now I would honor this place with his ashes. With a sweep of my arm I threw Mike's ashes into the air, where they dissolved on the wind. 

Bone of your bone

Fire of your blood

Ash of your flesh

Feeding the Soul with Flowers

Bear grass. (All photos
by Stacey Romney)

          With its foam-like spikes of tightly packed, tiny blossoms, bear grass is the whitest, fuzziest, most majestic flower in the wild kingdom, in my opinion.

         Bear grass grows throughout the Pacific Northwest, but the best display in the Applegate is on the Cameron Meadows-Frog Pond loop trail, which is steep (2165-foot elevation gain in two miles) but a great trail for wildflowers in general, to say nothing of its trunk-dominated forest with the vastness of spaces between. If you catch the wild rhododendrons at just the right moment, they'll be tumbling down the hillside with large, pink, bulging blossoms. If you're too late in the spring for the best rhododendron display, you might be just in time for the tiger

Cinquefoil

lilies, drooping their orange heads in modest acknowledgment of their superior beauty. Beyond the tiger lilies, in the next of the series of Cameron meadows, at the right time of year the masses of wildflowers make a painterly display of yellow cinquefoil, red columbine, yellow groundsel, white yarrow, purple Larkspur, and red Indian paintbrush, none of which filled that meadow yesterday, when my hiking partner, Stacey, and I climbed the Cameron Meadows trail. The rhododendrons were just beginning to bloom, but the grasses in the meadows were lush and thick, and the cinquefoil was in its prime.

Cameron Meadows pond

          That the meadows were green, the ponds full, the flowers beautiful, the birds vocal, and the weather neither too hot nor too chilly already set an atmosphere for a great hike, but it was the bear grass that turned yesterday's hike into a walk through Eden.

          At the top of the trail, in the woods around the meadows, the bear grass began appearing with stunning strength. Around the trunks of the big firs and cedars, tall stems of bear grass, with their thickly clustered, plump balls or oblongs of tiny white flowers, each with its nipple of buds, rose up through the greenery. As we descended from Frog Pond, we became enveloped in bear grass on both sides of the trail, streaming up the mountain on one side and down it

on the other as far as we could see. For more than a mile we walked through this magic. The soft white flowers were so abundant their usually indistinguishable fragrance sweetened the air.

          To see a bear ambling through the big trees, or as I saw once on this same trail, climbing backwards down a madrone tree after a meal of berries, or to catch sight of a bobcat scooting across the trail, a fawn lying in a thicket, a herd of elk thundering past, or, my most exciting wildlife sighting on a hike, a wolverine nosing through a meadow is to feel privileged at witnessing the natural world in its ecological totality: wildlife in its habitat, just doing what it's doing, going about life, oblivious of human beings. It provides a thrill of gratitude to have been included, for a rare and fleeting moment, in that animal's existence. That's the way it was with the bear grass yesterday. To witness this mega bloom, this beauty, this rarity of abundance was as unique and soul-fulfilling as religious ecstasy.

What Kind of Place Is the United States Today?

          I have a friend, a New Zealander, who said to me in an email a few days ago, "What a horrible place the States are."

          "Oh, no, no!" I wanted to cry, thinking of all the beautiful places I know, all the good people, and all the wonderful things about the country I live in. But I wondered uneasily if he were right, if my country is a horrible place these days. 

         I can't bear the thought.

         But if one's country is in the leadership hands of an incompetent, ego-maniacal, misogynistic, racist, calculating, environment-destroying, and power-thirsty madman, will it turn into a horrible place? Will bad people be emboldened to overcome the good? If good people peacefully protest evil deeds, as is their right, only to be overwhelmed by thugs and people with hate in their hearts intent only on destruction, is it a good place to live? Was it ever a good place to live for many of those peaceful protestors? Is it a good place to live where hatred of a person for being dark-skinned or otherwise different (but each of us is different in one way or another!) instigates murder? Is it a good place to live where racism is systemic (how I hate to face up to that truth, since all around me I see acceptance of all differences)? 

          The United States was once a beautiful place, for me and for many of us. When it becomes that again, I hope it is for all its people. I have faith that it will be, in spite of the evidence of this past week. But today, the violence in our cities, the large numbers of COVID-19 deaths, the cruel murder of George Floyd, and the continuing idiocy and worse coming from the White House overwhelm me. I am saddened and appalled by the death and destruction in my country, the horrible place it seems to have become. 

          To change it, vote. To change it, make sure everyone you know votes because I have faith that more people would like to see this kind of change than want to keep things as they are.

Death, Thou Art Proud, These Days

by Diana Coogle

These days Death is laughing in the face of old John Donne,

strutting down the street with his best buddies,

Violence, hanging on one arm, and Pestilence, on the other.

All three drunkenly reel with the success of their fun:

home runs in every city, tens off the diving board,

touchdowns on every field (but the crowds are not cheering).

Hatred, that snarling hound, nips at the heels of Violence

and chases every squirrel and timid chipmunk he can find.

Swaggering in hard iron boots, stringy Pestilence,

who, unlike buff-built Violence, is all skin and bones,

strikes lightning-scary sparks off the pavement stones.

Sporadically he throws in the air, like confetti,

the worms that do his work, letting them fall where they will.

Death watches with greedy, beady eyes, eager to go in for the kill.

The three of them strut through America's streets,

Tin Pan Alley, Main Street, Fifth Avenue, the Lower 9th Ward,

a despicable trio of misery and destruction.

Death is laughing the longest and the loudest,

for he knows he dies only in John Donne's imagination.

It's not Death but his buddies we should be going after.

Get the worms! Without the worms, Pestilence

shrinks into a harmless wandering ghost.

Destroy the dog! Or, better, tame it into a loving clone.

Without Hatred at his heels, Violence would slink away. 

Without Pestilence and Violence, Death would mind

his own business-as-usual, sometimes bitter, sometimes kind.