Winter's Edge

The water that poured out from the marsh, onto the trail, and had overlaid a part of the pathway there with a silvery-blue coating. Mixed in with the water were twigs and leaves. Then the air cooled overnight. The next day, a thin shell of ice formed on the surface of the overflow, reshaping the forms that were transfixed beneath. A leaf had become like a oyster shell, giving birth to pearls of lustrous bubbles along its graceful curve; the small twigs poked up like trees that had been laid low by a flood; and a broken space, where the thin crust of ice formed a hole, was like a cave where a subterranean river ran, noiseless to the air above-- all as though instrument and music played on the Winter's edge, still undecided which way the weather might go. The next day the ice shapes had retreated, melting back into water, changing mystery into leaves and twigs again there on the wet asphalt trail.

Where Two Rivers Meet

The snow has been delayed across the river plain. Even the heights of the peaks have just a touch. However, this fact is good fortune for me, who now can roam over the huge tract a mile wide. From the bluffs 135 feet above this scene, I look out to the beginnings of the Mckinley Range, and to the smaller hills along its front. The tailings of a glacier are also there, flowing through the rock gates that open to the foothills beneath-- to the flatlands and rivers,and to the sandbars and shipwrecks of wood debris. The cold sunlight spreads over the brittle ice, into the frozen tracks of bears that now have left, and onto the gravel shores of an inland sea, where two rivers pour.

The climb down from the bluffs is a story of gravity. Once you step off the ridge, there is only the feeling of being drawn downwards through the shrubs and trees, and then onto the scarred slope of frozen mud and rock. Usually, the looseness of the piled material yields a foothold to the step; now however, the frozen surface is hard and my boots only skid along downwards. Unscratched, I finally reach the mud hole at the bottom. In this hollowed remains of a vanished stream, tracks are still frozen like some Ice Age catastrophe had swallowed up the beasts. But it won't be me. I circle around and head off for the river. From here, it looks like a thin blue line beneath the hill and opposite shore.

I put on another layer of clothes, covering my hands and head, insulating myself from the wind that blows from the north. Down river the dust kicks up over the open plain. I move more rapidly now. In front of me the ground is varied: with rocks, frozen mud, sand, and matted areas of dried up plants. I keep moving, stepping on the easy ground, and in twenty minutes I am there. The sound of water is more robust and alive at this divide, where two rivers become the meeting place, where rocks and trees and silt combine. In this place, water and land perform a dance, whose steps are the days which begin and end in seasonal change; where after each new flood, the captured remains are swept off until the waters recede once more.

The Way to the Sun

Here, on the edge of a swamp, the first hint of a visual pathway lay across the open area in front. I stopped and stood awhile, wondered how it could be, through all this blankness of grasses and black spruce, that another adventure waited. The earth was half sunk in the muck, but my eyes did not stop to complain. A long row of Cottonwood , strung in colored rows, walled in the land around. And in-between the tree tops and the milky sky, the white painted hills were mostly hidden, and floated calmly on a cushion of air. They seemed lost in soft repose, as though to keep me from wandering there.

Yet, the slow climb to the sky had started. Inside the confusion of the rust red field, through the tall tan grasses, I struggled to find a route. My eyes moved up a bend of a graceful stalk, and danced along its curving top. This lead to a tangled thread of jungle beyond; inside of which, the broken branches and dead tops slowed the movement down. But a climb up through the limbs revealed a window of space. Here, the scene opened up to the hills beyond. I was airborne at last, to breach the wall that had held me fast. The earth bound part of me was left behind.

The sky was bright, and the world was as wide as the imagination could find. The center of interest had changed; this little piece of earth, where the journey had started, was just one of many places to see. For once one way was known, the search for new lines was sure to follow, leading on to altered sights, fresh with mystery. And within the mind, a new beginning had dawned with a question: how far could the mind travel and still return? And where did me and the world begin and end? The ridge was a bridge that angled up and stopped above the valley. From here a opening lead through a pass, before dropping down into the borderlands beyond--my mind had traveled many miles from where the journey had begun, and I had reached a condition of reverie, as though warmed in the heat of a summer sun.

The Bridge of Chance

The Autumn leaves have been freed from their anchorages, to float down or travel by wind to new places. Most of the ground is thick carpeted now. Nearby, a light rain draws circles in the little stream where the flat water becomes a grey-green canvas. And the sky shows through now that the cover is gone. Storm waves toss about on a sea of upper air, dark against the light touches below. But the day has much to share along the leaf-carpeted trail. Down near the stream I venture along its sides, watching the ripples and reflections like some movie show. Three teenagers, black clothed, come by and stand for a moment like me. I wonder what they see, how they feel. But soon they leave. Then I spot a curious sight. A leaf is frozen in space, as thought floating along the side of a tree. What could catch a leaf and hold it in the air? The yellow surface seems so scratched with tiny lines. And behind it, the small white dashes of the birch tree form a background. Then I see the sharp daggered tip of a wooden spear. It holds the leaf suspended. I then know, that even the softness of a leaf can be caught if the conditions are right. These chance encounters are many if looked for carefully. And in looking around, I do find other examples of caught leaves; some have holes that catch upon a small twig or hang in the branches--on things that catch. But the leaf has something else--a small insect wanders over the bridge of stem, making its way to the tree. It has a blue body with orange legs, and a long antennae. I wonder how has it come to be in this quiet woods, that these things have found me? I suppose this is one of those moments where a chance meeting converges into a happening. The surprise delights me, as though I had discovered a rare treasure out here in the rain.

Stepping off the Line

An asphalt trail brings people here, but they never stop to listen. Some are busy chatting or bicycling through; others like shadows carry their sorrows, vanishing around the bend. But I just take my time, eyes lifted to the sky. Then, stepping off the trail, I head off into the grass and black spruce for a better view. "Don't they know,"I thought, "that this day shall never come again or give its treasures to them?"Somehow, an unwritten rule for city people keeps them on the solid ground, because they must feel the woods and fields are places haunted by vagrants and animals. But I suppose I don't mind. The moments are too precious to waste, too fleeting to ignore, so like a bee I gather the honeyed moments from the leftovers of the summer tide.In timeless mystery, the wonders are beheld. And here, the undivided love of life is like a flame, viewed through a narrow window: of the gentle sweep of leaves passing through the air, sparkling in the sun; of the furtive movements of a stream and curling pathways hidden in the grasses; of the crumpled stalks of withered parsnips, whose seeds now lie in sleep upon the ground. Still, I don't mind, because I feel I'm a part of it all, not some intruder lacking eyes to see. Time returns, and the soft-bottomed clouds drifting overhead, blurred in the haze of afternoon, can only pass away, leaving me a gift or two. And in stepping off the line, I find the wholeness more real than the edge of dreams we call our own.

Ripples

Under the Awning of Fall, solitary, with golden streams silently dispatched into space, I walked and shared an hour. Wandering, perhaps I could glimpse a tiny corner of this day, further from human law, outside in the greater Halls, a place where beauty and chance encounters are found. And so, on the side of a tiny stream, inside the leafy screen of yellow and red, the gentle touch of raindrops played upon the flow. I stood awhile, watched as ripples formed, each taking turns in being born. Each successive drop of rain etched new patterns on the flat surface of water. All were different, yet the same in their origin; Inside each ripple's center was quiet, while the waves expanded outwards and then dissolved. Odd assortments of leaves hugged the sides of the bank and the smells of earth was most distinct. Yet all was in a flux, as another season of time had come.

Seeing the Mountain

Tucked in small corners, hidden from the road, the portals of chance sometimes open to inquiry new scenic views. And I had found one of many such places. Rather than using the tourist looking glass, I prefer exploring a place and finding more than just a look. That's right, many people just look, then keep going, never knowing what they've missed. "Oh look, there's Mt. Mckinley! Ok, take a picture quick, because we have to be at the campground ( babysat by Park Hosts) before ten" They usually have a book or pamphlet or slick brochure ( with lots of advertisements); someone has printed a glossy brochure telling the adventure group what to do, what to see, what to think and what to feel. Soon, a whole tribe of followers crashes in to specially developed sites along the highway. They take their city manners and their comfort-loving minds to bag more miles and names of places, only to return unchanged. But the secret really is this: we have to learn to SEE, to FEEL, and to KNOW by our own questioning and sensing and searching; not by going over the same old ground. But people don't have to leave the road to experience the depths of wonder.

They only have to throw out the demands of other voices; ones that live in preconceptions--they have to learn to see like a child again. While fishing for trout one day, I stopped along the river to rest and eat. The magnificence of high peaks and the silty flow of the river loomed up large and real. But as I "looked" about ( I am guilty too!), the attraction suddenly shifted to a tiny window of sight. On the far side of the gold-streaked hills, a range of mountains, barely visible behind a shrinking line of hill, a light blue edge of a glacier had formed in a niche of a mountain. I had not really examined this place before. Since the larger strokes of the McKinley Range shut out the delicate tracings of other less imposing views, not paying deeper attention robbed me of another experience. Soon I was looking closer with my binoculars, glassing from side to side, up and back over the rock faces, cracks, avalanche chutes, furtive hills, and the glacier half hidden in a deeper valley. My eyes wandered, slowed in passing over each new form while weaving together the lines of the ridges, shapes of the foreground all the way back to the upper sky. Soon the effects of light and shadow, as well as the dynamics of rhythms and relationships became a visual dialog. Then I imagined that I was up there looking back to where I now sat. Now way up high or on a glacier below a thousand foot slab, feeling the icy blast of wind, the power of Seeing felt good. My mind took wing, soaring around the basin of glacial time, watching the Past to the Present move like a frame of pictures over the ten thousand years of changes. I became a mountaineer, finding the best line of approach to climb each section of rock. I even built an imaginary road to cross the river, ascend the hills to a higher viewpoint for a better location, then rafted down the river back to where I now sat. This I knew was just the beginning of Seeing. The rest would come with practice, in finding new pathways leading from the obvious to the unknown.