Songs and Secrets

“Thunder of the sky, thunder of the drums, thunder of the falls. A timeless song cycle…Here water sings a deep-voiced travel song.”

—Sign at Koosah Falls, McKenzie River, Oregon

 Koosah Falls, McKenzie River, Oregon

Ironic that we took off for tall timber to escape the fourth of July fireworks only to arrive home to the tune of, “Pop, pop pop.”

We fixed it though, while our little dog, Sweetpea, our motivation for running away, hid under the bed, we turned on the movie Jurassic Part III and the screaming, roaring and chomping drowned out the snap, crackle and pop that was happening  outside.

We had intended to be out past fireworks time, but by 10 o’clock we were ready to be home. We had spent the day out the McKenzie River area, visiting waterfalls, rowing a boat on Clear Lake, and having a picnic with daughter number one and her family by the lake.

Sweetpea has developed a fear of loud noises, so husband dear and I decided to escape the 4^th of July and go to the forest. 

 Did you know that fireworks are verboten in the National Forests of Oregon?  However,  the one cabin I could find that I wanted, was only available on the 3^rd . so we took it.

What fun. Sweetpea provided the motivation. And daughter dear had given us a remedy for Sweetpea that seemed to make her better.

I have mentioned that both husband and I grew up in Oregon, but on the dry side of the Cascade Mountains. When we first visited Oregon west of the Cascades, (And we settled here)  I thought I hadn’t seen Oregon until I saw the McKenzie River.

Years ago we visited McKenzie bridge where The Log Cabin Inn had a long history of being a stagecoach stop, and where at that time it was a restaurant where they served wonderful food, and delicious Oregon berry cobblers.

Alas during our time away from Oregon the Log Cabin Inn burned to the ground. And what was once rustic cabins alongside it, are now replaced with exquisite houses, called cabins, that are for rent, at a goodly price, and will sleep 12 . Not what we wanted.

However,  across the street, from what used to be the Log Cabin Inn, is a small convenience.grocery store, and within that store is The Obsidian Grill. You wouldn’t believe how good their food is.  “Fresh ingredients,” they say. It makes a difference, attention to detail. Salad fresh, crisp, and the blacked chicken sandwich, on an artisan bun, bacon, peppers, red cabbage coleslaw, I don’t know what all. Mine was perfect.

Husband dear had pulled pork, that he loved.  Behind the grill existed a large area, partly covered, partly open, mulched with bark, and littered with picnic tables. There you could while away the hours, or eat and run. A movie screen was set up, but the movies hadn’t begun yet. But what a great idea.

 That was our destination this fourth of July, and our cabin within blocks of it.

 Our cabin in the woods 

where we shared champagne with friendly neighbors from Bend.

The Mighty McKenzie River

 Sweetpea's path

Look down

Look straight ahead

Look up

If you travel on up the McKenzie, you will find roaring, turbulent waterfalls, and farther on you will come to Clear Lake. Three thousand years ago the lake was formed by a volcanic eruption that damned up the river and created the lake. The water drains from the lake forming the McKenzie. The headwaters of the McKenzie collects above the lake from snow melt from the Three Sisters Mountains.

The McKenzie is the only tributary to the Willamette River that doesn’t have an Indian name. Phooey. It has a trapper/explorer’s name.

No motor boats are allowed on the lake, but they rent rowboats, and Daughter number one, grandson, Sweetpea and I took advantage of their offer. We took turns rowing and wove our way  out onto the beautiful lake. Along the shores we could see little white butts in the air as Canadian geese struggled to feed on the underwater plant life while their floatation devices struggled to keep them afloat.

 Clear Lake dock

  Look who decided to join us.

Sahalie Falls

                                         Wall built by the CCC, 1933-1942

And finally, on the way home, a photo of a wall that formed the entrance to Sahalie Falls built by the CCC--The Civilian Conservation Corps 1933-1942. Look at the precision of the rock work. Franklin D. Roosevelt, long interested in conservation, created the CCC to relieve families who had difficulty finding work during the great depression. One of Roosevelt's most successful New Deals, this one gave men food, shelter, clothing and a wage of $30 per month, $25 of which they had to send home to their families.  (In 1970 this wage was equivalent to $570.)

Visit Timberline Lodge, sometimes, and there you will find exquisite carvings decorating the banisters created by the CCC.

It ’s estimated that some 57,000 illiterate men learned to read and write in CCC camps.

Thou

“The best things can’t be told—because they transcend thought.” –Joseph Campbell

Although I have always been a nature lover, I am becoming even more appreciative as time goes by.

Every blade of grass is sacred, the leaves, the flowers that are so abundant here in the spring and summer –all of it. It can suck up your breath and bring sparklers to your eyes.

Joseph Campell speaks of viewing the world as thou, instead of it.

Thou, meaning we are a part of it all, no better, no worse. Many native cultures view the world as he described—as thou. Not it. The animals were even superior to him, not something to be taken from and discarded. The animal meant life. They had powers he didn’t have. He hunted, yes, but out of necessity. He killed, yes, out of necessity, and archeologists have found burial sites where the animal’s bones were buried in a ceremonial fashion, as though preparing it for its next life, the same as they did with their fellow humans. They planned that the animal, as the human, would keep on living.

Buffalo slaughters saw the animals as it, to be used, destroyed and decimated, not honored. It was a sacrilege.

I grew up in The Dalles Oregon, on the other side of the rain shadow of Oregon, and although the springs were beautiful, in the summer all areas not irrigated became quite barren and dry. The dominant color being that of straw.

Perhaps that set me up for loving green so much. When my family and I visited the Western side of the  Cascade range,  where the rains come, and I saw green dripping from every available surface, I was in heaven. Heaven, to me, always has to be green.

As a young person of twelve or thirteen, I discovered heaven one particular spring day outside my home town of The Dalles, before the straw had descended.

I had ridden my horse down an unknown road and came to a gate. I opened the gate and almost lost my horse while closing the gate. He was so eager to enter heaven he took off.  He was used to living on a hill, so an open space meant time for a good run. But he stopped and waited for me, and together we traveled down a road through an open prairie. Later in the year this area would become dry, but this was spring and water had collected in shallow pools, and the area was green, and ablaze with wildflowers.  A pair of ducks sprang from the water as I came upon them unexpectedly.

As you approach The Dalles via the freeway, and look not at the Columbia River, but to the other side, you will see bluffs from the road. The top of these bluffs is flat,  a mesa, and at the very top of the bluff are caves you can see from the road. They are called Eagle's caves, and the area I found was behind those caves and across the expanse of flat land atop the hill. I didn’t know where I was that day as I had entered from way behind the caves, from a country road. 

It was a one-time event, never to be witnessed again.

One of those moments of childhood you experience only with your horse.

Spark

This morning I beat the heat out of the house so my little dog Sweetpea could go with me.

We drove to Coburg Oregon (a quaint little town, known for its antiques), but I wasn’t there for its antiques, I was there for plants. Johnson’s Nursery, one of the largest in the vicinity, exists right outside the town. A couple of weeks ago I had, with my grandson, seen a half dozen evergreen Clematis vines, and thought that one would look good on the arbor that with a little luck will, sometime in the future, exist in our front yard.

Only one of the large evergreen Chemantis that I wanted, was left. I debated. It cost the price of a half dozen plants, so I moved on down the line and stopped at male Kiwi plant. It was lovely. They vine, it would go over the arbor--but male, “For pollinating use only,” it said. So I looked for a female Kiwi companion

And found one.

I  put her aside and then questioned if she was the best one and pulled out another.

 I felt a deep sadness coming from the first.  

 I felt so bad I had rejected the one who chose me, that I set back the second plant, and bought the first--along with her pollinating companion, of course.

I’ve been doing a lot of communing with plants this summer, planting, talking to them, watching the garden grow, sitting under the tree in the backyard. I'm sure your have noticed how every single leaf arranges itself to make maximum use of the sunlight. Yes, but isn't it magnificent? One day I watched the leaves of the tree sway with the breeze. All swayed but one single leaf. That leaf that was doing a Sufi dance—spinning like a child’s windmill —dancing to the tune of the wind.

Last night I listened to Joseph Campbell—the real Hero with a Thousand Faces guy interviewed by Bill Moyers on Netflix. 

Campbell described what scientists would describe as phototropism where a plant turns its head to follow the sun.

He described that as having consciousness.

In college, they had a long lengthy explanation that describes that phenomenon of the plant turning toward the sun. Chemicals called auxims, cause cells to elongate on the side farthest from the light—they create proton pumps which decrease the PH in the cells on the dark side of the plant, then there are enzymes that break down the cell wall structure so the plant can turn. Or some say there are motor cells that shrink or enlarge as they absorb water.

Whew!

Someone, somewhere, could describe almost every aspect of our lives, too, as a chemical reaction,  enzymes, hormones, stimulus-response, built in DNA coding, those sorts of physical, chemical processes.

However, we aren’t  limited by the descriptions placed on us.

We have a consciousness, and according to Campbell, so do plants.

No one has yet to determine the “Spark of Life.”