Summer Green | Coyote's Game | The Wake | Paddle on the Left | LBB's Water Park | Washing Words Clean
July '23, Mast Year Almanac
Summer Green
Below the 39th parallel where the July days shamble feverishly forward, Summer Green — alone is willing-vassal to the endless day. So speak no ill of that blistering, blinding sun, not even a whisper. For there is no house Summer Green hasn't infiltrated, and no sterile cell where its seeds haven't wafted-in upon the breeze to sprout countless ears from every crack. We mustn't speak, only point — discretely, with signs first conjured in cold, dark, frozen lands. Or if we must speak, then let it be with the strange, harsh, foreign tongues of the bitter wastes. Thus, we avoid the wrath of the over-growing, over-taking, over-whelming Summer Green . . . until the sun migrates south again with Summer Green in hot pursuit leaving us to relax our guard at last and await cold, quiet, peaceful Winter Gray.
Coyote’s Game
There’s a remarkable shift in mental state between who you are when you pull your car in to the entrance to the “natural area”, and who you are 15 minutes down the trail.
Have you felt this? The destination mindset evaporates. All the goals and to-dos of everyday life drift to the back of the mind, into the murky waters off the edge of the map, somewhere out beyond the back burner of your kitchen stove.
Or do you forget to be present? Maybe it doesn’t happen automatically for you. Maybe you need a method, some ritual cleansing to wash away those worries, some penitent act of labor to meticulously grind the barbs from all the hooks that have set themselves into your spirit.
. . .
The challenge: How to “get present”.
The solution: Let’s play a game.
Let’s resist the urge to get as deep into the woods as quickly as possible. Instead, let’s begin our game at the parking lot, and let’s not be in a hurry. You may have noticed by now, the faster you run, the faster the things keeping you from being present will follow.
Let’s try a game I learned perhaps 13 years ago. It requires at least two people and a trail. It’s a Coyote game. In case you haven’t heard, Coyote has a reputation for being — Wiley.
The game is like tag. The first person gets a head start down the trail. The second follows after and tries to catch them. But here’s the constraint, the thing that makes the game a game:
Whenever you’re in sight of the other person, you must walk.
This is true of both Pursuer and Pursued. In particular, the Pursued must always be seen to be walking.
Its a point of pride.
A matter of face.
If your Pursuer sees you running, he knows you fear him.
If he only ever sees you walking, and yet can never seem to make up the distance, he becomes exasperated.This is Coyote magic.
Coyote magic will be a good kind of magic to invoke in our attempt to get present. Our goals and our to-dos are sticky, and deliberately so. We’ve made them sticky so that we will be able to attend to them with minimal effort during the work week. We’ll need Coyote’s wiles and tricks to shed that stickiness for a time. We’ll need to treat all those things that are normally all-important, but have nothing to do with today’s outing, like they’re the Pursuer in our game.
We’ll need to don Coyote’s silky fur for the day. Because, as everyone knows, responsibilities don’t stick to Coyote, not one bit.
So take your time in the parking lot. Check all of your gear. Get your bearings. Notice the movement of the clouds, the humidity on your skin, the presence or absence of other cars and other people.
Investigate the signage at the entrance. Take a moment to be impressed by the effort that has gone into these conveyances. Bonus, you’ll likely learn something that can help you to tune-in better while you’re here today. Also, that sign, it’s there just for you. How often can you say that about the objects of your everyday life?
Hopefully you’re starting to settle into the place. Now it’s time for the next step in solving the “get present” problem.
Let’s get moving.
Let’s get the blood flowing.
Let’s get all those good metabolic compounds and hormones mobilized to help flush your mind of the memory of the rude drivers on the road, or the eerily too-real dream from last night, or that conversation yesterday that you wish you’d done better.
But remember. We won’t outrun the baggage we’ve carried-in with us. We’ve got to trick it. We’ve got to make ourselves un-sticky, if only for a little while.
So, no need to sprint. No need to move with any urgency.
Let’s just shoot for a lazy lope,
like Coyote on his morning stroll,
curiously patrolling the land he calls Home,
looking for something to stick our nose into,
perhaps thinking up some feisty new taunts for the too-industrious residents.I hear there’s a beaver down by the river who’s been working much too hard. Maybe we can think up some clever way to disrupt his damming.
Coyote gets excited by dreams and schemes of mischief to be made. His pace begins to quicken.
And so does ours.
. . .
But getting moving is just the beginning.
Movement is a vortex drawing you deeper into yourself. If you’re not careful you’ll get moving so smoothly that you’ll come to a stop and find that you’re back at your car, that you’ve been out on the trail for hours, that you’ve looped the park twice, and that you can’t remember seeing or hearing a single thing along the way.
Getting lost in the movement can be a useful tool but it doesn’t help us solve today’s challenge of how to “get present.”
When the time is right and you’ve been moving long enough, you’ll hear something. Maybe its a bird call, or a branch breaking under your feet, or a dog barking in the distance. This is how the land reminds us not to fall into the movement trap, not to wind up just passing through, all a knot of undifferentiated senses rushing down the stream.
This is your sign. This is when you stop moving.
This is when you crouch down.
Put your hands on the ground.
Turn your head side to side.
Focus your ears.
Coyote was born suspicious. His first words to his mother immediately upon being birthed were “Why did you bring me here?”
He’s had a long, long time to practice listening for threats. And almost as much time to practice instigating those threats (the second thing Coyote did upon being birthed was to play a prank, but that’s a tale for another day).
Listening is part of how he always stays ahead on the trail, but is never seen to be hurrying. Coyote knows how to run with quiet feet and quiet breath. He makes so little sound that no one ever hears him coming, yet he can always hear his pursuers.
Coyote’s ears are long and tall and sensitive, covered in the countless fibers of that silky fur that not even sounds can stick to. His mind never gets too fixed upon any one noise and his suspicion is always at the ready to catch wind of a whisper or a pursuing footfall.
Let’s continue to follow Coyote’s example, moving breathlessly, with fleet feet, avoiding the movement trap by curiously, suspiciously, mischievously staying one step ahead of the outside world that pursues us.
Now flowing.
Now resting.
Now drifting.
Now perching.
Now leaping.
Now landing.
Now laughing.
Now lounging.
.
. .
. . .
Now listening.
The “get present” game continues.
We’ve oriented to the space.
We’ve gotten moving.
We’ve noticed something saying, “Stop. Listen! Are you present?”
Now what?
We give something back.
Simple at first.
Quiet. Shy. Testing.
Perhaps a birdlike twitter.
Or a mournful howl.
Or a curious hoot.
Does anyone call back?
Can you fit your song into the rhythm of the chorus around you?
I’ve heard tell that there are sacred methods of music-making from ancient India where the aim is to completely fill a space with sound, one instrument(voice) at a time, until all the world is full. All being is present in one divine song, voices filling every niche.
Can you fit your song into the chorus of being?
Do you have the courage to try?
With the addition of our voice, the game has a third layer:
Move.
Listen.
Call out.
Try not to get too lost in any one part to the detriment of the others. But if you do, that’s okay. Something will check you. Something will bring you back to present. If you’re receptive.
That’s what happened to me.
…
There I was, strolling along the sandy, river-island path, droning my wordless song while the long grasses played the rasped accompaniment against my bare legs.
Awoo - oooo - oo – o (swish-swish — swish-swish)
Awoo - oooo - oo – o (swish-swish — swish-swish)
I must admit, I was becoming engrossed, and the “get present” game was becoming the thing in itself as opposed to the means to become present that I’d intended it to be.
But my eyes were still alert, whether or not my mind was present. And quick movement at your feet with just the right sort of twisting means —
“Snake!”
— to the ancient sentry-network maintained between my eyes and brain.
My stumbling, coming-up-short and an outburst of “Whoa! Sorry, Snake!” interrupted my song before I could even think.
I was never particularly close to stepping on him. And he never seemed to consider threatening me. He unhurriedly shifted behind the screen of grass beside the trail while I watched with patient curiosity before returning to my stroll.
Now I was alert to my surroundings again. Not fearfully, just aware, in a way I had forgotten to be before the snake helped me to “get present”.
And so, not even one hundred feet further down the trail, when the Osprey cried out, I was ready to listen. She was cruising, only a few feet above eye level, along the creek corridor down the six-foot high sand bank to my right. She only called to me once, clearly on a mission of her own.
“This is the place” was all she said. It was all she needed to say.
And so down the bank I went, and onward to the rocky shallows of the creek. With hardly a thought other than to check my pockets, I waded in, deep enough to just barely float the waterproof bottom of my day pack.
No more than a minute passed and the Kingfisher cruised close overhead and chided but didn’t stop to deter me, just a pert reminder to mind my manners while in his home.
The running water proved the final missing-piece in the “get present” puzzle.
Any detritus that may have remained either on my feet or in my mind gently sloughed away as I waded down the stream, flowing with the water.
Coyote may try to convince you otherwise but those who know him well will tell you the truth, he loves to swim.
The Wake
Among a people too-sorely challenged to meet their own high standards of Godliness — Everybody knows that Nobody makes the grade. Quickly now! Our Beloved has passed. Take up your drunken duty Child-Of-God. Let's pursue our Dearly Departed down into Hell pots-a-clang and horns-a-pipe — such commotion! We'll drive the Wardens to distraction. Unnoticed, we Rowdy (ir)Reverent Revelers snatch'm away beyond extradition and on-up into Heaven. Cheat God during life. Cheat the Devil in death. That's Borderlander reverence.
Paddle on the Left
Had my head been lolling? As I perched upon my rock amidst-creek had I been lulled asleep by the lapping tongues of the endlessly flowing waves? . . . Because. Imagine my surprise when I look down to find a single leaf drifting at anchor in the eddy at my feet. . . . And at the helm? Why, you'd never believe it, a brigade of fruitflies manned the ropes. I never knew they trained to be raft guides!
LBB’s Water Park
Just upstream from my mid-creek lunch-rock, a hemlock is growing out over the water. Its lowest branch has long-since shed its leaves, too costly to maintain in the shade. But that means “priced to rent ASAP” for interested entrepreneurs, and the local Little Brown Birds couldn’t be happier for the opportunity of their own private water park.
~
It’s got fun for the whole family!
Diving boards of heights from fledgling to falcon.
Wading pools for the chicks.
A lazy river-eddy for the over-taxed adults.
Rapid rides for the adventurous youths.
Sunning platforms among the rocks and roots for those looking to get their color just right for mating season, as well as those who need to warm back up after a brisk dip.
It even has a concession stand full of plump insects in the soft mud below.
And for the more private sort of lovers, or perhaps those curious about such things, the fan-like sprays of hickory and pawpaw leaves hide plenty of intimate nooks and crannies to get out of sight (but not out of earshot of the kids or the parents).
Washing Words Clean
Why do we run for cover at the most casual threat that water might be cast down upon us from on high?
You’d think a storm cloud on the horizon was the sail of a marauding longboat.
Parents range in their responses from a mild, chiding “tut-tut”, to the vehement commands of “Get inside now!”
What are they afraid of?
Hypothermia? Pah!
A paltry excuse.
July rain is easier on the skin than their precious conditioned air.
Perhaps that’s our culprit. An unfounded fear borne of too little exposure to the elements.
Mind you, taking cover can be warranted. Often is.
There’s little-to-no survival sense to being seen singing in the rain.
And nightmares of torrential summer downpours likely keep the firekeepers twisting in their bedsheets.
But is it instinct that sends us scurrying for shelter? Or mere-conditioning?
With the contact of first drops on exposed skin, I feel alarm bells ringing up my nerve pathways.
“Cold alert!” rings out.
Upward from my bare feet, inward from my uncovered forearms, reverberating everywhere in between.
And with the cacophony comes the wave of anxiety — and the impulse to run for cover.
Perhaps it’s a system overload.
Too many signals : Too little time
A breath or two, and a stubborn resistance of the urge to run inside help to normalize my overloaded nervous system.
The shock of each rain drop becomes more subdued.
The starkness of the contrast begins to subside.
All the disparate feelings of getting-wet are slowly supplanted. . .
by one big, sticky feeling of being-wet:
Curly hair swells and begins to frizz and tangle.
Cotton clothes stretch and cling and draw downward, no longer keeping shape or resting peacefully upon broad shoulders.
Numerous small pools and streams on the hair, forehead, and eye-pits begin to coalesce, streaming into a rivulets, forming hanging-valley waterfalls where once there grew noses.
Soon, the feeling of wetness normalize, becomes comfort, without the “dis-”.
It seems the “dis-” has migrated.
. . . from the body
. . . to the mind.
Dis-harmony rears its head and I begin to think the words long ago burned into my youthful brain.
The words, originally spoken in voices belonging to parents, teachers, caregivers have sneakily taken on my own manner and tone, with an unexplained self-deprecating twist.
“You’ll catch cold.”
“We’ll have to do extra laundry.”
“I was worried about you out there.”
I realize, I may have an ally in the rain.
So I ask it for help:
“Help me wash away these words from my mind.
These words were sown with no intent that they take root so deeply.
These words were sown by people who cared, people whose intention was to do right by me.
. . .
If these words have grown into choking vines, that is only happenstance.
Those past-caregivers wouldn’t have their words behave like wild vines, running roughshod over my health and harmony, just because they happened to plant them once-upon-a-whim.
. . .
These words were sown by people who cared, people whose intention was to do right by me.
These words were sown with no intent that they take root so deeply.
Thank you for washing away these words from my mind.”