Part Two

In the morning, we took our time,
brewed our tea, cooked our eggs and toast,
and watched the sun turn everything to fluff and gold.
 The snow that fell in the night sloughed off rapidly and the day grew warm.
 We filled our backpacks and hiked out to Skilliner hot springs, a few miles from our campsite.  The trail we walked was a highway!  We made the first hot spring foray of the year in this area and the animals, with the nonexistent local human population, were using the trails as their own.  We saw cougar tracks like dinner plates and followed, for at least a full mile, the Smoky Mountain grey wolf pack.

This was the largest track of them all:
Startlingly large, if you keep in mind that I have really
big hands for being such a little girl — bigger than RW’s!

I strained my eyes, searching and searching the mountain sides for a glimpse of the powerful grey wolf pack that calls the Smoky Mountains home…but we saw nothing but the scuffle of tracks and frequent piles of scat, thick with elk hair.

I can’t explain why I wanted to see a wolf so badly, besides the fact that it’s a rare and special thing to see one romping about in the wild.  Had I come face to face with the wolf that made this track, he’d have easily stood higher than my waist…

I suppose…
I suppose I sometimes feel like a wolf.
A solitary wolf.
A few weeks ago, a friend referred to me as a “…lone wild woman…” and while these wolves seemed to be running as a pack, there is still an unfettered spirit and a lonesomeness associated with the species that I identify with.
I prayed to see one.

I wished I may.
I wished I might.
I wished to see a wolf that night…
 The Smoky River blasted through the canyons, scouring the mountains with silty snow melt.  RW, being the fisherman he is, continuously commented on eddies, holes and quieter bends that would hold fish later in the season.  Then he lamented how his summer months are stolen by his work every year.  Then I reminded him that whenever he jumps out of an airplane and into a forest fire, he always carries a broken down fishing rod in the leg pocket of his jumpsuit and that last year, he fished remote regions of British Columbia, Alaska and the North Cascades…and then he felt much better.
All things were leaning into spring.
The Douglas firs were dropping their snow melt in fat drips on a quiet forest floor.
I hugged every ponderosa pine I encountered.
The lodge pole pines were weeping their sap.
Plumbelina fell in the river.

We came to Skilliner, shucked off our shoes and clothes and then slid into the natural hot spring pool like Adam and Eve before the fall of Eden.  There was a rough wind whipping down the valley, cooled as it flowed over river water and pink on our faces as it buffeted our sanctuary again and again.  There was the awe that comes with soaking in water that flows hot out of the ground, hot from the crust, warmed by the earth instead of the fires of humankind.  We had a larger than life feeling of smallness, and the glorious actualization of goodness and God. 
 There was Robert, primal and beautiful…
…as beautiful on the outside as he is on the inside.
 There was lunch, a sip of water or two, carrot sticks for Plumbelina who burned her feet in a secondary hot spring creek that was much hotter than our pool.  There were bare feet gripping rock, a cascade like a perfect shower and sock tracks that wouldn’t leave my ankles.
 There was the walk back to our campsite, distant mountains rising up so rich with life and seasonal promise, so ancient and stalwart.  I felt gaurded by the natural and kept by the strongest Keeper.
Best of all, 
there was a feeling of grandness of heart,
of potential for survival,
the defeat of the fear that sometimes 
comes with another season of fire.
We walked down through the sun and dust
to Talulah, piled into her happy space and hit the road again.

RW, the dogs and I headed up the mountain late this afternoon, despite the rain, despite the gloom.
We had planned to take a trip this weekend, but had to delay.  With a pair of hot drinks for the drive, we made our way up to Gibson Jack trail head and walked off into the rain, deeper into the mountains,  with just each other and our pack of canines.
 […he never closes his eyes…]
 Idaho is so beautiful right now.  In the high country, the aspens are tightly furled and there’s a whisper of fresh chartreuse in exponential augmentation in every direction.  I feel so good when I’m out in it.  Early in the day, I took ten fast miles on the mountain.  I ran like a wild thing through the rain and mud.  With Farley by my side, I paced quietly up the mountain, pausing to smell the wet of the junipers, pausing to listen to my creek.  He and I dipped down into an aspen and maple grove and I slammed on the brakes. The hair rose up on the back of my neck.  I could sense a large animal in the area (I can’t explain it, but some primal thing in me reared up and felt it…).  There was no birdsong, only quiet falling all around and pooling at my feet.  There are cougars up there, tucked away under the tree line…I know it, for they come down to my street sometimes, all tawny flanks and tall whiskers, I’ve seen them…  

Farley too, stood alert, hackles up, unmoving.  A sudden crashing of underbrush startled us both and a huge dark form rose up out of the trees.  Moose.  A cow and her calf.  I rounded the bend in the glade and we all stood, but twenty feet apart, watching each other with mutual curiosity.  I sat down in the wet underbrush and simply took my sabbath there, on the side of the mountain, soul rest.

Thank God for those moose.
They came to me when I needed them most.
White hocks.
Smooth lumbering gait.
Telescopic ears.


 Gibson Jack trail is unfurling.
The world is waking.
My winter bones are thawing.
Summer is coming.
I used to be a prairie momma.  Now, I think, I’m half prairie momma, half mountain momma.
Does it suit me?
I think so.

Happy Mother’s Day to all, I hope, if you have young (and old) to tend, that you felt so appreciated and loved today.  In every way.  Lord knows, I love you.  I appreciate you.  Don’t ever stop being so wonderful.

Love,
The Mountain Momma

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2011/05/09/986/

Oh!
It’s you!
Were you spying on me?
Come, let’s go for a walk in the timber.

We’ll collect rose hips for hot tea later this evening when the wind begins to sweep up the valley and the chill deepens.

I’ve got a similar line drawing,
in dark, permanent ink, directly over my heart.
Forever North.

Be careful of where you step. Tread lightly. We’re under the surveillance of populus tremula.

Farley and RW will harvest our dinner. That’s a beautiful, organic and wild ruffed grouse the bird dog has brought to our hands. By the end of the day, he’ll have helped us find three more.

Splendid plumage, indeed.

I’ll spend a little bit of time rooting through the leaves, that’s where I find the best ideas. You should look too, there are handfuls of interesting detritus, bugs and bones down there beneath a thin shroud of autumn. Today I’ll take home a fascinating little gall, two small bones and a pocket full of rose hips. Who knows what you’ve found, but your pockets are bulging and your hands are full.

We’ll grasp onto handfuls of the last yellow. The wild roses like to hang on to their colors until the bitter icy end. It’s a fortitude they come by honestly and naturally. They’re afraid we’ll forget the sweetness of their pale pink blooms forever should they fade to thin naked sticks laced with razor sharp prickles too soon. I won’t forget but they’ll still burst into a hurried pink in June, like a pretty rash on the hillsides.

We’ll delight in the oddness of nature; smooth shapes wrapped around sharp blades, the curvature of the the earth, the rotund nature of stumps on the forest floor and the ubiquitous, dark canopy of boreal forest blended with trembling aspen on the sides of the mountains.

The creative pulse beneath our skin will swell and sing and our ideas will sprout in all directions.

And still we’ll walk further into the deep dark woods
seeking the next bend,
the next peace,
the next open space.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2009/11/09/546/

Morning Has Broken

I woke up feeling like I’m a different person than I was yesterday.
I crossed the street and meandered up into the hills this morning. I was actually in search of a sunrise. With a perfectly blue Idaho sky I knew the sun would pierce the night with certainty and clarity.
I wanted to pierce the night in the same way, so I sought the sun, young in her nest, winging her way high.
And she did not disappoint.
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning…
Up in that holy blaze with the mountains in the distance and the sage at my knees I did a bit of thinking, a bit of singing, some strolling, some smiling, some praying, some glad hearting…
…and still the sun came on strong.
It became tangled up at one point
until I reached down and set it free once more.
Smooth sailing in endless orbit again.
Oh sigh for the sun the wind the rain the earth the
even keel of the universe.
Keeping on.
Keeping on.
Up in the hills, I’m part of something larger than my little plot of earth; my solitary prayers.
I’m untouchable when I’m part of the greater whole.
I’m under a wing.
I’m on the back of a bird that carries fire in its mouth.
I’m poured out on the earth in a sad stream.
I’m lifted up on the hands of the wind.
It’s all apparent.
My hurts and bruises fade to pale white and I find myself unscathed.
Healed.
I’ve been inoculated against the woes of this world.
Baptized in tree sap.
Washed in holy rain.
Broken down and raised up again fresher and finer than before.
Clean and glad and pink enough to have the frost of morning settle on my cheeks and hands.
Joyful enough to spot Talulah wagging her tailpipe at me, begging to be started up and warmed out of her chilly October nap.
Cozy enough to stroll in my front door and into the arms of the
best fellow I know.

It’s going to be a very good day.
The sun said so.
I’m going to make it so.
Love you,
JSL