The Furious Spinner

Loo Wit is shaking herself, reminding us there are more mysteries than we can ever imagine. The mountain has experienced hundreds of earthquakes since last Wednesday. Scientists don't believe there will be a cataclysmic eruption, however. She's just shaking off the dust. Something we all need to do every once in a while.

Mario and I make our home in the mountains. Although our town is nearly at sea level, we live in the Cascades. We are always aware of the mountains, those which still bubble with magma and those that are long dead, their skeletons creating bizarre and beautiful sculptures in the forests: Beacon Rock, Ape Cave, ice caves and lava beds. I feel as though I live at the heart of the world. If I sit still, if I'm quiet, if I'm dancing, if I'm resting my head against Mario's chest, I can hear the heartbeat of the world.

Today in the Mysteries was the Day of the Procession, so Mario and I got in the car and drove to the rumbling mountain. Mount St. Helens is in the north part of our county, even though when she blew herself up, she spewed ash into the next county. To get to Loo Wit, we drove the same road we drive to get to Falling Creek, only we keep going for another hour and a half. Today the winding roads were decorated by golden cottonwoods mixed in with the evergreens. I love fall because of the sweet light created by sunlight mixing with the yellow, gold, and red leaves.

When we were near enough to the mountain to see her—she looks like a mountain with the top sliced off—I saw a wisp of something rising from her center. The wisp was dirty, like smog, so it wasn't steam, or a cloud. We reached the hillsides filled with snags created when the eruption blasted the color out of them (kind of like Marie Antoinette going gray overnight). The gray trees were exquisitely stark and gray against the brush growing beneath them like burning bushes: deep dark bloody red, maroon, golden-red, and yellow licks of flame masquerading as leaves. The snags ignored their brushes with the living divine, so intent they seemed on the mountain—like sentinels staring constantly into the maw of death, mistaking it for god? They all saw the light one Sunday morning, and they have never forgotten.

When we reached Windy Ridge, the furthest point we could drive to from this side of the mountain, we looked directly into the place where the mountain had lost her...top. Others had come to the mountain today, too. Half a dozen cars were parked in the lot. We had created our own little procession. Our cars looked like insects next to the mountain. Dust was rising from the interior of the mountain, caused by the constant earthquakes, no doubt. On the plain where the lava had spilled from Loo Wit after the eruption, tiny, tiny elk grazed. Near to them, logs blown into Spirit Lake 24 years ago still choked the shores of the lake. Mario and I walked part way up the ridge to get a better look at the mountain. We could hear planes and helicopters flying over the mountain, but we couldn't actually see them. The dome in the middle of the mountain—the new dome—seemed bigger than the last time we were here, two years earlier.

We stayed on the mountain for about an hour. We couldn't feel the earthquakes but we could tell when there was one by the dust created from the avalanche of rocks caused by the earthquakes. We drove home along the gold road. A coyote ran across the road in front of us.

It was a good way to spend the day.

Saturday, the day before the Day of Snake Healing, Mario mowed the lawn (with our new electric lawn mower). He bent over to retrieve a piece of the hose a boy had destroyed (when the boy mowed the lawn a couple of weeks ago and ran over the hose), and Mario saw something wonderful in the long grass near my flower beds. He came into the house and got me. Together we crouched to the ground. There, woven into the tall green grass, was a perfect snake skin. The mouth was open, the eyes shut, the body undulating all the way to the pointed tail. A perfect skin. I was astonished. I touched it. I could barely feel it. It was like touching the ghost of a snake. Carefully, we took it out of the weave of the grass and I brought it into the house. A generous gift from the Universe and my husband.

On Sunday, we hiked Falling Creek. Even though it was a warm clear weekend day, we hardly met any people. We reveled in the fungus that grew along the trail. Some were already disappearing or becoming overrun by mold. (Fungus getting moldy. Seems odd to me...) Still, we appreciated the bounty. The woods were changing quickly. Yellow and gold were becoming the color of the season. At the waterfall, I ate a soft delicious apple Mario had peeled, cut into pieces, and put into a tiny lidded Pyrex for me. We watched the water falling, falling, falling whilst chewing on bits of apple.

As we walked back, we passed a man on the trail who told us his dog had scared a snake crossing the path. The woman shuddered. "I love snakes!" I said as she went by me. She shuddered again as if she could not imagine it. We hurried down the trail that wound through the forest like a huge old python.

Later...we drove to Portland and stopped at the Central Library. As we walked on the black marble staircase, we slowed to gaze at the life etched into the steps. A dolphin. Fish. Chess piece. The moon. Ahhhh, and the snake, curving up one step and down the other. Transformation everywhere I turn.

May You Transform in Beauty!

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.