The Furious Spinner

Last night in the rain and the near dark, Mario and I, along with another woman, and our tracker friend (did I say her name is Linda?) went out into the forest. Way into the wild. We walked, with our packs, until Linda pointed and said, "You sit there. Click with your tongue if you see something." And she demonstrated. Then the three of us walked until she said to me, "You're small. Crawl in through there." She showed me a rip in the metal fence—as though some comic book character had come and pulled apart the fence to create this entrance or exit into or out of another world.

I went through the door and sat under an evergreen. By or upon elk poop. It was raining, and I was dressed in a plastic bag and three layers of coats, a shirt, a camisole, and two pairs of slacks. Mario and Linda walked on, but I didn't see where they went. I sat in the falling darkness, alone, still, quiet, watching and listening to the forest, the meadow, the sky. I looked out at giant hemlock trees that towered over all the other trees, slightly bent at their tops, as though they were bowing or in prayer. It grew dark. The rain began earnestly, keenly, dedicatedly, falling from the clouds like a veil, a veil that fell again and again, gorgeously, sensually, creating a cradle song for me, for us, for the world. A lullaby that went like this, "Husssshhhhhh." Little child, you are home. I don't know if I've ever heard anything as wonderful as this rain falling on the forest. I watched the hemlocks take the rain, breathe it in, and I did the same. I sat on the Earth amongst the wild things. I am most at home where the wild things live. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep with my body next to the Wild Mother. Mothers. As I watched the darkness come, I thought, this is where I should be all of my life.

When we walked back to our cars, Mario said Linda told him that the bears ripped the hole in the fence. "The forest service comes out and fixes it, and the bears keep ripping it open." I wondered if I would have sat there, just feet from that opening, if I had known who created it. Yes, I decided, and I would do it again.

At home, I slept hard. Dreamed hard. In one dream, I am in my hometown where I grew up, yet I am with people from where I live now. I decide to stay there. I say I'll get a job. A friend of mine says, "But you don't know how to do anything." I begin to list to her all the things I know how to do. I explain to her all the jobs I have had. And then I begin weeping, sobbing, that kind of crying when your whole body moves and grooves and dances with your sorrow. I put my head down on the table and weep and say, "I want so much to go home."

I awoke and lay in my husband's arms for many hours. Home.

Got out of bed. Sad. Unable to smell. Mario took me out to the forest. Everything is possible there. We saw signs of the wild everywhere.

At the Tao of Tea later, I began writing a novel on a yellow pad of paper. Writing as I had written for so many years. Putting pen to paper. "June 25, 2007. The Riverbend Refugee. The young white man walked down the dirt road on his way to work that morning..." I am most at home where the wild words live.

Later still, I imagined those hemlock trees drinking in the rain, dancing in the twilight. Me silently cheering them on. I learned their genus name is Tsuga heteraphylla, which means "Mother Tree." I thought of my friend Cate who talks about the Wild Mother. She would laugh to hear I was out with the Mother trees last night and that I felt like I had come home.

Why is it that so many of us feel homeless?

Three of my novels end with the word home. I've told you that before. I didn't do it on purpose.

I want so much to go home, my dreamself said. Or did I cry, "I want so much to be home?"

It's way past time to sleep.

I wonder if the hemlocks have a different cradle song tonight?

Hush. Can you hear it?

Sing along, babies, sing along.

Labels: dreams, nature, Riverbend Refugee, tracking

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Saturday, June 23, 2007

Lions, Millet, and Bears, Oh My