Road into the canyon – up the canyon, into the mist, into the redwoods
It has been a remarkable few weeks: LaHonda/Santa Cruz Mountains, Mendocino, Orr Hot Springs, Bolinas, Berkeley, and now Big Sur…
Big Sur: Highway 1 follows the coast, past Santa Cruz, past Monterey, past Carmel-by-the-Sea, into the whole of Big Sur, past where David’s ashes were placed at Esalen, past where we cried as we first drove this road together three years ago, where the mighty Pacific Ocean stretches across 1000s of miles to Asia, turn off on an unmarked road, through a gate and follow a dirt road into a canyon in the Ventana Wilderness and in a few miles a pull-off. We park and walk across a wood foot-bridge up a path to a traditional wood Haida cabin on a knoll in the redwoods and here are the people we’ll spend the next few days with.
Eight paces from our bedroom/ sleeping platform
Hang out at the table cut many years ago from a huge redwood, then walk down the hill and carry our things along a narrow rocky path beside the rushing water and tiny orchids growing alongside the path and into the clearing where our sleeping platform awaits. We set up our bed – pads, air mattress, sleeping bag with sheet and fleece inside, pillows (Oh, we’ll sleep in style). All under the stars, eight paces from the river.
There is no electricity and no wifi – it’s a digital cleanse for us with no electronically transmitted information, music, or anything else as long as we’re here. But there is hot water and up the hill a white ceramic throne waits among the trees.
Jean on the rocky trail to our bedroom
Time standing still. Talking, art, life, cherries, wine, cheese, herb, the wind in the trees and sometimes sunlight filtering through and high above we can see the fog moving in. In an incredible happenstance, one of our hosts, Steve was in Vietnam at almost exactly the same place and time as I… along la Rue Sans Joie (the Street Without Joy – named by French Legionnaires), where Bernard Fall was killed in 1967, where many from both sides died, and now here we are in this redwood forest. Everyone here has lost a loved one – parent at a young age or spouse. We don’t talk much of
In the morning
the pain, but those who passed on are very much with us.
A family gathering in the glade where the dining table sits (thank you for including us!), a teacher, a healer, an artist, an environmentalist, a gardener, a grower, a calm center, a child, a black lab. Then to a campfire, cobbler, s’mores, then slowly along the rocky path to our bed.
Gin, Susan, Jean, Steve
The first night we slept soooo well, so warm, tangled up in soft and love and in the morning I walked up the hill and made coffee for Jean and me and Susan was there, making coffee for Steve and herself. Our joyful job. Back down the hill with coffee to the bed, talking, seeing, hearing, feeling. We talked of places so good for sleeping. For me, this place, the Temple, home on Reiger, my campsite at timberline in Maroon Bells going in to the Four Pass Loop, Dragon Hostel in Hong Kong, Big Bend in a sleet storm, Ana Lisa Hedstrom’s studio on a cold, rainy night.
Breakfast was the usual fruit and yogurt and bread, coffee, talking. Steve’s family left, so it was just four of us. We walked ¼ mile up a path to the “common cabin” (shared with two other families, neither of whom were there) and Jean showered while Susan and I walked along an old trail deeper into the forest where redwood sorrel was like soft green cushions
growing out of 1000 year old mulch. The forest was still, beautiful, and Susan is a quiet, careful walker. We talked of beauty and life. After we walked I stayed behind at the common cabin and showered…
——————
Sing the first three lines with me:
I’ve got a feeling
A feeling deep inside
Oh yeah
He walked on the soft ground around to the front of the cabin and stood naked on the deck, lifting up his arms and soul to the redwoods to the sky to the fog to the sun to the river running by. Give thanks.
Sorrowing for his country, for the moral collapse of what was once humanity’s greatest hope.
Where now lies are virtue and Jesus is whored out to the gods of greed.
———————
Fawn up the street in Berkeley – still with spots
A still afternoon, easy, comfortable. Dinner, campfire. Back along the rocky path to our sleeping bag. And in a perfect summary of our life together, Jean woke me up about 3 am and said, “It’s getting wet” – the fog so heavy and right here we could actually feel the tiny droplets of water kind of stinging our faces. Pull the ground cover tarp up over us and burrow down deeper in the sleeping bag. Warm, dry, except a little damp around our heads. Friends, it truly doesn’t get any better.
In the morning we all packed up and headed out – Steve and Susan to the beautiful valley and home where they live and Jean and I to the magic of Berkeley. Along the way we stopped at Nepenthe, high above the Pacific, then on to the Promise of Berkeley and our happy home.
Sunset from the deck the first evening home
As I write, this text comes in from Jean: “Stuck in traffic. Big demonstration/anti-Trump kids in cages protest.” The Promise of Berkeley!