HARD TRUTHS – The Telling Face of Rocks

This gray Keweenawan basalt, whose fifty-foot ramparts flank this stretch of the St. Croix River, is unfathomably old, dating from the Precambrian Eon, somewhere between 500 million and a billion years ago.

It is also the hardest basalt-type rock in America—so hard that boulders of it were used by NASA to test the drills employed on the moon probe.

And yet, these rocks are far from the static, silent objects they seem. There is movement here; those sinuous lines—visible only when the sun shines at just this angle—bring to the moment red-hot lava’s flow when life on earth consisted of little more than algae.

 There are distinctly human 
 utterances here.

VOICES OF TIME
These rocks speak volumes of a broad swath of history. Cracks and fissures recount epic battles between ice and stone, heat and cold, forces commanded by gravity. Lichens, some of their species nearly as old as the rocks themselves, bear testament to those ancient algae. For, in the face of otherwise untenable circumstances, only the subsumption of those algae by the lichen has enabled them to survive.

Near the cliff's base, the St. Croix’s natural scums and dissolved tannins have ranked water-level horizons on the rock face—a subtlety captured in just the last nanosecond of geologic time.

And, perhaps most compelling for their flesh-and-blood kinship with the likes of me, there are distinctly human utterances—portrayals of hands, a buffalo head and other symbols—likely made by Dakota or Ojibwe hunters nearly 1,000 years ago.
 

MY AMAZON ADVENTURE – The Nature of It All

Check out Part IV – Nature – of my series about a recent cruise on the upper reaches of the Amazon River in Peru. It's on my travel blog, El Viajero Contento.

MEANWHILE Back in the Amazon Rainforest...

Check out Part III – Art & Craft – of my series about a recent cruise on the upper reaches of the Amazon River in Peru. It's on my travel blog, El Viajero Contento.

WONDERS OF THE RIVER SEA

See the new series about my Peruvian Amazon River adventures at my travel blog, El Viajero Contento.

OFF TO THE AMAZON

Some people experience a special kind of bliss when they’re near the ocean. Others find this fulfillment from being in the mountains, or the forest or the desert…
I find my special joy of place on rivers.

THERE'S A RIVER...AND THEN THERE'S THE AMAZON
I recall, as a boy, having a special fascination—along with tornadoes and the sinking of the Titanic—with the Amazon River. Stories, maps, photos, news reports—I couldn’t get enough of them. I dreamed of one day seeing the great river for myself.

PHOTO: Enrique Castro-Mendivil / Reuters

Well, I’ve been in a tornado; I’ve seen the Titanic—okay, I guess James Cameron's documentary footage will have to suffice; and now, at last, I’ll be fulfilling that final dream, being on the Amazon.

Tomorrow, I fly to Lima, where I’ll meet my brother, Dan, for the adventure of a lifetime. After a couple of days exploring the Peruvian capital, we fly for two hours northeast over the Andes to Iquitos, where we board La Perla, a 24-passenger river boat, for a week cruising the upper reaches of what is arguably the world’s largest and most important river. *

I’m not at all sure if I’ll have access to the Internet—I guess I’ll be disappointed if we end up no further from “civilization” than that—but I promise to journal and take lots of photos. I’ll look forward to producing a series of posts here about the experience. Stay tuned...

PHOTO: RainforestCruises.com

* Size of watershed: 7,000,000 square kilometers (more than double that of the Mississippi)
Length of river: 6,296 km, (second only to the Nile and 326 km longer than the Mississippi)
Discharge: 209,000 cubic meters per second (12 times that of the Mississippi)
 
There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky. ~ DEJAN STOJANOVIC
 

GREEN RIVER – Leafscapes of Change

         In one last gasp the thirsty land exclaims 
       in fervent hues, “Do not forget me, green!”

         These aerial views of summer’s wane are rich with meaning. 
           The landscapes speak of flow and ebb, growth and decay.

              Rivers of green recede from lands they’ve nourished, 
            lush and pliant, since May. Tributaries that coursed then 
             with new life now gather it, drain it back to the source. 
      Stream to brook to rivulet—all know in their cellular souls that, 
      here in northern climes, frozen flow hurts more than none at all.

         In between, red, orange and gold spread as on New England   
                 hillsides. In one last gasp the thirsty land exclaims 
                        in fervent hues, “Do not forget me, green!” 

                    In the end, flow slows to trickle; trickle, to seep;
             and then is gone. Sere earth mottles, cracks and crumbles. 
        And decay’s fall brew percolates to nourish the land once again, 
                      stored up for yet another May flood of green.

HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT – Tip #41

 TIP #41

Listen Underwater

Slip into an alien world, one of slimy, legless phantoms, where 

sound carries forever through an atmosphere devoid of air.

Next time you swim, listen for the unearthly sounds: muffled splash, shrill whirr, odd, cryptic click. Can you imagine their origins?

FLOW - Meditation by a River

(When it's my turn to host a meeting of my men's group, I like to offer some kind of calming, centering exercise to help everyone shed the stresses and concerns of the day and be fully present in the here and now. This time, I've been unable to find just what I was looking for...so I wrote my own brief, guided meditation.)

Your life’s wanderings have brought you to a small river. You sit on a large deadfall—oak, perhaps—whose body time has stripped of bark. The dry wood is warmed by late May sun.

Better than silence, the place murmurs with comings and goings of countless living things. You watch life’s drama play out, as if unreeled slowly, frame by frame, by the passing water.

A kingfisher laces the far bank of the river, dipping and rising from one vantage point to the next. The filament of his presence passes from riverine space into that of your soul, seamlessly, and back out again, then slowly out of sight down around the bend.

       You imagine the thoughts and concerns 
       of your day, like these other living things, 
       coming into view.

Just below you, a school of redhorse works the shallows, vacuuming the sandy bottom. You marvel at the interplay between each purposeful individual and the seeming randomness of the group. It, too, swirls slowly past with the current and disappears.

You imagine the thoughts and emotions of your day, like these other living things, coming into view in and over the water. They too fly and swim and pass through, from the unimaginable expanse of the cosmos, into and through the slice of it that is your consciousness, and then back out again to join the eternal flow of life.

You sit there, as aware as one can possibly be of the simple joy of this place of calmness and connection. You glow with gratitude for the fact that your presence, your being, is solid and true, informed, but not defined, by concerns of the mind. You sit…and feel…the smooth, warm wood under your seat.

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE – The Wonder of Flow

Beyond flesh and bone, beyond earth, wind and fire, beyond every tangible thing, there is flow. It is the story of life, the story of everything. Everything flows.

For the human animal, it all starts—and, one might say, ends—with blood. That is what we first are; it nourishes our earliest being. If it were the only thing that ever flowed, that would be some miracle indeed.

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE
Water is the quintessential liquid. We learn about it in utero—how it feels, how it moves, supports, soothes and quiets.

Once we’re out, our relationship with water deepens. We soon become aware that it has to go into our bodies—and come out again. But first, before we appreciate most of its serious qualities, we learn to play with it. We splash it, squirt it, jump into it and blow bubbles in it, among other amusements.

      We may catch an occasional glimpse of
      what an utter miracle this clear, quicksilver
      stuff really is.

Eventually we’re taught how water’s a vital part of every living thing. We study how it seeps, pours, breaks into drops, and transforms to vapor and ice. We learn, often the hard way, that it can also hurt us, burning, freezing, knocking the wind out of us, drowning us.

If we’re lucky, if we can allow wonder to draw our mind’s eye around its ubiquitousness, we may catch an occasional glimpse of what an utter miracle this clear, quicksilver stuff really is.

HARDLY FLOWING
Water is our model for how other substances, even unlikely ones, sometimes act like liquids. The easy ones are particulates like sand, soil or snow. They may take a bit longer to give in to gravity’s urging, but eventually they do. It’s only because we become so accustomed to seeing these materials as part of solid earth that landslides, mud flows and avalanches so often catch us unawares.

         Mt. Rainier is, geologically, a ticking 
         time bomb of flow gone wild.

Even whole mountains flow. The immense, seemingly immutable hulk of Washington state’s Mt. Rainier is, geologically, a ticking time bomb of flow gone wild. The mountain’s internal hydrothermal system, acidic chemistry and 26 glaciers have conspired to turn much of it into a stew of rock, ice and mud.

Rainier’s collapse—some say it’s inevitable—could release a volume of material greater than the nearly one cubic mile set loose when Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980—enough to pour, 20 or 30 feet deep, all the way, over the city of Tacoma, to Puget Sound.

Not just water and steam, but also heat, can render the hardest substances runny. Hell, here we are, clinging to the eggshell-thin crust of a big ball filled with 2,000- to 9,000-degree liquid rock!

ONE PERSON’S EBB...
Flow is relative. The other day, as news broke of a wildfire sweeping across part
of northern Wisconsin, I was struck by the irony of the opposing flows—even as
a steady current of wind swept smoke and ash eastward, the fire itself crept relentlessly westward.

       The pessimist sees time as flowing away—
       running out, as it were; the optimist sees it 
       flowing in.

Which way we go with the flow depends on where we are and where we choose to look. I float in my canoe down the St. Croix. The water next to me tells me I’m standing still, yet the shore insists I’m moving. One person fears being inundated by a looming life challenge; another paddles hard, catches the wave and rides it to a happier shore.

Isn’t that the way it goes in all of Nature and life? One substance, thought or emotion streams in; another flows out to make room. The Army Corps of Engineers builds seawalls and dikes to save a city, only to squeeze the floodwaters out somewhere else. The pessimist will see time as flowing away—running out, as it were; the optimist sees it flowing in.

One way or another, through all the turbulence, through all life's comings and goings, flow is what makes it all end up in balance.

       They pour through the conduits of our 
       universal connections...as sure as any 
       river of finding their ultimate equilibrium.

DAMMED IF WE DO
Not all things that flow can be seen, yet we know they’re there by observing their effects on other things. Life, love, moods, spiritual energy, time—all these forces pour through the conduits of our universal connections with one another and with the earth, as sure as any river of finding their ultimate equilibrium.

I think this may be why I’m so enamored of rivers. Their flow reminds me of all flow, assures me that the best I have to offer to this world will be carried downstream, perhaps to slake the thirst of others. On the other hand, anything I need will eventually float down to me—some of it nourishment from the efforts of others; much of it directly from the Source.

Surely one of the great delusions of human existence is that we can stop flow. We can’t. Have you ever dammed the flow of rainwater in a street gutter? You can can create a huge lake, but sooner or later the water finds a way around, over or through even the best of dams. And the greatest joy, of course, is taking the time and place of that breach into your own hands.

    Watch with gratitude as it 
    flows with us, through us, 
    past us.

Isn't this the way it is with the flows of fortune and failure, of pleasure and pain, of love and loss in our lives?

Let us acknowledge and celebrate the wonder of it all, this force of beauty and goodness that animates paramecium and blue whale alike, moves the smallest particle and the very planets, and connects all of it.

We can stall it, we can divert it, but only for a time. Best to embrace the flow, perhaps find a way to harness a part of it. Draw power from it; give power back to it; find beauty and inspiration in it; and watch with gratitude as it flows with us, through us, past us.

Or buy a canoe.

WITH THE FLOW – An Appreciation of Rivers

There are ocean people; there are lake people; and then there are river people.
I’m a river person.

When I was seven, my parents bought a summer home, an old white frame farmstead nestled in the valley of the St. Croix River, the beautiful, largely unspoiled stream that for its last 125 miles forms the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin.

There were other kids in our little settlement, and I enjoyed playing, hiking and exploring with them. Among them, a couple of very sweet girls my age infused this mix of fun and adventure with a note of unfamiliar urgency. But it was the river that became my best friend.

      In it and along it dwelt all the characters who 
    taught me to be quiet, curious and reverent.

It was out there, on the water, where I escaped from whatever demons might possess a pretty happy,  privileged boy. That’s where I did my thinking, or, as became the case more and more for me, turned off my thinking.

The St. Croix defined certain stages of my growth: the first fish I caught; my first unaided swim across to the Wisconsin shore and back (required of all the kids in the village before they were allowed to take a boat out alone); the first time I got up on water skis; the first—and I hope only—time I helped drag for the body of a drowning victim.

The river was also my conveyance, not just to sand bars, fishing holes and meandering sloughs, but also, in a very real sense, to wonder. In it and along it dwelt all the characters who taught me to be quiet, curious and reverent.

POWER THAT MOVES YOU
What is it about rivers that gets into a boy’s blood? Sea lovers talk of the ocean’s power and mystery, its rhythms of swell and surf and tides. Rivers, too, have their rhythms, winding, rising and falling, rushing and slowing, freezing and thawing. But the power that most resonates with me is their constancy, their sheer inevitability.

The sea can take you places, but usually it takes a sail, oars, an engine or some other device to power you. A river is the power that moves you.

At least theoretically, you could fill in a portion of the sea bed and all it would do is to raise the level of the rest of the sea a fraction of a millimeter. But block a portion of a river and, like a channeled tsunami, it just keeps coming. Just ask someone whose home sat this morning a mile from the Red River of the North and just got swept away like so much flotsam.

Perhaps it’s this silent, inexorable power that hooked me as a boy and still moves me today. Part of the fascination, I suppose, is the danger, one I’ve never sensed from any but the biggest, most wind-prone lakes. Along with our amazing Midwest thunderstorms and the occasional tornado, rivers taught me to not just embrace and trust Nature, but to respect her.

        Lake waves are like joy suppressed,  
        slipping out in mere muffled snickers.

NEVER THE SAME RIVER
A river is always new. The water—and everything on or in it—that’s here now will all be 100 miles downstream by this time tomorrow.

The ocean’s too ponderous, too serious, to countenance water’s playful side; a river invites it to frolic, leaping over rocks, dodging deadheads, carving corners, chortling through rapids. And embedded in all these antics are some practical physics lessons, the kind one absorbs best when more aware of the fun than the learning.

And I’ll stack the roar of a waterfall up against the crash of surf any day. As pleasant as those rollers—or the gentle lapping of lake waves—can be, they’re like joy suppressed, slipping out in mere muffled snickers. A waterfall lets it all out, one constant, exuberant belly laugh.

On the other hand, for all this repression, the sea does have its breaking point. Then it erupts—overreacting in stormy snits, heavy-handed hurricanes, tsunami tantrums. Here rivers prove the shrewd, resolute adults of the waters family, exerting their influence, their discipline, with deep wisdom and eternal patience.

WATERCOLORS
If the sea is the heart of earth’s weather, rivers are its veins, collecting and channeling the very same molecules of water back to the sea, the clouds and the land, again and again, forever.

              There the rivers are, lacing together a 
         patchwork quilt of browns, yellows and 
         greens—quite literally watercolors.

This elemental, nourishing flow is never more evident to me than when I’m  flying. I look down and there the rivers are, lacing together a patchwork quilt of browns, yellows and greens—quite literally watercolors.

Perhaps it’s part of the wonder of that timeless flow that, while the sea wages its constant tug-of-war between earth’s and moon’s gravity, a river answers to just one master, its flow so fundamental, so uncontested. It simply takes the shortest path it can find to lower ground, stopping only at the sea, which can only sit and await its constant arrival.

So, what’s your relationship with rivers? Is there one that’s scoured and shaped your life? How does its magic stream over, around and through you? And how do you celebrate its wonders? We’d love to hear your comments...

A SLOUGH OF WONDERS – Celebrating My Happy Place

Where's your happy place? You know, that one favorite spot you escape to when you're in pain, under stress or just bored to death. The place that always takes you in, where you restore your equilibrium, reclaim your truth.

For some people, it might be about home and family—perhaps their mothers' kitchens when they were children. For others, it might involve a favorite activity, like gardening, golfing or fishing. I suppose it could even be an imaginary place, a kind of spiritual outdoors you get to by just walking out on your abrasive thoughts and surroundings for a while.

But what I'm thinking of would be a place in Nature, a real locale, a tangible space delineated by air, water, earth and life. Do you have such a place that's dear to you?

            If it were to be wiped from the 
            face of the earth, I'd still go there.

A DOSE OF WILDERNESS
My happy place is a real place. I go there physically when I can, and in my imagination when I have to. If, for some reason, it were to be wiped from the face of the earth, I'd still go there. That's how much a part of me it's become.

It's a slough, or side channel, of the St. Croix River, the beautiful stream that separates Minnesota from Wisconsin for 125 of its 164-mile length. I discovered it as a boy, when my family would spend summers at our home just across the river. And, even though I've had few lasting connections with the house and land, I've continued going to the slough, in both body and spirit, for more than fifty years.

             These days that's not a bad price 
             to pay for a dose of wilderness.

Today, the trip involves a little more effort than that boyhood walk of about a quarter mile to the river. Now I have to drive north from my home in Minneapolis for about an hour. Then I get my canoe and gear in the water and paddle about half a mile to the inconspicuous gap in the wooded bank that marks the slough's entrance. These days that's not a bad price to pay for a dose of wilderness.

By the time I pull up at the landing, I've already begun my transformation, dropping off my worries  along the way, picking up a few parcels of quiet anticipation. When I step out of my car, the air's clean and fragrant, the sun warm, the clamor of the city left far behind. And, if I'm lucky, the St. Croix looks just right—low enough to leave exposed a few welcome sandbars, but not so low as to require portaging into the slough.

       

REFLECTIVE RHYTHMS 
What best exemplifies my metamorphosis, though, is the striking change of vehicles—leaving the one designed for a mile a minute for the one whose progress is measured in yards. I'm also trading a conveyance that both consumes and breathes poison for one with no appetite nor breath but my own.

There's something so perfectly liberating and empowering about the self-reliance of traveling by canoe. Each paddle stroke, each foot I might have to drag or carry my gear across a log or shallow sand bar, rewards me with a modest, well-earned result. It's a celebration, not simply of freedom, not just of connecting with Nature, but of the way my body works and feels.

         Their breath and mine, as well as that 
         of a thousand fellow beings—poplar 
         and pine, deer and otter, cardinal and 
         eagle—mingle in this delicious air.  

The synthesis of physical exertion with my mental and spiritual surrender make me part of this place—one that, very likely, has changed little since the days when the Ojibwe or Dakota plied these waters three centuries ago. Their breath and mine, as well as that of a thousand fellow beings—poplar and pine, deer and otter, cardinal and eagle—mingle in this delicious air.

My time in the slough is like a meditation on two levels at the same time: the syncopated rhythms of paddling and breathing center me deep within, while a lush tapestry of sensations wraps around and, like the sure guidance of trusted friend's arm, draws me out to become one with my surroundings. My mind, free of schedule or expectation, glides, like my canoe, wherever I choose to take it—or just drifts with the wind. Either way, my spirit is nourished completely.

               It's a change I'm afraid too many 
               people find so easy that it's hard.

OVER THINKING
It's funny: I don't think very much while I'm paddling in the slough. I used to feel I could use the time to do some creative problem solving or to make difficult decisions about my life. But I've come to understand and accept that that's not where my spiritual energy wants to go. It wants to lift me above all those mundane tasks and embrace that one deceptively simple task of simply being. It's a change I'm afraid too many people find so easy that it's hard.

I hope you have a happy place, a place where easy is easy. If not, I hope one will find you.

We should all have at least one real, tangible happy place we can go to, a setting whose highs and lows, whose bends and backwaters, whose headwinds and tailwinds have become parts of who we are. What's extraordinary about this is that, no matter where that might be, even in the years we all know will come when we can no longer go there physically, we'll still be able to go there in our hearts and minds.

Where's your happy place? Is it one of peace and reflection? Do you ever go there virtually?

WITH THE FLOW – Day's End on the St. Croix

The bow of my canoe says hush-h-h!, carving into the muddy sand. I obey and get out on the small stretch of beach, grateful for the chance to stretch my legs. The damp sand, still warm from a day of full sun, feels good underfoot. I'm in no hurry; I decide to unpack my camp chair, sit and enjoy the last hour or so of a clear, quiet, perfect day on the river.

A few hours ago, as I paddled past this very spot, I'd surprised a confab of red horse suckers in the shallows, their flight churning up plumes of sediment like so many cartoon dialog bubbles: "Zoom!" "Whoosh!" I love catching red horse, so I bait my hook with a night crawler and throw it out to the spot and let it sit. I keep one eye on the hanging arc of line, while the other scans the river.

A vulture, working circles just above the treetops, casts a darting black dot in the reflection.

Here on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River, the sun's clicking off the last few degrees of its arc across a cloudless sky. As my little beach welcomes the shade, the forest across the way on the Wisconsin side glows with that rich, warm light that distills out of normal light just before sunset—the kind that artists love.

The northwesterly breeze, hazy with smoke from Canadian forest fires, has died down now, and the water's surface mirrors the golden sand banks and a hundred shades of green from the far shore. Even a vulture, working circles just above the treetops, casts a darting black dot just below them in the reflection.

A thousand insects have begun their evening chorus with a constant, high-pitched sizzle.

Instead of red horse, I'm catching bass— smallies. I'm surprised they're going for the weeks-old, nearly lifeless night crawlers I've brought. I play them for a minute or two, admire their elegant, muscular beauty and let them go. But for their obvious annoyance, I convince myself they're none the worse for wear. I wish they could tell me so.

From the woods behind me, blue jays scold, while across the river, a crow shouts them down. Still deeper in the forest, a thousand insects have begun their evening chorus, a constant, high-pitched sizzle. The percussion section chimes in—a throaty squawk that reminds me of a güiro, the hollow, grooved gourd played like a washboard in Latin music. I've never heard this one before; some kind of katydid, I suppose.

Just as I'm starting to believe there's really two of everything on the far shore, a motor boat goes by, addling the reflection…and me.

As the colors on the Wisconsin shore deepen, a bald eagle works his way resolutely northward toward the high rock cliffs, his size and majestic wing flaps making the vulture look scrawny, awkward.

Just as I'm starting to believe there's really two of everything on the far shore, a motor boat goes by, addling the reflection…and me. I watch patiently as both gradually regain their composure. I'm grateful this boat is the only one I've seen today.

I visualize the one-foot-thick vertical slice of water that's passing me in this instant, and wonder where it will be tomorrow at this time, next week, next month.

Though the river appears very still, a few floating leaves and sticks betray its slow, silent power. This is the quality of rivers that moves me the way the tides move sea-lovers. Every time you look, it's a new river. I visualize the one-foot-thick vertical slice of water that's passing me in this instant, and wonder where it will be tomorrow at this time, next week, next month. Will it outrun sub-zero temperatures before they catch and detain some of it till spring?

Now, as the sun sets behind me, the mosquitoes come on in their blood-lust. I appreciate the dragonflies that dart around me, picking them off in mid-air. Once again I needn't test the potency of my 30-year-old army surplus DEET.

The shadow line crawls visibly up the trees on the other side, slowly snuffing what's left of the stubborn sunlight. As if on cue, the evening's first bard owl inquires in its inimitable cadence, "Who, who, who-who; who, who, who-whoo-o-o?" This sound echoes the very first sensation I remember when, as a child, I'd first come down to the river by myself at dusk—only then it didn't accompany this near-full moonrise.

 Might an Ojibwe or Dakota elder have stood in this very spot three centuries ago and experienced the very same sensations I'm feeling now?

The sun now departed, the day's warmth takes the hint and follows. A palpable wave of cool, damp, muddy-moldy-smelling air is pouring down the valley and envelopes me. And I wonder, Might an Ojibwe or Dakota elder have stood in this very spot three centuries ago and experienced the very same sensations I'm feeling now? Was this just another day at the office for him, or did he share the sense of wonder and gratitude I'm feeling now?

Taking this thought with me, I pack up, drift quietly back down to the landing and head home. But my reverie lasts, the memory of this last hour etched forever into my heart and soul. I feel so in harmony with the flow of the St. Croix and the ways in which it parallels my life.

Perhaps most importantly, it reminds me that I'm so much more than simply an observer of life's flow as it moves inexorably past.

I'm on it. I'm in it. I'm part of that flow, connected with other places and other times, with the rocks and sands that contain it, with all those slinking, swimming, soaring creatures that are drawn to it as I am, and with every single human being who's ever let himself be swept away by its wonder.