Unseen

While looking through my books for an idea for the Swallow Hill story circle, I pulled down 'The Soul of the Indian,' by Santee Sioux Ohiyesa, also known as Charles Eastman. I came across an interesting section on intuition and sensitivity of those who spend much of their life in nature, including this quote:

". . . but I know that our people possessed remarkable powers of concentration and abstraction. I sometimes fancy that such nearness to nature as I have described keeps the spirit sensitive to impressions not commonly felt, and in touch with the unseen powers."

He went on to describe how his grandmother had a 'second sense,' and relayed several mysterious incidents that leant credence to her abilities. One was when they were camped on a lake, and received news that her son, Eastman's uncle, had been killed several weeks before, a couple of hundred miles away. While everyone was morning and crying, grandmother told them to stop, because her son on the trail back home. Two days later he walked into camp.

This reminded me of something I read years ago in John Muir's journal, so I searched through my books and found it, and read it again today. It was an account of Muir's relationship a John Butler, who was his professor at the University of Wisconsin. In Butler's library Muir first read Emerson and Thoreau, which had a great effect on him. Butler encouraged Muir to keep notebooks of his thoughts and observations during his wanderings.

In 1860 Muir lived in Yosemite, and spent his summers alone in the high country, writing and sketching and exploring. Muir had received a letter from Butler indicating he expected to visit Yosemite Valley that summer, but the date and meeting place was not discussed.

On the morning of August 2, Muir wrote in his journal that he was sketching, when "I was suddenly, and without warning, possessed with the notion that my friend, Professor J. D. Butler, of the State University of Wisconsin, was below me in the valley"

He immediately got up and put his work away, and went down along the edge of the Dome, looking for a way to the valley below. He found a side drainage that might allow him to descend, but common sense prevailed, because he realized he would not reach the valley floor before dark.

Muir went back to his camp. The next morning, based only on his intuition, he decided to start down to try to find Butler: "Well tomorrow I shall see, for reasonable or unreasonable, I feel I must go."

Here is what Muir wrote in his journal the next day:

"August 3. --Had a wonderful day. Found Professor Butler as the compass-needle finds the pole. So last evening's telepathy, transcendental revelation, or whatever else it may be called, was true; for, strange to say, he had just entered the valley by way of the Coulterville Trail and was coming up the valley past El Capitan when his presence struck me. Had he then looked toward the North Dome with a good glass when it first came in sight, he might have seen me jump up from my work and run toward him"

Muir went on to explain that since he was a boy he was never interested in spirit rappings, ghost stories, etc., because all that seemed ". . .comparatively useless and infinitely less wonderful than Nature's open, harmonious, songful, sunny, every-day beauty."

Now I wouldn't be as arrogant as to say I am anything to compared to the likes of Eastman or Muir. I wonder, though, if there is sort of a sensitivity you get, by spending a lot of time outside among the rhythms of sky and wind and sunshine and grass and tree, watching the slow change of season, day by day. I walk so frequently in through the same cottonwood grove that the transitions through the year are like days on a calendar - the wind blowing through the branches in winter, the pond freezing so we can walk across it, the chickadees calling from the north ridge, the foxes screaming in late winter, the first green grass of Spring in March, along with the return of the goldfinch and the start of the frogs calling in April.

I did have something mysterious happen, that I still think about from time to time. Perhaps it was just coincidence.

I went backpacking in March, up at 9000 feet. My plan was to make my way up to a valley campsite, about three miles and spend the night. It started snowing right after me and Ben and Maggie (my border collies) started up the trail. We had the entire woods and mountainside to ourselves.

An hour in I had difficulty crossing a small stream. Its hard to know where to place your feet when everything is covered with snow. I didn't want to slip on an ice-covered log or rock and fall into the stream. I made it across, and started angling downhill. I was thinking this stream was the main one, and that I just had to head on down and I would find a campsite I had visited several years ago.

I didn't know it at the time, but this stream was a tributary. When I started following it down I inadvertently was heading back towards my truck. This is embarrassing to admit, and I have kept it hidden all these years. But a good story requires honesty. All I can say is that I wasn't being careful. If I had pulled out the compass I had with me this likely would not have happened. Snow covering a landscape changes how it looks.

I guess I could add that that is something that never happened to me before.

When I realized things didn't seem right, and I finally got my bearings, it was almost dark. I climbed a hill and went over on the slope just above my truck, and decided to salvage my trip by having a good night out. I had a nice long day hiking, even if it was in a circle.

It was awful cold, with the temperature in the twenties and the wind blowing. I cooked a quick dinner and fed the dogs and we retired to the tent right at dark.

I slept real well til the middle of the night. Then I awoke shivering with a fever. I dug into my backpack to put on every piece of clothing I had with me - two sets of long underwear, my rain gear, everything. Still I was cold, because of the fever. I had a miserable rest of the night.

In the morning the temperature was in the teens, and the wind was still blowing. I didn't make breakfast. I was weak with the fever. It took all my energy to pick up the tent and load my backpack. That short hike to my truck was the most difficult trail I have ever walked.

When I got there I shoved the backpack on to the bed of my pickup, and reached into a pouch for my keys. I couldn't feel them, because my fingers were numb from the cold. I got my flashlight out and found them by sight.

I got in the truck and started it up and waited for the heater to kick in. I was so weak all I could do was lean my head against the window, for a long time. When I finally did start driving out I was wondering what might have happened if I had three miles to come out, instead of just a few hundred yards. That was not the first time in my life I felt like I was being watched over.

There is no substitute for good common sense, an even wit, and physical and mental toughness. But on the day that for whatever reason I was lacking in those skills, it is comforting to think that something beyond my understanding turned my trail back towards camp.

It's not a big stretch for me believe that angels could accompany weary hikers on those trails, as close as that country is to what my hope of heavenly beauty would be like.

There is so much we do not know. Just sit in a forest alone and listen, or climb a a ridge and look down across a wilderness valley.

(this turned out nice; add some good pics here)