A late-blooming daisy pokes petaled head through a tangle of wild blackberry vines, whose forgotten fruit slowly shrivels in the cooling air. Neon tresses of deciduous trees are floating to the ground like scissored locks in a hair salon. A blushing, scarlet leaf larger than my outstretched hand scuttles across the road crab like. It stops. I take a step forward and it moves in tandem, staying just beyond my reach. This intrigues me; I pursue it again. I half expect to find it propelled on the back of a small brown newt, all dressed up and nowhere to go but home for the winter. The third time is the charm. I lightly lift the leaf and find nothing beneath but the rocky logging road, my path to enlightenment.
I'm not sure when I recognized my love of the land as the road to my spiritual journey. Perhaps the dawning began at age six, with my first breath of mountain air on a family trip to Colorado. Magnificent peaks, white-haired with wisdom, watched over the valleys and meadows with benevolent dignity honed by the ages. Icy streams the color of steel ran through their veins, but I knew the heart of the Rockies was not cold. It blossomed with passion in brilliant colors across wildly flowering slopes. I traipsed through trails in utter awe, unchildlike with newfound reverence. Aspens whispered ancient secrets in expectant ears; I inherently understood in some inner depth I never even knew existed.
I conducted many Colorado pilgrimages throughout my life, in later years introducing my sons to the land that had become my private mecca; but most of my spiritual climb occurred gradually in the gently rolling hills of Oklahoma, where I spent most of my first 20 years. As a young child, I liked nothing better than spending the day meandering along the winding path of a dried-up creek bed on the edge of town, exploring red-earthed wonders. More than once I'd pack a lunch, ending my trek with a picnic at the southeast corner of the local hilltop cemetery. Lounging on a stone bench in the shade of a large oak guarding the valley, I undoubtedly had the best seat in the house.
Other summer afternoons found me on the banks of endless ponds dotting the countryside, where crawdad fishing was a favorite pastime. First, you had to choose a stick strong enough and long enough to be useful. Knotting a sturdy piece of string to one end, you then secured a slice of bacon to the loose end of the line for bait. An empty coffee can to corral your catch completed the standard equipment. There were lessons to be learned in these sultry, summer outings. The physical stillness required for catching critters created a quiet time for the soul--time for contemplating how your best friend's father would use the live craw dads you returned with for fishing bait. Time to consider the food chain and the inequities in life. Time to discover, all on your own, the idea of catch and release.
On lazier days I spent untold hours perched in the elm in our front yard. Frequently armed with an apple and a book, I remember sitting perfectly still among a leafy camouflage, not wanting to alert the neighborhood kids knocking at the door below me that I was, indeed, home. In more sociable moods I still sought the company of trees, perching on loftier branches with a close friend or two. We often found ourselves irresistibly drawn to a magnificent maple that grew just down the road--a perfect child magnet. We threw ourselves into make-believe worlds or pondered life's mysteries from the shelter of wooden limbs.
Then there was the giant in my grandparents' backyard, where my older boy cousins built what we grandly called the tree house. This crude platform, made of scrap lumber precariously nailed at awkward angles, was a foundation in faith if there ever was one. Merely setting foot on it demanded sheer, blind trust, yet we three spent rowdy afternoons bravely testing its limits. After all, it was the tree house; it was worth the risk.
I carried this special reverence for trees with me into adulthood. When my path temporarily tweaked to Amarillo, Texas, the realtor asked what features I was looking for in a home. I answered, "Something with a tree in the yard." That was a pretty tall order in West Texas, but I couldn't imagine nesting without one.
It's no wonder I ended up in Oregon. Curiosity brought me here, and conifers rooted me to the spot; but the sunburned stretches of stump-scarred hillsides were unsettling. Dust, the color of dried blood, covers a raw scalp that was once a shining tangle of thickly blooming health. Diverse communities of flora and fauna once flourished here; I mourn their loss. I believe balance is essential to the health and well being of all living things. I believe this because I learned it firsthand in the wilderness chapel of my childhood.
I love Oklahoma because of the intimacy of growing up in a place; and, according to an old family friend, "Once you drink from the Washita, you'll always come back." I love Colorado for whispering aspen groves and roaring river rapids, majestic skylines overhead and brilliant wildflowers underfoot--all energized by magical mountain air. I love stark mesas in New Mexico and dense forests of Washington, vast sea worlds of Alaska and red-rock vistas in Utah. I love Oregon for all of the above. It embraces desert to ocean and everything in between. It is my path home.