Journal 2001

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21 January 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

I'm back at Dragonfly Place for a spell after a week or so of sauntering around Oregon and Northern California ... from Quartz Valley to Grand Ronde to Aloha to St Paul. Coming home felt like traveling into the past. The days and nights here had been mostly cold and clear, so the same patches of snow were here from when I left, with the same Doty and friends footprints and car tracks, the same Mister Fox trail with a few added paw prints.... It seems I had to come home before the days warmed up and all traces of the previous week melted away.

About this time last year I was writing about the beginning of the Chinese Year of the Dragon -- my birth year. I was looking forward to a year of "good luck and prosperity" and in many ways I have been blessed with both ... in precious friendships, and in the new depths I have discovered as I have traveled through my art. The Year of the Dragon draws to a close on the eve of the new moon (January 23), but I'm hoping my journey continues to grow richer with the passing of each day.

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13 February 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Lately I have been visiting mountains. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been to Koomookumpts' Bed (Petroglyph Point in Lava Beds National Monument in northeast California), on Younger Daldal (Lower Table Rock in the Rogue Valley of southwest Oregon) and to the summit of Neahkahnie Mountain on the northern Oregon coast ... each a spiritual center of a native universe for the Modocs, the Takelmas, the Nehalem-Tillamooks....

Visiting these mountains is akin to walking into the heart of an old time native myth. In microcosm, and with depth and meaning, my entire world surrounds me.

I walk along the lower cliffs of Koomookumpts' Bed. For several thousand years, Modocs and their ancestors carved the story of the place and the people into rock that is the home of Koomookumpts the creator. This story is now a quarter-mile long! And on top, there are more stories, carved into the cliff face above the bed where Koomookumpts sleeps.

The flat top of Lower Table Rock is the back of Younger Daldal, one of two dragonfly brothers who are Takelma culture bringers. Here a sense of mythtime breathes in the present. I visit places out of the Takelma stories ... the rock pinnacles that are the family who escaped the great flood, the stone head of Bear who guards the rock and whose dances keep the seasons stepping through the year....

From the jagged summit of Neahkahnie Mountain, I feel suspended between the world I live in and the one beyond. There is a panoramic view of the Oregon coastline and inland into the mountains and beyond to the valleys. But there is another view. I look out across the Pacific as far as my mind can fathom, beyond the sunset to the native Land of the Dead.

Climbing these mountains, I walk some of the oldest trails there are. I visit places brimming with stories and history, from the native beginnings of my world to what stretches beyond my life. These journeys help keep me aware of the place and the spirit that is the soul of my art.

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14 February 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of Southern Oregon

I had noticed a few signs of spring before the last storm dumped 8 inches of snow here in the Siskiyous. Daffodils are blooming on the coast, wildflowers are beginning to color the lush green fields of the Umpqua and Willamette Valleys, and down the slopes in the Rogue Valley, creeks and rivers are starting to swell with low elevation snow melt.

Days and nights here on the mountain ridge are crisp and cold and clear. Hoot owls talk from tree to tree. Mister Fox leaves his tracks in the new snow in front of my home. Chickadees and juncos crowd the feeder. Ravens croak through the sky. And each night, moonlight on the snow is beautiful, sparkling icicles hanging from the eaves and scattering a mosaic of light and mysterious shadows across the snow.

I spend my days and nights with my five Rs: Reading, Writing, Rehearsing, Wandering and Wondering ... with occasional saunters to the wood pile or into the wide world to share a story or two. Guess I can wait a few more days for spring....

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2 April 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Spring makes for blustery, busy days in the Siskiyous, and my critter neighbors are up to their usual antics.

Each fall, Mister Gray Squirrel and several Steller's jays squabble over who gets which fat acorns in the ancient oak. Then snow drifts in and all arguments nap for several long, dark, cold months. In the spring, their nut caches dwindling, their stomachs growling, the jays and Mister Squirrel start snooping around for grub. Now there's plenty of pickings in the hills, I tell them. But no, their species has spent generations observing how the "best" of the human race gets the most with the least effort. This learned behavior pushes aside their instincts of wildness and hard work, and they hang around my home looking for handouts.

Wearing their hang-doggy hungry looks like theatre masks, the jays sit outside my window and beg. No luck. They mope around until they discover my bird feeder. Perked up with new hope, they brainstorm a way to launch a raid. However, the feeder is designed to be junco and chickadee friendly, and purposely tips when large birds hog the seed. After several unsuccessful assaults, the jays resign themselves to lurking in a nearby pine tree and squawking snide comments to smaller birds who have no trouble with the feeder, and pay no attention to the jays. The jays are beside themselves. They hop and fluff and flap in efforts to draw more attention to their jibes.

Enter Mister Squirrel. Having shirked his autumn chores and stored fewer nuts than he should have -- much time was wasted quarreling with the jays -- he discovers the bird feeder. This seed is just for him, he thinks. But he has the same problem as the jays. The feeder tips him off. Not one to be deterred, he inspects the feeder from every angle. He scratches his ears and meditates on his options. Then he launches into an impressive series of inspired acrobatic twists and bends. With a long stretch he hangs by his back toes from the beam above the feeder, and spends 10 minutes upside down, gobbling seeds.

The jays are impressed, insulted and jealous. They didn't think of this clever trick. And if there's one thing a trickster hates, it's being outdone. To get even, the jays conceal themselves in the boughs of the pine. They wait until Mister Squirrel is once again hanging from the beam -- a vulnerable position for those with predators -- and one of the jays performs a flawless imitation of the hunting screech of a red tailed hawk. The squirrel freaks out, leaps off the beam to the ground and runs for cover. The jays squawk their joy in jolting songs of corvid belly-laughs. This goes on for half an hour.

However, Mister Squirrel soon catches on. Newly inspired, he climbs back up and hangs down over the feeder. He sees the jays and I are watching. With a premeditated smirk on his silly face, he chews through the cord that holds the feeder. The feeder crashes to the deck, breaks apart and scatters seeds to the horizon. The jays are alarmed by the sudden noise and fly off.

"You'll get yours!" I scream to Mister Squirrel. Paying no attention to my comments about cosmic justice, he contentedly pigs out on sunflower seeds and millet with self-assured smugness. "I am a clever squirrel," he seems to be saying. "I have found the short path to riches."

A few days later, I hear a pop from down the road and the electricity goes out. After checking several transformers, Mister Ready Kilowatt from Pacific Power finds the one that blew. At the base of the pole, somewhat resembling a burnt French fry, is what appears to be the remains of a charred squirrel. Cosmic justice? The "short path to riches?" I wonder....

Meanwhile, chatty and scheming, the jays are back, eyeballing the newly-hung feeder with renewed interest as if the played-out story of the past few days lacks a theme worth noting. I suggest they live up to their clever reputations, be the wild birds they were born to be, and find their own native food. The mountains are brimming, I say. You'll be healthly. You'll live a long life. But, no, it seems that some folks prefer learning their lessons with a jolt, or not at all. Anything less lacks a punch line.

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8 April 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

One of the great joys of spring is sauntering to places I haven't seen since last fall. Many of these are sacred native sites I visit to refresh my spirit. Some are inaccessible during the winter, sent into several months of their own spirit-refreshing time by deep snow. Others are closed to the public for several months to protect the winter habitat of our Oregon and California critters.

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter Fox Girl and I wandered across the California high desert to Coyote's Cupboard, just south of Lava Beds National Monument on the lower slopes of the Medicine Lake Volcano. Both of us have childhood connections to this place. For many years we have camped here, explored this cave and the others in the area, breathed in the scent of pines and sage, listened to the desert breeze that sweeps through the forest.... Spirit-renewing, to be sure.

Since I was 11 years old, Coyote's Cupboard has mostly been a spring-to-late-fall place for me. But every so often I have managed a winter walk. A few years back, I scribbled in my journal.... "Under a winter sun so low high noon never arrived, I traipse through a foot of snow to the lava cave called Coyote's Cupboard. Fresh coyote tracks pattern the snow, winding through pines and sagebrush and basalt from one cave to the next. At Coyote's Cupboard, the tracks go in one entrance and out the other. The air in the cave smells like he spent at least the night here, out of the storm. I linger until sundown and walk back through the winter twilight. Clouds press low. Pines become shadows. Somewhere in the trees a coyote yips, then yips from someplace else...."

In another journal entry, I describe camping in the cave: "The fire dances light and shadows across the basalt. Stars burn through the sky light. Outside, the moon fingers pale light through pines that glow with a memory of the rosy sunset. Now their boughs wave and whoosh as the wind circles through these woods before swirling down the desert basin toward Tule Lake...."

Last week, after our visit to Coyote's Cupboard, Fox Girl and I wandered down the road for post-snow visits to Caldwell Ice Cave, the solstice pictograph at Juniper Cave, the hot springs near Canby, the many native places along Goose Lake ... more stories for telling on other days....

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10 May 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Well, I made it. At twenty years of stories this very day, I've managed to get partway through this grand journey of storytelling. A nice little milepost.

I vividly remember that first evening of stories. It was at the Vintage Inn in Ashland, Oregon, and poets Robert Casebeer and Paul Tipton joined me. We charged two bucks a person and filled the place. I still run into folks who were there. Bob read his Indian poems, Paul his bear poems, and I closed the evening with a half-hour of native stories. I recall being extremely nervous, and more than a little unsure of what I was doing. This was in the days before there were workshops and degree programs in storytelling and though I had some fine teachers who mostly came later, I mainly stumbled through my art form, learning lessons the hard way by making a lot of mistakes. Those lessons, however, are ones I remember well.

That first night, fueled by nervous energy, I managed to zoom through ten stories in thirty minutes -- wheee! These days, I'd be lucky to get TWO of those same stories into thirty minutes!

Well, it seems this brief reflection is enough. I send a big thank you to those friends and supporters who have been so patient with my artistic quirks (we won't go into the personal ones, hehe....), my Mythtime explorations and my slow-lumbering of self-education. Thanks to you all, and time now for Coyote and I to saunter on down the road. There's more of the journey ahead. Stories to hear, and stories to share....

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12 June 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Early each morning, I listen to the mountain birds sing the sun over the ridge. With the summer solstice only a few days away, their songs come pretty early -- just before 5 am!

My storytelling has stepped down its seasonal path into summer. School programs are a memory, and a few nights ago I did my first outdoor campfire storytelling in the Cascades. The snow is gone from most of the mountain lakes. The summer dragonflies have arrived at my lair to the delight of the nighborhood bats. Mister Fox's nightly rounds get shorter and shorter. The days are long, and the warm breeze that rises each evening has a whisper of summer kindness for its song.

Most days find me on the road to wild and wonderful places -- ah, the ease of summer travel! -- or here at Dragonfly Place, sitting outdoors on the deck, writing new stories. These summer days seem a gift after freezing nights of splitting firewood and feeding the fire, and each day begins with the beauty of birdsongs. For me, my daily striving for balance between living the stories and scribbling the stories comes easy on these long, warm, almost-summer days.

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5 July 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Summer -- the kindest of seasons -- has gently settled onto my ridge. The grasses in the meadow have faded from their springtime green. My resident family of lizards nap for hours in the lazy sunshine. For those moments when they are awake, they are blessed with an endless supply of ants that take little effort to catch. On hot afternoons my favorite deer naps in the cool shade under my deck. The heat is enough to slow down the chattering of a Steller's jay! The mountain critters -- myself as well -- move through the long days slowly, and with contemplation.

Around 10 pm, in the first full shadows of evening, Mister Fox wanders past on his nightly rounds. Under a summer-sky dance of starlight and moonlight, I sit outside reading and scribbling late into the night. I watch bats swoop through the shadows. I imagine I see eyes shining in the woods just beyond the light of my lair.

Summer is a kind season. No one seems in a particular hurry. With the long days of heat and light I feel that there's plenty of time for making stories and storing them up for the cool days ahead.

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30 July 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of Southern Oregon

Summer has been wonderful here in the mountains. Despite some near-misses with lightning and hail, and interesting treks through intense storms to get to summer campfire gigs, the blue sky has mostly settled its dome over my lair, and my days at home are spent scribbling on my new play and my new book -- both of which get finished by early September.

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9 September 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Images of transition....

The oaks are turning gold at Dragonfly Place. The nearly full moon is brilliant on their leaves at night, and on the grass in the meadow bleached almost white by these last hot summer days. The blue jays and squirrels have begun their annual squabble for the best acorns. The deer are munching ripe blackberries. And Mister Fox has a new girlfriend. A few nights ago, at 3 in the morning and 20 feet outside my open bedroom window, he let out a most amazing series of caterwauling barks and squeals -- that must have been his personals ad -- and now he nightly romps up and down my driveway with his new sweetie, the two of them barking and yelping constantly to each other, as if they'd been a couple for years.

Mornings have been nippy. The firewood pile catches my eye more and more. Though no wood has been burned since last spring, with cold nights just round the bend, the woodpile looks smaller than it has all summer.

Transitions....

John Beeson's Ghost is finished, and in print. And now I shift my energy into my fall performances and my new play, Two Sisters, Two Brothers, and a Journey -- we audition in 2 days.

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15 October 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Indian summer has colorfully settled onto the ridge at Dragonfly Place. These are perfect sauntering days .. warm and sunny days followed by cool night filled with stars.

A couple of days ago I trekked over the Cascades and into the high desert of northeast California to climb the mountain to the Woman's Cave. From a distance, this mountain looks like a tonsured monk's head: rounded and bald on top, and circled by a ring of basalt. After an almost-mythic climb straight up the steep slope, and a more gentle walk around the grassy crown of the hill, I arrive at a large scattering of reddish-orange boulders, brilliant against the sun-bleached grasses of fall. I walk among the boulders as one walks through a sacred grove of trees, with respect, in awe, and open to whatever may come our way. There is beauty here, and a quiet power. I come to rock writings that point the way to a cave. The symbols read, "This way to the place within," and "Come down this slope to where people share stories." Standing before the entrance, I am struck at how female this place looks. I enter the small womb-like cave and immediately feel surrounded, nurtured, safe. Inside there are holes through the rock ... windows just large enough to look out onto the wide, wild world, but not so big as to lose the sense of comfort this cave brings. Inside I am surrounded by symbols carved into the rock, and overhead, the ceiling is stained black from the smoke of many fires. Indeed, this is a place for sharing the comfort of words in a manner as simple and pure as childhood, and akin to dreams. The breeze through the entrance, the quiet circling of a hawk, the silence between words spoken.... These qualities seem far, far away from a world torn by chaos ... far from the terror of collapsing skyscrapers and the madness of bombs. I sit in silence for a long, long time. With spirits and visions refreshed, I wander back among the rocks, slowly scramble down the slope, crawl into the rig and drive the bumpy road out, along the powerlines, and back into my world.

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26 November 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Before dawn, out of the darkness a few mornings ago, the first snow of the season drifted down the Siskiyous and settled onto my home. It snowed and snowed and snowed until mountain ridges, foothills and valley land were all the same color of white.

The last brush-strokes of fall -- a few golden oak leaves still clinging to branches -- dropped one by one into snowdrifts and were covered. Snow fell through the glimmer of morning light, all day past noon and afternoon, falling through a colorless sunset, and into the night. Near midnight, the snow let up and clouds opened. For a moment, stars looked like tiny snowflakes frozen into place, and then they were gone, swallowed by swirling clouds and the dance of more snow.

Next morning, I could see tracks everywhere: Deer, Coyote, Fox, Squirrel, Blue Jay, Bear.... Each critter was headed from his golden autumn romping grounds to his well-provisioned winter lair of dreams.

I headed down the hill, bought groceries, filled the rig with gas, and came home to Dragonfly Place, cozy with a book by the fire and a steaming cup of tea.

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8 December 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Back home after a week along Mission Creek outside of St. Paul, Oregon, and wandering around the Willamette Valley. Got me out of the snow for a spell. Kept busy with visits with family and friends, poking into stories, and treks to meet with sponsors between downpours and sunshine, and rainbows arching over the valley. My drive home was across the Wheatland Ferry and down 99 and the Territorial Highway and the Applegate Trail, along some of my favorite backroads -- anything to avoid the frantic pace of Interstate 5. Walked my usual trails at the Finley Refuge, deep into the dripping woods, along creeks and ponds that not so long ago were bone dry, now swelled from the recent storms. Visited with a friend in Venita. Back at my lair, there's still drifts and patches of snow from last week's storm, up and down the ridge, speckled with pawprints of critters. At night, from this height, winter lights across the valley look like constellations come down for a visit.

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11 December 2001, Dragonfly Place in the snowy hinterlands of the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

As the long night comes on, clouds press close, and lights in the valley are swallowed in snowflakes and fog. I dive deep into a story, rehearsing, pacing between candles and lamps in my mountain retreat, watching shadows from the fire dance on walls and inspire movements and gestures for characters. From those same walls, the masks of mythic beings stare at me ... Acorn Woman, Rock Old Woman, Coyote, Mudcat Woman, three of the Tree People, Skunk Man, Jackrabbit, Medicine Fawn, Gwishgwashan the Keeper of Stories, Hoot Owl, the Dragonfly brothers.... They create a presence older than memory. Rehearsing a story on such a night as this is like living inside the heart of mythtime ... the snow gliding gently out of darkness, the clouds so close they take the shape of an inward glance into dreams, the kind of vision that takes one deep enough to create the beginnings of a myth.

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12 December 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

These past couple of weeks at my mountain lair have been just right for working on new stories, for creative thinking and contemplation. Watching the snow fill the sky and pile onto this mountain ridge has kept me connected to the kind of long nights and short days that have inspired centuries of traditional tellings in native-style mountain lodges, around fires blazing heat and light, not so different than the warm glow of light and shadows from my wood stove.

The road to Dragonfly Place is steep and narrow, and though Platero (my four-wheel drive sidekick rig) is hoofed with studded tires, on the slickest days I park him at the bottom of the hill and walk the three-quarters of a mile from rig to lair and back. It's amazing what one notices when feet are on the ground as opposed to riding comfortably above the tires.

This connection to earth opens up the senses. I smell Siskiyou storms, the smoke from neighbors' fires, the pungency of firs and pines. I see details of a route I drive more often than I walk. I look deeper into the woods, see the grain of bark on trees, the footprints of critters along their forest trails. I hear snow dropping from branches to ground, the trickle of snowmelt and those many small creeks I don't notice when I drive. The wind is winter-fierce against my face. Snowflakes swirl against me, feeling and tasting cold and fresh.

As I walk in the door at Dragonfly Place, the fire is warm and welcoming, and my mind is filled with the memory of vivid pictures that will find their way into stories and poems. I treasure these snowbound winter days, here at the top of the narrow road into the snow country.

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14 December 2001, just before sunrise in the Siskiyou Mountains....

After two days of heavy rain, the snow has come back, blown by a fierce wintry wind down the ridge, and once again the world around Dragonfly Place is white. Wind bends pines and firs near my home, blows clouds of snow down the meadow and into the woods, blasts the upstairs windows, leaving a frame of ice around the glass ... a winter window to look upon a world of dreaming bears, chatty jays, and critters hunkered down in their cozy lairs. For a moment, just before sunrise, the clouds break apart, and out of a blue-black hole in the sky, a single star shines bright, its light unbroken by the wind.

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21 December 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Here in the mountains, above a Rogue Valley socked in by fog, the new winter sun shines crisp and bright on this winter solstice. Late afternoon, as the sun starts to slip over the ridge, I think about the upcoming longest night of the year. Last night, under a brilliant half moon, I sauntered through snow from Pinehurst in the Greensprings to Dragonfly Place. On the icy crusts of snow, moonlight and starlight twinkled nearly as bright as the holiday lights people had hung in trees and strung along the contours of their mountain homes. Thanks to folks who offer light as their winter gift, and to the light-filled night sky herself, tonight may be the longest night, but it won't be the darkest.

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25 December 2001, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Back home after a weekend jaunt to Mission Creek, outside of St. Paul, Oregon. I wandered into town for some quiet time in the Portland Classical Chinese Garden on one of the few sunny days the Willamette Valley has seen for a spell.... Early on a Sunday morning, few folks are here. I have my own tour guide and time to myself in the garden before midday crowds start swelling the garden walls, many escaping the frantic pace of downtown last-chance Christmas shopping. Within the garden walls, there is tranquility and a peacefulness that feels rare in these days of violence and war. Here is a chance to gaze into a myriad of poetic meanings the symbolic layers of the garden offer visitors who take time to explore the depths ... a generous serving of archetypal stuff we storytellers thrive on. On this crisp morning borrowed from spring, with sunlight glittering on the garden lake and making brilliant those few colors hardy enough to survive the cold days, the garden wears its name well: Lan Su Yuan, "Garden of Awakening Orchids." I sip tea in the tea house. I muse intimate, quiet thoughts that matter, and take them with me as I journey back into the noisy world outside the garden walls.