Journal 2002

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6 January 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Wind. That's the long and short breath of it these past few winter days. All day, in the grey light, wind rips down the ridge out of the Siskiyous, shaking my lair, bending oaks and madrones in the meadow, pruning Grandfather Pine and his kin of a few old limbs, and sending the varied croaks and caws of Mister Raven before and behind, and above and below him ... a something-beyond-an-echo experience that voices more ravens than either of us has ever heard. He does this as he self-delights in his flips and flops from wind-breath to breath ... loops of flight that leave shadows of himself suspended in the wind like black clouds. Makes me think of the old wise phrase, easily adapted from Coyote to Raven: some days, there's more than one Raven in camp at the same time. Huddled in the shelter of my deck, a Steller's Jay cowers out of the wind, glancing toward Mister Raven from time to time, and looking jealous. After midnight the wind spits rain, a barrage of drops horizontally rushing the windows in an eerie tap-tap-tapping that Mister Raven would like ... would have contrived to do himself had he thought of it. Wind. All day and through the night. That's the long and short breath of it.

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10 January 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Just before dawn, I gaze at the stars. It seems that stars in a crisp winter night sky are the most brilliant of all stars. When I was a child, I imagined that white frost on a January morning was all sparkly because stars, as they were fading from the sunrise sky, sprinkled their twinkling white light onto the earth to make the frost. On this winter morning, I watch the stars, hoping to witness the moment when they toss their light to the earth. As I wait, I contemplate the Golden Age of my childhood, when my world was a tapestry of wonder and fantasy, when what mattered moved beyond what was ordinary or mundane and into the imaginative realm of what may be possible. This is worth believing still. It is here where childhood magic finds its breath. And it is here where grownups like myself who think and worry too much (as grownups seem destined to do), might find the meaning and truth they seek in their lives .... where each might find their place and their voice as a unique character in the world's great story ... might find their calling.... It is here where one finds friends and spends time with good folks who make a difference in a world screaming for help. And so I watch for the frost.

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13 January 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Middle of the night, and the owls are back, telling stories from tree to tree outside my mountain home. They are nearby, and just loud enough that they tempted me awake from deep dreams that had been as vivid as myths. Last time they dropped by was just after Thanksgiving, and a full moon stared onto the snow. Now the snow is gone, the moon nearly new, and the night sky blazes with mountain stars. No breeze whispers through the woods. The night is quiet, and like a good audience, listens to the owls with childlike wonder. Besides my visiting troupe of tellers, the only other sound I hear rises faintly from the valley floor ... the steady, distant roar of trucks rolling down Interstate 5. I listen to the owls. They vary the tone and pitch of each word. Their stories travel from tree to tree. Like an echo, each story finds a response before circling back to the teller. I imagine truck drivers on their CB radios, spinning tales in the middle of the night, under the stars, their chatter flying from town to town, and eventually heading home. I listen to the owls. One could do worse than be a storyteller awakened by stories.

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16 January 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Clear winter morning in the mountains. Frost as white as the bleached bones of ancestors. Pale colors of the sunrise look like they've been around for a while and have had too much winter use. They scream for a splash of spring color. Cold mountain air is as thin as people who have been eating stored food for the spell of winter. On such a morning as this, after a long night whose deep darkness makes vivid the need for a richly-colored mythology, native storytellers finish their night-long tales in the coziness of winter lodges. Up and down the river canyons, and stretched through the desert basins, in villages with names like "Coyote's Paw" and "Shapasheni .... Where the Sun and Moon Live," the stories wind down for the night. Folks venture outside and stand in the first shafts of morning sun, remembering the light and warmth of the myths, and how words make pictures that dance in firelight and shadow. In that moment between night and day, in the balance between myth and reality, the wisdom of who we are reveals itself. If we pause long enough to notice, we snatch the moment and carry it with us through this short winter day that brings us one day closer to spring.

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18 January 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

With all this chat about Lord of the Rings, I thought I'd drop my own tidbit into the collective pot of folkloric tale-spinning. Perhaps we might call it Bored of the Rings, a Variation, hehe....

A number of years ago, I played Strider (Aragorn) in a stage production of Lord of the Rings. We were in a very intimate theatre in the round with the first row of seats just inches from the edge of the stage. Early in the play there was a fairly lengthy scene (maybe 10 minutes) during which Gandalf explains the significance of the ring to Frodo. About 8 minutes into the scene, a young boy (maybe 5 or 6 years old), sitting in the front row with his parents, let loose with a clearly audible shout of "Boring!" after which I thought his parents were going to throttle him.

Later in the play, in one of the fight scenes, the same actor who had been playing Gandalf was now a Black Rider. These fight scenes were intensely scary! They were highly choreographed in slow motion under blue light, with swords and quarter staffs that shone and flashed, often swinging inches over the audience. The Black Riders were hooded and robed in black. There were battery powered lights near their eyes that shone blue through their hoods, and another light inside their mouths that flashed reddish each time they opened their mouths to hiss.

As Strider, I was in one-to-one combat with the Rider played by the actor who had earlier played Gandalf, and we were inches away from the boy with the big mouth. As the Black Rider turned and slowly brought his sword over my head, I could see the kid was bug-eyed and shaking with fear. The Rider moved closer to the kid, opened his mouth and hissed, light flashing through his hood, and he whispered in a voice so low that only me and the kid could hear, "Sssss.... Is it boring now?!" I nearly lost character and came close to whacking the actor with my quarter staff I was laughing so hard. Just goes to show that even Black Riders are capable of administering cosmic justice!

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19 January 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Early in the morning, snow glides gently out the mountains and covers the tracks of Mister Fox's neighborhood visit from the night before. Every evening he wanders through on a familiar path, as if he's trying to tell the same story with each visit. At first, this appears to be true. But if one studies the surface closely enough to reveal the depths, in the spirit of one who knows how to listen carefully to a good story, over and over, the poetry of the telling is slightly different each night. Master teller Fox senses something interesting, turns to check it out, which leads to something else ... a sidestep or a leap ending with the gesture of a dramatic sniff.... He knows the terrain of his story well, tunes himself to the aura of that story, and follows his nose. Sometimes I feel he does these sidetrips specifically for me, that he senses my needs, and takes me somewhere in his story where I need to go, in the moment and with meaning that matters to me. Eventually he comes back to the plot of his nightly journey, and heads up the ridge and into the next story. If too many nights go by without me paying attention, Mister Fox leaves his creative calling card on my door mat. I read the message: "I was here. Where were you? You missed a good tale tonight." On those nights when I do pay attention, Fox and his audience are enriched by his diversions, and we both look forward to what tomorrow night's telling will bring. The snow falls steadily this morning, and a wind kicks up, drifting snow across Mister Fox's path -- flawless snowdrifts waiting for the newest tracks of his story ... silence waiting for words....

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23 January 2002, along Mission Creek near St. Paul, Oregon....

On a twenty-two degree morning, I leave Dragonfly Place in the snow. I had parked Platero the rig a mile down the steep mountain road that has been too icy to drive these past few days. Satchel over my shoulder, surrounded by the stillness of snowdrifts, I see nothing that hints which century this is. I am a traveler frozen in a picture of a winter journey that might be any morning in the history of snow. The storm from the night before has headed north. No flakes fall. No breeze blows through the trees. Tracks of deer and jackrabbits are frozen records of journeys from the night before. My crunching footsteps are the only sounds. My walking is the only movement. I feel conspicuous. A mile later I come to the pavement, fire up Platero, and join the 21st century. I roll down the freeway, a speck in the flow of traffic. Me and a multitude of others roar from town to town. We cut through the Sexton Mountains, and into the Willamette Valley where we catch up with the storm, and I leave Interstate 5 for the lonely meandering curves of country roads. Snow is behind me, and rain all around me. Here the world is wet and in motion. Rain-heavy clouds streak the sky. Rivers, swelled with snowmelt, tumble under bridges. At Finley Wildlife Refuge, I park Platero in a downpour and head into the woods. I slosh along a muddy trail with a pace that seems to flow well with wind and water. I leave footprints that swell to puddles. The sound of my walking is lost in the whoosh of rain blown sideways. There is so much motion in this storm, I'm hardly aware that I am here.

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24 January 2002, evening at The Spruce, Cottage #7 at Ireland's Rustic Lodges, Gold Beach, Oregon....

Winter wind is wild. Just back from an evening walk, I am cozied into my cottage. The fire crackles. I scribble into my journal. I glance from the page into twilight that looms grey over the Pacific. Just up the beach is the mouth of the Rogue River the Takelmas call Dit'agay'yuk!umada ... the tail at the earth's rear end. The Takelmas view their world as a great animal, the head at Crater Lake, the heart in the Rogue Valley, the tail at Gold Beach. The Rogue River is the lifeblood of that animal. Centuries ago, on such a winter evening as this one, the story of the journey of Daldal the great dragonfly began to burrow a comfortable place into the mythic memories of the people. On his famous upriver trek, Daldal shaped the landscape into that wondrous critter the Takelmas call home. Generations of storytellers began his story with the words, "Wili yowo. There was a house at the mouth of the river, and Daldal lived in that house." These days, where Daldal's house once stood, is a creative arrangement of dollhouse-sized shelters for stray cats called Fort Feline. For a decade these cat houses, as they are affectionally called by the locals, have been stocked with food and water, and have been home to scores of cats. On this windy evening, the cats are inside their houses. The wind whips the river into whitecaps. Across the jetty, the wind-whipped sea crashes onto the beach. Some cats stare into twilight through doorways and windows. Others are curled comfortably into naps. On this wild winter night, there's more than one tail at the earth's rear end. Here the landscape continues to be shaped into a home for those who need a home, and a native myth finds a new voice in a village of cats. Somewhere upriver, the spirit of Daldal smiles as darkness settles over the sea. In my cottage, I listen to the voice of the wind. I gaze into the flames of the fire, and feel at home.

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29 January 2002, along Mission Creek near St. Paul, Oregon....

Past midnight in the Willamette Valley. White moonlight sparkles on the snow. These past few days, hundreds of robins have been visiting. Puffed out to stay warm, they sit motionless in the branches of trees like rust-red ornaments. All at once they fly as a cloud into the field and lose themselves among crowds of Canada geese. A few moments later, they swarm back into the trees and sit for a spell. Through the sun-sparkly day and into this moonlit night, robins fly from trees to field and back again, always together in a reddish cloud, constant and tireless ... a winged pendulum.... Past midnight, while the geese sleep, robins fly back and forth as the night sky swings toward morning.

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7 February 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

When snow comes to Dragonfly Place, she comes quietly. I sense her. I see her. Though the wind that brings her may rattle my lair, snow falls lightly and makes no sound beyond a deep silence that surrounds her presence. Early this morning, however, I wake to the sound of deep-voiced rain. He is noisy. He hammers the metal roof and taps on the windows. Forcing his presence to be known, he sloshes up and down the ridge, turning the last snowdrifts to mush, shouting to the daffodils to come out and show themselves. The wise daffodils stay cozied up in the earth. They won't be fooled. This is not a spring whisper of mist, nurturing and gentle. This is not a warm rain on the coast. This mountain rain is cold. He is loud. He is tough. He makes the steep road to Dragonfly Place a muddy mess. Halfway through winter, I am restless. I yearn for the quiet that comes with a step back into the silence of snow or a step ahead onto a hillside of daffodils.

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9 February 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

In the early 1970s, I was writing poetry and stories and living in a little house on Tolo Road, in the Agate Desert of southern Oregon. Down the road was the Tolo Tavern (famous for its shuffleboard) and nearby was a proposed site for a community college that never got built. While under consideration, it was jokingly dubbed Tolo Tech by the locals. Also down the road was the site of Fort Lane, built in the 1850s to protect the local Takelmas from a certain group of blood-lusting miners and settlers who collectively called themselves The Exterminators. Essentially, they sport-hunted Indians, and were disgustingly successful!

My house was small, and there was a good reason for that. It was half a house. It had been occupied by the caretaker of a nearby sawmill. When the mill closed down, the caretaker took a chainsaw to the house, cut it in half, and in exchange for unpaid wages, took his favorite half with him. My landlord bought the house, sealed it up, added functional plumbing, remodeled it into a cozy cottage, and rented it to me for $78 a month (utilities included).

I lived at Tolo for a couple of years within walking and bicycling distance of the Rogue River, the Table Rocks and several other favorite native places. Every September, when the well dried up, my landlord stopped by. We walked into the field, gazed down the well, nodded in agreement that it was indeed dry, and he left me his annual ceremonial offering of a barrel of water and 5 cases of beer. The end-of-summer ritual was complete.

That was a Golden Age of words for me. I drove my 1963 VW bug to Ashland for writing and literature classes at the college a couple of days a week, and spent the rest of my time scribbling at Tolo and sauntering through the countryside.

The word Tolo is a Kalapooia word from the Willamette Valley that found its way into the Chinook Jargon, and has various related meanings: "to earn, to gain, to win, prevail, control, convince, overcome, subdue, subject, defeat, triumph, manage, succeed, conquer." For years I thought my time at Tolo something of an earned triumph. I was dirt poor but the words were flowing. I cringed when I made an unsettling connection between certain meanings of the word Tolo and the mission of The Exterminators.

However, years later, I did some snooping and discovered that in my old neighborhood the word had a different origin. A chap by the name of Cleophas C. Ragsdale, a former resident of Yolo, California, was living at Willow Springs in 1885. Willow Springs is just over the hill from my cottage at Tolo. The story goes that he disliked the commonplace name of his new home so much that he petitioned to have it changed to Yolo. The community of Yolo draws its name from a nearby Wintun village, and the word Yolo refers to a place abounding in rushes. Sounds a bit like Willow Springs to me! On March 30, 1886, after misreading the Y for a T, postal authorities in Washington changed the name from Willow Springs to Tolo, and it has been Tolo ever since.

As I wander down from my mountain lair at Dragonfly Place and travel from storytelling to storytelling, I often pass the cottage at Tolo. I remember what I learned while living there: that words matter, and that The Exterminators are one reason that they do.

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14 February 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Every so often, me and Coyote burrow in, and that's what we've done these past few days. It's been springlike this week at Dragonfly Place, and though I hear the urge to wander howling sauntering songs at me, and though Coyote has been whining for a desert romp and tugging at his invisible leash, we have burrowed into our lair and spent some time with words and dreams. For me, the words arrive in snatches of scribbling and in rehearsals of new stories. The dreams come with sleep, those pauses between words that allow a story to draw breath and come alive and upon awaking, to welcome a new day. Dragonfly Place in the mountains inspires this delicate balance, this tiptoeing between worlds of stories and dreams, this interplay of clear-thinking sunny days and dreamy nights of starlight. Perhaps tomorrow, with new words in our satchels and memories of dreams in our souls, and a new sunny morning upon us, we'll head out the door and see what the wide world has created while we've been busy in our lair.

Pawnote from Coyote, who read this and then did a little dance on the keyboard: Well, Mister Storyteller, that's a pretty fancy way to write off a fit of laziness. Words and dreams? Ha! What a bunch of artsy hocus-pocus. How about a fat meal, a satisfactory nap, and a wild springlike romp with a shapely canine lady? Ooooo, I feel inspired already. Snuggle up with your words if you want to, I'm outa here!

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19 February 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Dark, heavy morning full of rain. Clouds have hid the stars all night. The sunrise has no color. Beyond the clouds and out of sight, the crescent moon travels the sky toward a mid-morning moonrise. I have been up for a spell, scribbling in the shadows, doing gig-getting work, contemplating the direction of the day's saunter into stories. Beyond these words in front of me, I cannot see clearly around the next bend. An hour steps by. The first daylight brightens things a bit. The wet woods around Dragonfly Place glimmer green. They look refreshed after showers of rain, and more light-hearted than their nighttime shadows. They nudge me ahead as I step lightly into the morning and head down the ridge. These are good steps, and I look forward to seeing the moon.

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21 February 2002, in the Pacific mist near Crescent City....

Driving through a canyon along the Smith River of northern California, I feel as if I am journeying through the wilder parts of a Chinese landscape painting -- perhaps Sesshu's "Long Scroll" -- or into the depths of one of Cold Mountain's craggy poems ... huge rocks with solitary trees clinging to their cliffs, the rush of the milky-green river, the snowmelt-swelled roar of waterfalls, and beyond the canyon near the sea, spilling off the edge of the painting, or suggested by a poem's last line that splashes beyond its own words, the damp shadows of the redwoods....

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3 March 2002, on the road in the Tualatin Valley of northern Oregon....

Last fall, when I was sharing stories in the Greensprings, I listened to an artist friend tell me about experiments in Japan and the United States. Two bowls of rice were left in a room, and each day people spoke insults to the first bowl as they passed by, and loving, nurturing compliments to the second. Within days, the first bowl was putrid, rotten. However, the second bowl went into a happy state of fermentation and remained healthy for weeks. What a dramatic picture of the power of words, I thought.

Since then, I have incorporated the bowls of rice experiments into a game I often include in my storytelling workshops. I ask for volunteers. Five students are one bowl, five others the second bowl, and they sit in circles with their groups. These students don't have a clue as to what will happen next. The rest of the students line up outside the room. One by one, they walk in and exclaim their insults to the first bowl, and gently speak their compliments to the second bowl. Then each bowl of rice has a few minutes to put together a skit that dramatizes how they feel about what was said to them.

One skit went like this.... Four students line up and a fifth enters. With each insult he screams, the four students bang themselves on the head and make themselves a little smaller. By the end, all four are crumpled onto the floor into lifeless heaps.

I have used this game three times now at southern Oregon schools, in the Greensprings last fall, for the cast of my play in Phoenix last November, and last week in the Applegate Valley. The age span has been from fourth grade through high school. All three times, this game has been a poignant lesson in the power of words to heal or to hurt. It also reminded this somewhat seasoned teller never to forget what makes up the soul of my art.

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7 March 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

The snow has returned, drifting out of the night like a whisper, gently reshaping the landscape into a world that lacks sharp edges and contrasts, softening the morning into a deep winter quiet. With the first light, the world seems changed, as if the Great Mystery herself has responded to a plea for quiet comfort. For months I have listened to the agonized voices of those whose lives have been shattered by bombs and terror. I have listened to my students create stories full of questions with no answers. And yesterday, a letter from a close friend who took her life. She wrote: "And now, the everyday hurts, disappointments and outrages of living as a 45 yr. old woman, aware, single, childless, white, in these perplexing and distressing times absolutely flatten me." Somewhere out there is a voice to make the soul listen, a whisper to soothe the pain, a touch to calm the heart. I watch the soft light of a winter sunrise. I listen to the silence. And I welcome the snow.

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16 March 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

It's rare that I spend a week away from my journal. Beyond what I'm willing to share, there is usually at least a few scratchings that make sense only to me. But this week has been swelled with stories from others. I go back and forth between what is mine and what isn't, and what may become mine.

I journey through words created by others with a satchel of my own words slung over my shoulder. Eventually I open the satchel, my words spill out and mix with other words that float through the landscape, and something new is created. Perhaps this is not so different than the current ebb and flow of nights of snow and days of snowmelt that blend to create a season of spring flowers.

When I walk into someone's story I cannot leave mine at home. I carry my stories with me. They intertwine with what I hear and what I see. Once I take a step to become an active participant in a story -- anyone's story -- then that story becomes at least partly my own.

I tell my students that the heart of storytelling is taking something that matters to you and sharing it with others in such a way that it matters to them, that it becomes part of their personal narrative, part of their experience. As storytellers, our words and the skills we use to communicate them -- this is our art. And the journey is the thing. I take a step and enter a story, and if I listen carefully, the story becomes my own. When I share it with others, something new is created, and this new story alters the stories of those who hear it.

Creation is a living art, in constant ebb and flow, as we listen to stories, as we tell stories, as we journey through a landscape of sharing.

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20 March 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Spring arrives at my mountain home today, blowing in on a warm breeze. The afternoon is snug enough to let the fire go out in the stove, and for sitting out by old Grandfather Pine in shirt-sleeves, scribbling in my journal. The memory of last week's snow pales in the rush of spring breezes and the brilliant sun-colors of daffodils and dandelions. Dragonfly Place seems bigger in the spring, each room extending into the woods and across the meadow. No longer is outdoors a frozen landscape to journey through from one warm lair to the next, but a place for walking and sitting and thinking and soaking up the optimistic warmth of a sunny spring day. More snow will come before summer settles in, and there will be days of seemingly endless rain, but for now the mountain ridge soaks up the heat, and the day simmers to perfection.

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21 March 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Just before sunrise. In this speck of time between night and day -- a miniature transitional season of its own -- I close my eyes and think back over my dreams and then ahead, imagining what the day might bring. Each moment of night and day sends an echo of itself into my thoughts. I hear the warm gust of afternoon wind, the evening rustle of deer browsing through the brush, the midnight talk of owls, the footsteps of Mister Fox on his moonlit rounds, the morning racket of jays ... sounds past, sounds to come, compressed into the silent instant of sunrise. When I open my eyes, I see the first light of morning, brilliant on the ridge across the valley. I get up and walk out of the moment and into the long day.

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27 March 2002, in the high desert outside Bend, Oregon....

Nearly a full moon tonight. I wake up early in my cottage, open my eyes, and there she is -- Ms. Moon -- filling the window with her bright beauty. Next to her, a pine bends in the wind, and a bough brushes across the skin of the moon with a gentle caress. Somewhere out in the desert, two coyotes yip and yap as they romp through the moonlight.

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6 April 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

The bats are awake at Dragonfly Place. After dozing all winter under the eaves, and no doubt dreaming of drooling over clouds of dragonflies that will arrive later this spring, they are out on these warm nights, zipping past my window, scarfing up early-spring bugs. They are in motion from dusk to dawn. Their constant whirling rouses the rhythms of the night ... tugging at the stars and coaxing them to spin faster across the sky ... inspiring my dreams to high-tail it from one story to the next.... All night they whoosh past my window, tireless, always a presence I am aware of, even while sleeping. They are back under the eaves by dawn as the first faint birdsongs call the sun. Stars fade and hide their dance. My dreams slow down moments before I wake up. Nighttime calms herself and becomes morning as the bats go back to sleep.

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15 April 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

The daffodils droop after last night's snow fall. Nights and days are a tug between winter and spring. In the dark clouds is a patch of blue sky where spring sunshine leaks through.

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23 April 2002, early evening in the long shadows up Kane Creek above the Rogue River....

I saunter along a jeep trail on the back side of John's Peak. I round a corner, and there is the largest Mister Bear I have ever seen in these parts, or anywhere else in Oregon. Now I've been in Alaska and I've seen big bears. But I've been told that grizzlies have been gone from around here for the best part of a century, and these brown bears are smaller. Yet this bear would fit comfortably into a photo of Alaskan grizzlies fishing for salmon in a river in the far north. But I am here, above the Rogue, and this bear is big, and he's not safely tucked away among friends in a photo. I bring the rig to a halt. The bear leaves the pool where he's been lapping a drink, lumbers across a meadow to the edge of the woods, stops and turns his huge head back toward me, locks his brown eyes with mine in an intense stare that says, "Don't even think about getting out of your rig." He holds this look for 10 seconds and turns and lopes away into the trees. In the dim light of evening, he disappears down the ridge. That bear is so big I ask myself if he is a real bear or some spirit bear or someone else I can't put a name to. But whichever one he is, he leaves real tracks in the mud. Looking at these it is clear, he's no dainty-footed bear. Nice to know at least one of these big boys is still around, just up the ridge from the river, making his way through the woods in the long shadows of a spring evening.

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6 May 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon, just before sunrise on a morning that feels coastal....

The air is damp, and clouds spill over ridgetops. With four chapbooks and three scripts to scribble and have in print by midsummer, I have been mostly in my lair these days. An introspective, limited-horizon day like today is just right for cozying in and diving deep into that place where words come from. However, I still manage an occasional trek into a favorite hinterland spot. Coyote continually reminds me, "Someone has got to keep an eye on things!" So a few days ago, I wandered into Lava Beds, that moonscaped "Land of Burnt Out Fires" in NE California I have visited regularly since April, 1964....

The day is blue-sky-vast, limitless, with crystal views from the Cascades to the Warners. I walk trails that wind through forests of pines and junipers, across wide-open desert-scapes of sage and rabbit brush, and in and out of the labyrinths of lava flows. Here in the high desert, sunshine is rich, golden, with the deep warmth of a hug. The landscape takes me in, and I shift my gaze from the horizon to what is close. Greenish-black lizards doze on sun-heated basalt. A mountain blue bird flashes from one juniper to another. His blue color is brilliant and pales the sky. A black beetle scuttles across the trail. The color of the desert -- and indeed the "local color" -- is as close as a glance. While the long views are spectacular, the real life of this place is under my nose.

Back at Dragonfly Place, clouds press lower. I lean close to my journal, and a few more words scuttle across the page....

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9 May 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Each year I am reminded that the narrow, steep road to Dragonfly Place is old. There was a homestead here in the mid 1800s. Pioneers planted irises and roses along the road. Every May, a hedgerow of color erupts amid everything else that is springtime ... yellow daffodils in the woods, the new leaves on the ancient oak, the scampering of grey squirrels, the squabbling of jays, deer browsing the sweet new grass in the meadow, the nightly conversations of owls, the moonlit rounds of Mister Fox.... Before the road there was a trail into this mountain cradle between ridges. Native people have visited here for a spell. Takelmas had at least a seasonal camp here. I imagine folks sitting in the shade of the great oak on a warm spring afternoon, after a morning walk deep into the mountains, and sharing stories of their journey ... or later, after the first snow, tales told around the winter hearth of the old homestead.... I am one more traveler amid thousands whose journeys have spanned centuries. I wander down this road. I pass the oak. I pause and gaze at the flowers. On this sunny afternoon in May, I feel surrounded by stories.

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23 May 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Every so often, as I trek around the countryside, I get a chance to visit the old time tellers ... images of storytellers carved into or painted on rock. Two of my favorites are in the high desert of central Oregon, one on a cliff face near McKay Creek, another at Picture Rock Pass.

In both there are scenes familiar to me: a teller who has "become" a myth character, surrounded by an audience of what appear to be animals. Coyote is a frequent listener, though it seems a bit out of his character to sit still for that long. But perhaps the message lies deeper.

These listeners are not just a bunch of critters gathered for a tale. They are the essence of the connection between teller and listener ... an audience transformed to story characters, changed by the power of the myth and the sharing of words. When I was a beginning storyteller, over 21 years ago, an old man told me a story. But before he began, he said, "If you listen to a story well, and if you know how to listen, by the end of the story, you'll be someone else."

On my journeys, I often pass the rock images of the old time tellers. I stop and listen to the desert wind bend the limbs of the junipers. I listen to the distant howls of a coyote as he travels from story to story. I listen to the words of my own thoughts. If I listen well, I am reminded of the soul of my art. As I head on down the road, I feel I have grown into someone slightly more in tune with one of many things that truly matter: learning how to listen.

* * * * *

4 June 2002, along Ashland Creek....

I have walked this trail for most of five decades, and each time the creek sings a different song. As a storyteller I dream of having a vast repertoire of pleasant and meaningful sounds. For me, this morning's melody is made of memory. As the landscape flows from the green lushness of spring toward the burnt brown of summer, the tumbling of the creek reminds me of the heavy rains a couple of months ago. Those days were made of movement and water. Winter woke up, the hills turned green with new grass, then purple with fields of vetch, and now they fade to brown. On this sunny morning, I remember the rain. I walk through the changing landscape. I listen to the creek and try out new sounds.

* * * * *

8 July 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

This morning, the soon-to-be rising sun is awakened not by the gentle singing of neighborhood birds, but by the yips and howls of a traveling troupe of coyotes. What a jolt at 4:30 am! From out of the shadows, these raucous pooches pounce across the meadow in front of Dragonfly Place. They pause just long enough to rattle the neighborhood -- a sort of trot-by blast of noise -- and then they disappear down the ridge toward the creek, taking their dramatic moment with them. Unlike the birds who live here, these coyotes are performance artists with an act that startles on impact. They don't stick around for applause, knowing perhaps that they might not get it. Like their punchy ditties, they are an experience that is quick and unexpected, but recognizable and long remembered. For reasons I cannot explain, I welcome their entrance and miss them when they are gone.

The woods are quiet for quite a spell as if the birds feel upstaged. But eventually one brave feathered soul sings a clear and gentle note, and the rest join in with melody and harmony. Within minutes the first sunlight slants across the meadow, lighting the stage where the coyotes briefly appeared before dashing off to shock their next audience at some spontaneous gig down the ridge. They are gone before the spotlight finds them. The birds finish their singing and flock to the feeder at Dragonfly Place as they do every morning.

Usually, I watch the birds in a sort of meditative rapture as I sip my coffee, contemplate the morning, and slowly wake up. But this morning, the birds seem ordinary and predictable. My gaze is drawn to the meadow. My thoughts move out of themselves. I am aware of not only what is before me, but what possibilities lurk beyond what I can see. Ah, yes, the power of a stunning performance acted perfectly by canine masters of their art. The memory of it takes me beyond what I previously thought possible. I feel lifted out of my morning routine. A new path emerges before me. My eyes wide open, I skip coffee and dash straight to my journal.

* * * * *

26 July 2002, in the Central Oregon High Desert near Bend....

Not since the late 1980s have I traveled through so much smoke. My story saunters this week have crisscrossed Oregon from one fire to the next. I have watched flames rip through forests as fast as the wind could speed them. I have journeyed in the company of long-lined convoys of National Guard troops. My black rig turned grey as I wandered through worlds of falling ash. Last night I could taste the smoke with each word as I shared stories outdoors among the pines and junipers at The High Desert Museum.

But not all fires this week have been monstrous and out of control. Last Tuesday night, a hundred or so folks gathered in the cedar-planked tribal dance house at the Siletz Indian Reservation on the Oregon coast. The Fire Tender lit a ceremonial fire. Our Takelma elder, Agnes Pilgrim, spoke sacred words that opened our eyes to our memories of how we are all related. I began the stories with a whisper, and as the words grew, the shadows of myth characters danced across the walls of the house. For an evening, our fire sent friendly sparks through the smoke hole to burst into stars as the people listened to stories about native folks and critters who have lived in these forests for thousands of years. Those Old Ones knew the comfort as well as the terror of fire, and they cast their experiences into stories that are remembered to this day. On that night, in a traditional house that would have felt at home in any century, our fire was the hearth that drew us close to each other as we journeyed through the old time myths.

Today, I'm back in the smoke. After some time at home at Dragonfly Place in the smokey Rogue Valley, I'm going to attempt to find my way between fires to the Cow Creek Powwow. That gathering has been held annually at South Umpqua Falls for far longer than it has been called a powwow. But this year the ceremonial grounds are in the path of the Tiller complex of fires. For the first time in the long memories of the elders, the powwow has been moved over the ridge into North Umpqua country.

Tomorrow I head south into the Tule Lake Basin, and share stories that evening at Lava Beds National Monument. The old name for that rugged landscape of basalt flows, lava tubes and volcanoes is "The Land of Burnt Out Fires." This year, I'm not sure the name works so well. Several fires are burning in the region, the largest to the north near the town of Sprague River.

In 1988, I wrote a piece that was recorded and broadcast as a commentary on Public Radio. It's called "Rolling in the Ashes," and its words and the memory of those days have been traveling with me all this week.

* * * * *

3 September 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

As fall begins to settle onto the ridgetop, morning comes later. The moon sends his light across the meadow long after I'm awake and restless and ready to wander into the day. But I wait, and accept the gift that comes with patience. In the pause before the first flicker of morning light, dreams from a long nights' sleep reach out to me and hold on for a few moments longer. Perhaps it is this extra connection to dreamtime that inspired the making of myths for so many centuries. To sit quietly in the shadows and remember more of what filled the night gives me more to weave into a story. Longer nights make time for images to linger. Imagination fills the darkness. Nighttime calls the old time stories home. Just before dreams dance beyond memory, they give me a nudge. Images step out of the shadows. An idea for a new story arrives with the first new light, and words start to flow.

* * * * *

7 September 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Late night just after the first storm of September. The electricity has gone off at Dragonfly Place, and all down the valley. The clouds have cleared, and the night is dark, moonless and quiet. No light shines up from town. Valley sounds seem muffled. Starlight speckles the meadow and reaches into the shadowy depths of the woods. Out of this stillness, the sudden, deliberate steps of deer seem close. Then they are gone and there is silence again. For longer than there have been city lights climbing the slopes, for longer than the noise of civilization has roared through the world, the delicate interplay of starlight and shadow has accompanied the subtle moods and sounds of this mountain ridge. The hour moves beyond midnight. More deer step past Dragonfly Place. The power of a lucid night in the mountains flows toward the first light of morning.

* * * * *

16 September 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

As fall approaches, the Squirrel and Bluejay squabble over acorns intensifies. Lately, middle of the night explosions of piercing screeches and demented chortles have sent me scampering for 29 decibel earplugs usually reserved for noisy motels jammed with late-night, partying, drunk loudmouths or couples whose argumentative screaming has taken them beyond quietly considering the romantic possibilities of a candlelit room in a classy motel. This morning, I explained to Squirrel and Bluejay that there's plenty of acorns for everyone, that it's a common error to assume that the best acorns come only from the same ancient oak, and that squirrels and bluejays have coexisted for centuries in even greater numbers without these kinds of conflicts. I suggested to Mister Bluejay -- his taunts seem to start most squabbles -- that he might consider thinking of his fellow squirrels as squirrel friends. But this suggestion put him out of sorts as he thought that a squirrel friend sounded too much like a girlfriend. He sternly stated that he disliked the rhyme and the thought behind it -- and so the taunts and jabs continue to the piercing point that I'm thinking that an early snow might be a blessing.

* * * * *

23 September 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

First full day of fall. Late last night and for the past several nights, in moonlight and starlight, flocks of Canada geese flew low over the mountain ridge, honking so loud they might have been in a downtown traffic jam. There were so many of them, their migration announcement at this shift of the seasons was clear: everything is changing and it's time to be on the move!

* * * * *

28 September 2002, evening in Wall, South Dakota, in the Badlands....

Coyote and I are sauntering across the continent on our way to Pennsylvania. We left on Thursday the 26th, and wandered through a few of our favorite Oregon landscapes on a warm, sunny, golden fall day. We checked out the storyteller petroglyph at Picture Rock Pass. We were concerned that one of last summer's fires might have swept through there and charred the old guy. But like all survivors -- certain stories and certain coyotes -- that ageless storyteller is alive and full of tales. From there we journeyed north through the desert lands of eastern Oregon, in and out of our memories of past treks to places like Crack in the Ground, Wagontire, Divine Canyon, Silvies River, Strawberry Wilderness, Joaquin Miller's cabin in Canyon City, Indian country in the shadow of the Blue Mountains.... This drive went into the night, in the light of two-thirds of a moon shining on the gold leaves of aspens, and we camped that first night in the countryside south of Spokane under moonlight and stars. Next morning, we traveled east into the mountains and across the Panhandle of Idaho. "We want your body!" painted on an auto body shop in Kellogg caught Coyote's eye as did the good-looking town of Fox. We climbed over the dramatic granite landscape of the Continental Divide, and deep into a drizzly Montana that was less Big Sky than Big Cloud Country. From Missoula to Bozeman, through wind and rain to a cozy night in a room in Big Timber near the Crazy Mountains, clouds swirled along rivers and hugged the craggy peaks of the Montana horizon. Next day, back into sunshine, we took a trek to Pictograph Cave outside of Billings. We chatted about rock writings and native views of the landscape with visitors and the park caretaker. While we talked, wild and yippy coyotes sang to the resident valley cows until the bovines were intimidated to answer with less tuneful songs, making those desert dogs sound like first-rate singers, and of course, master manipulators. We headed down the road to one last pause in Montana and a poignant walk across the Little Bighorn Battleground. The words of Black Elk spoke to me: "Know the power that is peace." These words not only continue to hover over the history of this place, but they find a new voice in these latest times of violence and war. For the rest of the day, quietly lost in our own private thoughts and dreams and contemplations, Coyote and I made tracks across Wyoming and South Dakota to Coyote's favorite name-place: the Badlands. That's it in a nutshell -- at least for now -- from on the road with Doty and Coyote (the latter also known among the locals as the "Good-Bad-Dog of the Badlands").

* * * * *

18 October 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

It is somewhat a piece of destiny that as I dive into the depths of the mythology of Middle Earth for the fifth time or so in my life and compare it to the mythology I am creating for Doty & Coyote Country, that I am living in the Siskiyous. Nearly 20 years ago I wrote an essay comparing the landscape and "feel" of Middle Earth to similar experiences I have known in the Siskiyou Mountains. This was when I was living in town, long before I called these mountains my home.

As fall settles onto this ridge, and I feel the urge to burrow Hobbit-like into my lair for a cozy, fireside season of reading and writing and spiritual contemplation -- and not the least, romantic moon-and-candlelit snuggles with my sweetie -- my mountain "cabin" transforms itself from a home into a metaphor of the hermit's chapel-like hut in the depths of the forest. I no longer read books. I study texts. I shift my scribbling from the keyboard to my handwritten journal. I anticipate the last gold leaves twirling to the ground as the first snow blows in and covers the earthy memory of summer-long days. Those days were almost too well-lit for the dark edges of the imagination to take hold of my mind for long enough to create much in the way of stories and poems.

As I look back over the pages of this journal, I find that the most vivid and magical myth-like entries -- at least with any consistency -- were from last winter. Extremes of weather stretch the imagination beyond a pop culture definition of time and place. The daily "news" drifts away from media headlines into views into the heart of a snow-cloud as it slips down the slope and covers the valley. Smells of coffee mix with the unmistakable odor of a big storm brewing up the ridge. As long nights of stars and dreams settle onto the mountains, the world of myth invites itself inside and cozies up to the light and warmth of my mountain hearth. When the stories come inside for the winter, this mountain home feels as full as any tourist town summer motel, and twice as lively as the pub next door.

Here in the Siskiyous, where the landscape invites stories to linger, I wait for the return of the myths. The wood is stacked. The coffee is ground. I listen nightly for the winter wind to bring the stories home.

* * * * *

18 October 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Evening. Sunset streaked with many colors .... gold, red, peach ... as if the sky has snatched the autumn colors from the leaves and brushed them onto a larger canvas.

* * * * *

21 October 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Early morning. Above the ridge, the full moon lights the Siskiyous. Like the bright eye of a night sun, it gazes intensely through the texture of autumn clouds. It is quiet. No breeze to shake the fall leaves to the ground. Too early for bird songs. Mister Fox has already made his rounds -- I heard him give a friendly bark an hour ago. In this hushed hour before sunrise, it is so quiet my whispering thoughts seem loud.

* * * * *

10 November 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Transition days. Summer-and-fall dust has gone away. The road to Dragonfly Place is muddy and slick. After an Indian summer, the past four days have been full of wind and rain. Rainclouds sweep down the Siskiyous and wrap my lair in swirling fog. The snowline is just up the ridge. A fire blazes in the stove, and every blank page in my journal, and every unread book in my library, calls for my attention. The nights are long, just right for words and dreams to spend time together. Every morning looks different. By first light, so many leaves have blown off the oaks, they look like different trees, or like they have traveled through the storm and the night and come home again, a bit thin from the journey. Transition days. Wind and rain sculpt this mountain landscape into something new.

* * * * *

20 November 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

I imagine this romantically mythic trek into the redwoods....

Near sunset on an autumn day, Doty and Word Dancer walk into a coastal grove of redwoods. These trees are huge. Fog drifts in from the ocean and settles onto their crowns. It mutes the light and colors of this forest, bringing plants and trees closer to each other, allowing the earth to touch the sky, and inviting a contemplative mood at the end of the day. Word Dancer walks ahead to grasp a few moments to herself. Though she seems small in this gathering of elders, the trees are generous. They invite her in and she feels significant. Her breathing is deep, rainforest-rich. Her heart beats with the same rhythm as the pounding of surf. A breeze rises and caresses her skin as a redwood might sway in the wind and brush the fringe of a passing cloud. Word Dancer's thoughts grow roots and she knows herself to be a part of the grove. Doty walks up and wraps his arms around her as the fog wraps the forest. They listen to the constant crash and pull of the waves. The last mauve light from the sunset filters through the trees and makes the day complete. Doty and Word Dancer embrace in the depths of the redwoods. They feel the full breath of the forest and the steady pulse of their hearts.

* * * * *

3 December 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Early morning on the ridge, stars blaze. Below, fog swirls through the Rogue Valley. Towns and neighborhoods are wrapped in fog like winter lovers snug in heaps of blankets. At Dragonfly Place, with only myself and the stars for company, I listen to the lonely whistle of a train as its winds through the fog.

* * * * *

9 December 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

I'm half a century old today. I've never been one to do much counting, but fifty seems a landmark kind of number. Being a multiple of five, it's also a sacred number to the Takelmas. I began my life in a sacred way, born with the number five wrapped around me like the love that created me. As I've grown to fifty, I've added a zero ... everything and nothing ... an ebb-and-flow life of growing and of letting go, of journeying back to the in-the-moment purity of birth and the light-hearted innocence of childhood. I want to feel light once again and breathe easy. Wisdom and love gained through the years need not weigh anything. A five and a zero add up to the sacredness of no weight.

This day seems right for journeying deeper into my art, for searching out the ancient bond between sharing words, and why our hearts and souls feel healed when we hear or read the right combination of words ... that phrase, that story that feels created just for us. The healing is not just for the receiver of words, it is also for the one who creates them.

My heart was whacked pretty hard a few days ago and tossed into some dark hole. It seemed that every burden I had ever collected was dumped into that hole and heaped upon me. The dark weight held me down. It was hard to breathe. I felt buried alive. To find my way back into the fresh air and the sunlight, I have been writing a poem: "As each word gets written down, / I snatch it up and toss it to the wind / where it begins to breathe on its own. / I write the words and I let them go." Bit by bit the burden falls away, and I am light and nimble enough to scamper up the walls of that hole and out the top.

A fiftieth birthday is a good day to step beyond simply tossing a few words out of my knapsack. It's a good day to toss the knapsack altogether, to carry the the essence of the words -- their breath -- and not the dead weight of them. The initial work to become light is hard work and the hours seem long, but bit by bit, word by word, the load becomes less until the sunshine warms my being. I feel healed and I can breathe. The old Inuit woman was right when she sang, "There is only one great thing -- the only thing -- to live to see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world."

The five in fifty is sacred, and the zero is the round light of the sun, the moon, the circular journey back toward the lightness of creation ... the first light of a new day, the first breath after birth, the first word that begins the healing.

* * * * *

9 December 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

The long day of turning fifty has come to an end. Evening brings a calm to the woods around Dragonfly Place. About this time Mister Fox wanders through on his first of several night visits. I told him the other day that today was my birthday, and he promised to stop by. All the usual critters have paid a visit already ... the doe with the white patch on her back, a couple of jackrabbits, several bluejays and their love-hate buddies, the grey squirrels. I've seen ravens and red-tailed hawks soar below the clouds, and juncos and chickadees have dropped by for their daily bird seed. No human folks, but I am in the mountains after all. A few drops of rain cleared the air this afternoon. The sun shone between storms that swept down the ridge. All in all, just another birthday at Dragonfly Place.

* * * * *

15 December 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

These past few days have been wet and wild at my mountain home. I scribbled these words....

You would have loved these past few nights
at Dragonfly Place, the heavy rain hammering
the metal roof, driven by a wild mountain wind
that breaks branches from trees and scatters
them across the meadow and down the road.
Then a sudden silence, deep as the deepest woods,
and the calm quiet of stars between each storm....

Yesterday was a long, dark, wet day. The wind kicked in the night before, fierce, branches breaking off trees in the woods and crashing against my home. Shingles flew like frisbees off my neighbor's roof. The rain pelted everything, pockmarking the earth, drumming my roof like thunder. Deafening. Around midnight I finally put in ear plugs I normally reserve for noisy motels in noisy cities when I am the road. Dead silence brought a night of vivid dreams that faded into a less-vivid, grey-clouded dawn. The wind and rain grew even wilder. There was just enough time to brew a cup of coffee before the electricity went out. My day was spent scribbling by candlelight and bathing in what little water was left in the pipes after the pump in the well shut down. Fortunately I keep plenty of bottled water for drinking and I share with neighbors. And being an old outdoor saunterer, I know to how use the woods when the toilets don't flush. The electricity came back last night. My world is well lit. This morning at dawn, clouds move slowly, tinged with peach and orange, spreading color across last night's fresh snow on the ridge above me. There is no wind. The forest is still. The storm holds her breath, but there is a kind of calm on this ridge that anticipates another blast. The storm can only hold her breath for so long. More later, I'm sure....

* * * * *

17 December 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Before dawn, the first snow of the season drifted down from the crest of the Siskiyous to Dragonfly Place ... soft, silent, fluffy ... calm and quiet after the brutal wind and rain storms of the past few days. By sunrise, I have made a quick trek into town to stock up on food, and upon my return, the snow has settled in. I stoke the fire, grab a book and notebook, and get comfortable for a day of journeying within ... reading and writing and gazing out onto a world turning white, soft-edged and wondrous.

* * * * *

18 December 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

A scrap from some story that never got written....

Word Dancer and Doty walk into the heart of Golden Canyon in Death Valley. After an hour or so, they stop in a shady nook in the curve of the hills to rest. As they drink water, a few ravens circle down and join them, hopping around and glancing curiously their way, hoping they might pull some tasty tidbit out and leave a few bites behind for them. Instead, Doty pulls a notebook out of his satchel and reads a story he has recently written about his mother. Word Dancer and the ravens move closer to listen. The whisper of words swells that stark landscape with a richness they will never forget. At the end, they feel full. It may not be the tidbit the ravens had first hoped for, but they stick around and seem satisfied. Another hour and a steep climb to the top. Standing on the rim overlooking Death Valley, Word Dancer takes out her wooden flute and plays. The wind stretches the soft notes into beautiful breaths and echoes, carrying her music far across the valley. In an updraft, the ravens rise from the canyon and circle overhead, listening. Words and music -- a feast for the soul -- offered to the place and to those who just happen to be there. None of us go hungry that day.

* * * * *

18 December 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Hundreds of robins visit me this morning. They drink and splash in the puddle under my rig, the only one not frozen and covered with snow. Down below, winter fog brims the valley from edge to edge, muffling the noise of traffic, sirens, the morning train.... The robins sing as they splash. Between storms, above the fog, a sliver of winter sun slants down and lights the dance of the robins.

* * * * *

19 December 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

As winter settles onto my mountain ridge, I settle into words. My days and nights are a yin-yang drama of fierce attentiveness to what matters to me and indifference to what doesn't. As each snow storm blows down from the crest of the Siskiyous and reshapes the landscape, leaving horizons resculpted, new opportunities present themselves ... words written in stories, read in books, rehearsed for telling, new letters to old friends, and new friends drawn by words that have returned for another winter.... I seize the ones that seem worth carrying and give them heartfelt attention, sharing them in the best ways I know. Those that don't speak true to my soul, I let them pass me by. Perhaps with the next storm, they'll fly back to me and sound different, pulsing, vibrant, fierce with passion, drawing me in.

I remember the story of the Harvard naturalist who came back to the university after summer break and was asked by his colleagues how he'd spent his summer. "I have been traveling, studying plants." They got excited and asked, "Where did you go? The Amazon? Tibet? The Southwest?" The naturalist smiled and said, "I made it halfway across my own backyard. I hope to return next summer and finish my work."

Though I rarely leave these woods these fall-into-winter days, I am on a journey. I create a world with my writing, with my reading and studying, with my sharing with friends, and this world matters. I toss the words into each passing storm and they get carried away, down the ridge, across the valley, on to new horizons.... Sometimes, late at night, between blasts of winter wind and the hoots of owls, I hear an echo, a response. A worthwhile word got through to someone who was listening, and the sharing feels complete.

* * * * *

30 December 2002, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

A few days ago, on a calm grey winter day between wild storms of rain and snow, I wander out to the Crazy Bear Ceremonial Grounds, along Bear Creek in the upper end of the Rogue Valley. It has been several years since I visited this ancient native camp, nearly two decades ago when the land was still available for powwows and gatherings. These days, the land is locked up. I pretend to be Coyote and sneak in, glancing at the backs of "No Trespassing " signs in the wise spirit of Woody Guthrie who sang, "On the other side it didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me."

Walking down the slope through groves of oaks and across the meadow toward the grandfather cedar along the creek, I walk through memories ... night after night of old time dancing in the dance arbor that now sags with neglect ... stories and songs around fires in camp after camp of native relations from all over the west ... and late night sweat ceremonies along the creek....

One night I walked in moonlight with Silver Badger and Sleeping Dogs. I asked about the name, Crazy Bear. I got more stories than there were tellers to tell them ... one about the bear-shaped rock at the top of the cliff across the creek, another about a crazed bear who stormed this summer berry-picking camp who knows how many centuries ago, another about the Bear Clan who caretake the seasons in a tradition learned from Great Bear in the Sky (now called the Big Dipper or Ursa Major), and yet another more modern tale linking the name to Bear Creek and nearby Grizzly Peak....

Standing in silence near the remains of an ancient Takelma sweat lodge, I listen to the wind kick up. Voices from a time long ago swirl around me like they've never left this place. Even locked up, this land still whispers her stories. The only craziness this day are the signs and the crazy folks who put them up in their vain attempts to silence the stories.