Journal 2005

---

2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000

---

9 January 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Morning walk. It's been snowing steadily for several days, and drifts are deep at Dragonfly Place. In a break between storms, I wander down the ridge, descending into fog that fills the valley. Leaving sunshine and blue sky behind, this winter world is white and still inside the fog. I see only a foot or two ahead. Fog muffles valley sounds into silence. Nothing moves but me and the small wave of fog I send into a swirl as I walk. Pine boughs heavy with snow droop into statue-like motionless. Even last night's deer tracks seem like they've been frozen in place for a long, long time. In this moment, it looks like winter will last forever.

* * * * *

18 January 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

The snow is nearly gone from this mountain ridge. The days have been warm -- that'll wake up the February daffodils! All day yesterday, Mister Raven croaked past my window, creating quite a stir among the squirrels, and the smaller birds and jays. Each flight across the meadow brought a series of deep, mythic croaks that flooded my home. It was as if my house was full of creaking old doors, each one singing his own song and needing grease in his own way. It amazes me how one raven, using his talents in vocal diversity, can sound like many ravens. Leave it to a native trickster to wake us all up by announcing the arrival of a false spring!

* * * * *

8 February 2005, EarthTeach Forest Park in the Cascade Mountains of southern Oregon...

Piece of a story....

On this sparkly day, Old Man and I slip and slide through the snow in an ancient Land Cruiser. Coyote runs ahead. We chug to a stop at Heron Lake. Coyote trots onto the ice toward a hole of open water, and in a puppy way, plunges in for a frigid bath followed by an energetic roll in the snow. We stand on the shore while Old Man shares a story about coming to these woods when he was seven. Even at that age, he says, he knew this would be a good place to live. A breeze kicks up and shakes snow from the pine boughs. Coyote stops his roll and raises his ears as if he can hear Pete's story settle into the repertoire of the landscape, safely tucked away to be shared again with just the right audience. This process of caretaking the mythology of this place has been going on for centuries. Everyone who passes through here leaves a tale behind. Back in the rig, we rattle deeper into the winter woods, searching for more stories. Coyote runs ahead.

* * * * *

5 March 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Most nights here on the ridge I go to sleep with the hootings of owls slipping into my dreams. Mornings, I wake up hearing the owls finishing their story. As the rising sun silhouettes the ridge, my neighborhood birds welcome the morning with their songs ... juncos, chickadees, finches, a rufous-sided towhee, a chipping sparrow.... A red-tailed hawk cries overhead. Ravens croak from distant pines. Each morning begins with ancient, sacred songs to welcome the sun. Until, of course, the Steller's jays show up. They rattle the forest like an alarm clock that has gone off too early at the end of a long week. They mix their screeches with original versions of everyone else's songs, performed with dramatic and exaggerated mockery. They splash through the bird baths, make crumbs of the suet and scatter seeds from the feeders. This latter action is a signal for the grey squirrels to show up and bicker over who gets which seed-strewn niche. There are quieter times through the day when the feeders and nearby trees and bushes are crowded with smaller birds minding their own business. But the jays and squirrels come back frequently to stir things up, making their last appearance just before sunset. As evening settles into shadows, there are moments of silence as I wait for the owls to begin a new story.

* * * * *

17 March 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

The spirit of spring has arrived at my lair in the mountains, and seems to have produced some odd behavior in my resident flicker. At first I thought he was being obnoxious. He pounds on the metal roof of my home with his woodpecker beak, most often around sunrise. It's amazingly loud, and some mornings I feel like I'm living inside of a steel drum. I told my birding friend Scratchy what was going on and was informed that the flicker wasn't trying to be a nuisance, but rather was in the midst of his springtime business of attempting to attract a mate. First the loud pounding, then a bit of a song, followed by more pounding. In the wild flickers are known to search widely for the perfect bit of resonant wood to pound on. But my flicker is smart and knows an opportunity when he sees one. If there's a lady flicker within a mile or so I'm sure she's aware of his needs. In other words, banging his head on metal is just his way of being a regular guy. I can relate to this and this notion makes me feel a little better about offering my digs as a singles ad with an echo. The good news is that this method usually works, and Mister Flicker will be happily immersed in his amorous activities soon. The bad news is that a flicker will often continue his pounding to define the territory of his springtime love nest, warning other hard-beaked suitors that Dragonfly Place is off-limits. I feel honored, and look forward to the comparative quiet that the rest of the day brings.

* * * * *

1 April 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

In the changing colors and shifting shadows before sunrise, I contemplate light....

In theater, a lighting designer creates moods through light, a technician executes that design, and each actor moves through the play from one preset scene to the next. In storytelling, the concept of light is different. As a teller I am not only the actor but also the lighting designer and the technician. I create the effect of light spontaneously as I perform each scene of each story.

If the performance is indoors, I request an unevenly lit space ... shadows here, a splash of light there, patterns of colored light and shadows that imitate a dramatic sunset on the beach or the haunting textures of a full moon lighting a Northwest forest. As I journey through each story, I play with the light. I feel brightness and dimness on my face as I move, shifting to a new composition of light as the mood of the story shifts.

Once, in a high school gymnasium, I was fiddling with lighting possibilities just prior to a storytelling. I hadn't noticed that some of the lights were gas and needed 10 minutes or so to come back on after they were turned off. In my attempts to be creative I flicked the wrong switch. As students filled the bleachers, the gym was launched into semi-darkness. There was nothing to be done. The lights would come back in their own good time. Much like the world at the start of creation, I began the performance in dim light and let the words carry the drama. I chose a native myth I call, "Sun and Stories Come Into the World Together." In this myth, after a time of darkness, the light of the world (the sun) and the light of culture (the stories) arrive and share the world's stage equally. As the plot progressed toward the first rising of the sun, one by one the gym lights flickered back to full strength. The effect was dramatic and startling.

When most folks imagine a storytelling, I suspect they are not picturing a performance under harsh fluorescent lights with the storytelling space outlined by the free-throw lines of a gym floor and a basketball hoop as a backdrop. Even in this setting, we see something different. We have memories and experiences that send our thoughts of storytelling to a scene that includes firelight ... folks gathered around a campfire in the forest or in the desert, or in the flickering light of a fireplace, the gentle glow of a candle or an oil lamp, or cozied-up around a crackling wood stove in the nurturing hearths of our homes. For centuries, this is where people have experienced the telling of stories, in twilight-to-nighttime settled moments at the end of the day, just before sleep and dreams where we enter yet another setting for stories. This fire-lit scene is soothing, memorable and has magic in it ... a universal and ancient place. In a native plank house lit by firelight, or a Nordic hall, or around the ceremonial fire at a gathering of tribes long before they were called powwows, folks are drawn to the fire for stories, warmth and companionship. It is in this setting that the storyteller's art finds its deepest roots.

I love sharing stories around a fire. The interplay of light and shadows constantly changes, and each story-moment is a dramatic opportunity. And there is also the sound. The sputter and crackle of fire plays with the ebb and flow of words, and adds depth to the silences between those words. The sound of a fire can be a subtle soundtrack that soothes our hearts after a scary story or it can fill our ears with eerie pops and hisses that make our pulses throb. Firelight allows us to experience the stories in much the same ways our ancestors did. Like a story, it tugs us into the awareness that we are a community. In this setting, firelight strays beyond the boundaries of stage lights. Not only is the storyteller in the light but the audience is lit as well. This communal light encourages eye-contact between teller and listeners. When I perform indoors, my request for uneven lighting includes raising the house lights a bit to cast light on the audience. This emulates the shared light of a primeval telling.

In most cultures, a storytelling is somewhat ceremonial. Pausing between stories to place a log on the fire not only perpetuates light and warmth, it is a gesture, an offering, part of the ritual. It adds fuel to our cultural consciousness. It takes us time-traveling through centuries of narratives back to when the world was dark and cold, and someone did something in a story to bring us light. Every culture has myths of light coming into the world ... sunlight, moonlight, firelight.... They light our path. They keep us warm. They provide moments of insight, of inner light. We gaze into the coals at the end of a storytelling and each of us contemplates the meaning and purpose of our existence.

The memories of our beginnings are kept alive in stories. Each time these stories are told, our world is made new ... as the sun rises here at Dragonfly Place ... as springtime remakes winter.... Creation begins with a shared word as the light surrounds us.

* * * * *

9 April 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Rain clouds wrap around this mountain ridge. In moonless darkness before dawn, rain thrums on the roof and creates a soothing setting for contemplation. My thoughts journey into the depths of stories. I ponder point of view....

My Doty and Coyote stories are told from the perspective of Doty. By creating a character whose experiences are drawn from my own, and by using my own name, I strive to achieve both familiarity and detachment without overloading either one. Doty time-travels with his mythic pooch Coyote between mythtime and present time, and each telling becomes a blended narrative of traditional and original stories. By sharing through Doty, I aim to avoid the self-indulgent style of certain tellers and speakers who blather on and on about themselves. Getting the teller out of the telling has been a longtime desire of mine, both on stage and off. Allowing each story to breathe on its own without the suffocating distractions of performed footnotes, and to connect the stories with words of a similar texture, frees both audience and teller. Everyone has a genuine story experience. This approach encourages a storytelling to float within the wisdoms of its stories, untrammeled by chatty tidbits or academic explanations. Scholarly pursuits are best suited for lecture halls or for dynamic discussions in workshops ... and personal pursuits for rambling along in a journal.... Even egocentric Mister Coyote prefers a Coyote story over an explication of himself.

I wish my stories to swirl as naturally as mountain clouds, whisper like the rain, and without any prattle or prodding from me, to bring on the dawn!

* * * * *

25 April 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

As I wake each morning before dawn I remember that I am a storyteller. In that moment between moon-and-starlight and the first flicker of sunrise, the sleepy stroll between the stuff of dreams and the stuff of stories is a short one.

The Old Ones made little distinction between dreamtime and mythtime. I knew this intuitively as a child. As I recover this wisdom as an adult, it is a revelation that approaches magic. As a child I was a daydreamer. As an adult, as I dream up stories, the Great Mystery of my childhood returns.

The universe is a great mythology. My walks from stories to dreams and back again mimic the cyclic journeys of the sun, moon and stars. These wondering wanderings are astral mixtures of memories and discoveries. On my most creative days, I live inside metaphors and barely notice "real-world" events. When I pause to have a look around -- usually during that transitional time between stories and dreams -- I find myself in the midst of the muted light of the old saying, "Myths are dreams gone public."

Each night, in moon-and-starlight, I drift toward sleep. I carry my stories of the day into a story-like night of dreaming.

* * * * *

18 May 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Wild, windy wet night here on the ridge. Rain hammers the metal roof and blows in drumming gusts against the windows. Lights flicker. Moonlight does a wild dance on the meadow as the wind opens and closes cloud-breaks like some sped-up movie. During this storm, the chipmunks who live in the old flower box have covered the entrances to their burrows with leaves to keep out the wind and rain.

Sunrise brings a brief calm. I see wet critter tracks. Mrs. Bear and Mr. Fox found shelter during the night under the roof of my deck. I walk outside and mingle my tracks with theirs. For the first few minutes of the day, until the next blast of the storm tumbles down the mountains, I gaze upon rainbows, a new one every minute.

* * * * *

11 June 2005, at the Salmon Ceremony along the Applegate River, southern Oregon....

We stand on the rock cliff above the river. One by one the divers leap into the cold water, the bones of the first salmon held tight in their teeth. They swim through the current fifteen feet to the bottom where they place the bones under stones, a thank you to the Salmon People, their bones returning home. As the divers descend their shapes blur and it's easy to imagine that they are the giant salmon of the old days out for their morning swim. In a circle, we pass the pipe with a prayer to complete the ceremony. With each puff, smoke rises into the sky like bubbles from the bottom of the river.

* * * * *

16 June 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Raining this morning on the ridge ... again....

In my childhood memories of southern Oregon, summer begins in early May when the few days of spring rains are done. Through Halloween, summer and Indian summer days are clear and warm in the eighties and nineties, with one week or so in late July or August that tops one hundred. Lake of the Woods is ready for swimming by mid-June and Mount McLoughlin ready to climb by early July. There are two or three thunderstorms with dramatic downpours. These inspire us barefoot kids to jump on our bikes and splash wildly through puddles, and up and down street gutters rushing with floods of warm rainwater. These storms last half an hour or so and each one ends with the sudden return of a hot summer day.

In my childhood in Medford, there is never any traffic. My playground is a quiet street, the neighborhood cemetery and the wild woods beyond. On the hottest days we traipse to the mountain lakes where we swim morning to night, or to the ocean where sunny beaches become imaginative stretches of stories and sand sculptures. In the summer of my childhood, it is sunny and warm until ten o'clock at night -- every night -- and each midnight is magically lit by a full moon.

This spring refuses to become a summer of my youth. Though I have lived in southern Oregon all my life, today it feels like somewhere else. Willamette Valley perhaps? Rain, rain, and more rain. A creative weather lady described the best of our June days as having "episodes of sunshine." Has our fast-paced, adulterated culture reduced even hot sunny days to sound-bites of wishful thinking? This isn't my style. I'll take a childhood summer any day and every day, from May to Halloween.

* * * * *

21 June 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Shapes and shadows of foxes stalk me on this summer solstice.

In the light of the full moon, I meet a young fox on the road to Dragonfly Place. I stop. He stops. We curiously stare at each other. I walk up the road a ways. He matches my distance. There's ten feet between us. I pull out my camera and snap a photo. Flash! It doesn't phase him. I suspect this youngster is an offspring of Mister Fox who visits me at my home almost nightly. Perhaps bold curiosity is in the genes.

After a short night's sleep, and dreams full of more shapes and shadows, I meet fox number two in the pre-dawn light along the Klamath River on my way to the native village of Coyote's Paw. I stop. He stops. Photo. Flash! This one leaps lightly onto a stump and strikes a photogenic pose.

When it comes to sacred sites and native folks -- foxes included -- there are times when photos aren't appropriate. The lesson of the experience is in allowing the power of the moment to enter one's spirit. It doesn't surprise me that these fox photos are fuzzy, out of focus, dim, ghostly, a trick from the trickster. Perhaps these cousins of Coyote take lessons from Bigfoot in how to reveal oneself to a camera-toting human for a blurry snapshot "captured for all time." Like good actors, these foxes know just the right time to exit. Their shapes float into the shadows like a story-just-told settles back home into the dimness of mythtime.

This is good, I think. I come to Coyote's Paw to watch the sunrise on the longest day of year, to cleanse my spirit, to free my being of anything heavy, to experience the light and become light. And Coyote gives me foxes ... and their ghosts ... and their spirits ... all wrapped up in their blurry photos.

There is something important for me to carry home from this magical morning. And it isn't the photos. I bet Mister Coyote is howling a belly-laugh all the way into midsummer. I feel him watching me from somewhere just out of sight. He's never walks far from Coyote's Paw.

The message of the moment sinks in. Before I enter the ancient dance ring, I stash my camera in the rig.

I stand in the center of the stone circle, facing east. I call my shadow home. I thank the Creator for these life lessons, and for the beautiful morning. I pray for peace for all critters -- the Human People, the Tree People, the Bird People, the Salmon People, and especially on this morning, the Fox and Coyote People. I feel calmness enter my heart. I feel close to those whose love I am blessed with. I watch the sunrise wash the sky with many colors, finally rising to the red-golden glow of fox-fur.

As I exit the dance ring, I try my best to walk lightly between shapes and shadows, and into the morning sun.

* * * * *

22 June 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

There are places where real-life lessons and stories meet. Here's a crossroads I visited recently....

In storytelling, gestures are as powerful as words. Some performers use them to conduct the rhythm of their sentences or to emphasize certain points. But the sensitive artist reaches deeper and uses gestures to dramatize and interpret the many-layered truths in a story. They are not simply footnotes to speech. They are the visual manifestations of the essence of the story. When the timing and intent of gestures match, the result is powerful. When the artist is a master, the gestures are not only seen but also felt, and they find their way into the heart of each member of the audience. One should choose each gesture as carefully as one chooses each word of each story ... just at the right moment and for an audience who is fully ready to receive the magic.

I recently had a lesson in gestures as they live in my real-life story. I choreographed my gestures carefully, using all my artistic skills to conceive them, give them beauty and bring them to life. The accompanying words were loving and magical and genuine. But I allowed myself to be carried away with the intent. Though I had noticed my audience might not be ready for either the words or the gestures, I plowed ahead anyway, convinced that my passion would impress my audience to such a degree that everyone would be drawn into the world of my story. As a result of not paying attention, the timing was all wrong and my intended purpose never had a chance.

As I walk my path to the next crossroads, I contemplate my life and my art. Both fit inside my satchel and they travel well together. They are good friends to me and to each other. They are happiest when I take them out, let them breathe and give them the attention they require to thrive. Inside the stories of each are the truths, with words and gestures, timing and intent. All the lessons are there for how to tell a story and how to live my life. After all, the best stories have their origins in the experiences of our lives. Deep inside each story is the right gesture for the right audience at just the right moment.

* * * * *

24 June 2005, along the upper Rogue River of southern Oregon....

In the long evening shadows, I watch mergansers swim up the Rogue River. There are 2 adults and 30 young ones. They swim in classic formation. The same V shape will serve them well in flight during their migrations. What is aerodynamic in air also works well in water. Collectively, they look like a small paddle-wheel boat on an evening cruise. However, when they come to a whitewater stretch, it's as if the Captain shouts, "Now!" and they all paddle feverously with flailing duck feet and wild splashes toward the next stretch of calmer riffles. Then the V is reformed and tightened, and with calm, steady progress against the current, they continue their journey upriver and into the night.

* * * * *

8 July 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

In the soft light before dawn, Jackrabbit hops down the driveway, stopping to nibble on grass made sweet with last month's rain. The first wash of morning light gives detail to his silhouette. Birdsongs begin faintly and scattered, and rise to a chorus that fills the morning and calms the soul. I wish this feeling of peace to find its way into every nook and cranny on the planet, to fill the hearts of those who struggle, to open paths worth walking down. Jackrabbit hops toward a fresh nibble and I go to work on a new story -- my way to push the boundaries of this moment a little farther down the ridge, and into a waiting, watchful world.

* * * * *

9 July 2005, along Union Creek in the Cascade Mountains of southern Oregon....

The rain waits until the end of my storytelling. As folks head back to their campsites, mountain clouds press close. Large summer raindrops make the fire sputter into smoke and it slowly goes out. I wander with new friends into the picnic shelter. As night settles in, we share a second wave of stories. It grows so totally dark we cannot see each other. Mountain rain adds a background rhythm to the tumbling of the nearby creek. Our stories flow toward midnight. Hour after hour, our presence here, and the presence of the forest, is defined by the sounds of words and water. New friendships deepen in these shared moments, witnessed by stories, wrapped in mountain darkness on this rain-filled night in the woods.

* * * * *

15 July 2005, in the Cascade Mountains of southern Oregon....

On a summer night, I walk along the sandy shore of Muir Creek. Here the creek flows smooth, deeply quiet, barely rippling the reflection of the moon. Moonlight turns the sand and creek pebbles white, sharply edged with shadows. My steps startle a mother killdeer out of her nest. The late-night silence is shattered by wild wings and cries as she flies to a rock in the center of the creek. She thrusts out a wing, cries louder, limps across the rock pretending to be wounded, distracting my attention away from her nest. I walk on up the creek. She circles back into the shadows, and the night turns quiet again, all ripples and moonlight.

* * * * *

16 July 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

It's a hot, slow-moving day on the ridge, good for contemplation. Downstairs where it's cool, I sit in the brown chair I call the healing chair. I watch lizards come and go across the deck. They move slowly, each step deliberate, no waste of energy, lots of pauses to rest and look around. Over the course of the afternoon, they travel a myriad of trails, experience sun and shade, a few snacks of ants. They scuttle under the heather each time I step outside and startle them. I know there's entire lizard families under that bush beyond where I can see. They have lots of company. Those fellows aren't entirely the loners they look like from where I sit.

I gaze at the crisscrossed deck and mentally re-travel my own paths ... choices I've made, choices made for me, places I've spent some time along the way with those dear to me. I glance up and look to the far horizon of mountains. Between here and there, the Rogue Valley stretches for miles in front of me. Through the heat of this summer day, I sit in the healing chair. I watch the lizards move slowly, and contemplate the next deliberate step in my journey.

* * * * *

20 July 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Warm and beautiful in the early evening, appearing out of the sunset just over the western ridge, the planet Venus has been a lovely presence at Dragonfly Place for several nights. It's taken a while but Coyote is starting to notice her. Unlike Capella, his previous choice for a female companion, Venus is calm and confident in her subtle beauty.

In his last story, Coyote had a rough time. Attracted to Capella's flashy, fleshy colors, he danced with her into the sky. They tripped the night fantastic and Coyote thought he owned the universe. But the dance was brief. Capella dumped Coyote from the top of the cosmos and he crashed onto Mt. Mazama. Eventually, his liquified remains formed Crater Lake ... a different lady of deep, calm beauty. Coyote didn't notice.

After each story where Coyote gets dismembered, dumped, hacked, chewed and spit out, he puts himself back together in time for another lusty jaunt. Each of these self-absorbed, tail-bristling pursuits ends painfully. Perhaps it's time he made a different choice, crawled out of his old skin, opened his eyes wider. Or at least squinted and changed his focus. Is it possible for this ancient dog to learn a different pick-up line? Or drop the clever line approach altogether? Choose a different path? Perhaps.

Venus, that planet of love, is a nightly visitor to Dragonfly Place. Before certain stars strut their nightly see-through stuff, she is fully present ... creative, compassionate, complete. Look close, Coyote, breathe easy and look deep. As the sunset colors fade, her fire burns warm, fueled from within herself. There she is, Coyote, close to the horizon, just within reach.

* * * * *

20 July 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Almost sunset. Sun slips behind the ridge, and cool mountain air blows through the open windows of my home. Critters come out from wherever they spent the heat of the afternoon ... jackrabbits now in the driveway, deer in the meadow, ravens croaking through the forest, clouds of dragonflies everywhere.... Later there will be bats and moonlight, foxes, maybe a bear.

After a long day of writing and thinking and talking, I sit quietly in the waning heat. I watch the first colors of sunset brush the western sky. The jackrabbits sit still and gaze at me. In a moment of emotion that bubbles up from the depths, I reach out, sending warm thoughts to one who still makes her home in my heart. As I settle into the rhythm of stillness, I listen for the coming night, waiting patiently for the deep dreams that moonlight might bring.

* * * * *

21 July 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Full moon. Before dawn, this mountain ridge is stark white with moonlight. A great journey lies before me, down the Rogue River to the west. As native folks did in the Old Time, I spent five days preparing for this journey, and will start out as soon as Red-tailed Hawk shows herself. In our Takelma mythology and lore, she is a great medicine bird. Her presence blesses a journey and brings the traveler good luck.

Today will be a clear warm summer day full of sunshine and beauty. Good for sauntering, and for finding just the right path and to follow it to the end. I try to imagine what wonders wait for me along the way ... sparkling riffles in the river, speckled sun and shade in the deep forests, the crash of waves on the beach near the river's mouth ... and finally, a gaze into the Village Beyond the Sunset made famous in the myths. Perhaps there will be a moment when the Great Mystery reveals herself.

I watch the moon travel toward moonset. I wait for the red flash of tail feathers in the light of the rising sun. I am ready for this journey.

* * * * *

23 July 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Mountain moonlight makes me Romantic. Note the upper-case R. That's me ... mushy softie, sentimental push-over. Even in the dust of midsummer I am what Lightfoot crooned a "rainy day lover." Love that is real is allowed to express itself with mixed metaphors.

As we parted, I reminded myself of my desire to walk even the bumpiest roads with grace. I will go my own way, I told myself, and not allow her to hear the whisperings and stirrings of my heart. My silence will be a genuine expression of kindness, respect and compassion. To do otherwise would be a tug of weakness. Hmmm.... Maybe I have that last part wrong. Perhaps it's a strength to open one's heart, even if an errant whisper makes one seem momentarily bumbling and flawed ... slightly foolish if not wholly human....

Surprise voices sometimes rattle me awake and redefine my best intentions. On these nights brilliant with moonlight, I hadn't anticipated such vividly beautiful and nostalgic dreams. Night after night they tug at the depths until what I have tried to keep hidden dances its way to the surface ... unadorned emotions straight from my soul. Of course nothing needs to be done about this escaped love-throb beyond my round-about and softly intentional sharing of these scribbles. This fit of spontaneity can be just as easily passed by as prodded. I have been told this by the wisest among us who also admit to being "slightly foolish if not wholly human."

The moon will set in an hour. In summer sunlight I will take a step or two more down my path, peer open-heartedly round the bend and get a glimpse into the next bit of this story. From here, that path looks intriguing.

* * * * *

23 July 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Here on the ridge, a hot afternoon inspires a pause in the story of our day. All species surrender to the heat waves. Birds sit in the shadowy branches of trees. Warm breezes lull them into naps. A deer dozes under the deck. In the shade of the pine, two neighborhood squirrels are spread-eagled flat on the dirt, sound asleep. Other animals are out of sight, holed up in their cool, damp lairs. This is siesta-time. We rest and draw easy breaths.

Our narrative picks up in the evening. A cool breeze rouses critters. Birds glide across the meadow. The deer stirs and stretches and crawls out from under the deck, yawning her way into the languid shadows of the woods.

The squirrels pursue a different path. They are energized by their naps. Their playful eyes flash. They leap into a frenzied dance, a Saturday night on the town kind of romp, teeth chasing tails in spirals round and round the trunk of the pine. They are wide-awake and passionately primal.

This is my kind of story. I close my eyes and imagine them in the last light of the day. Their silhouettes leap west, ridgetop to ridgetop, across the cool colors of the mountain sunset, into the night where they share a lust-kindled coupling among the stars. I would never be one to suggest that nothing exciting ever happens on the ridge. Here is a rousing climax to our summer day, complete and satisfactory, and with all the right stuff for a good story.

* * * * *

23 July 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

I love the long shadows on a summer evening an hour before sunset. They soften the glare of a hot day. They sharpen the ridges. They make dramatic even the simplest lines in the landscape. Every detail is visible. As the shadows grow even longer they become bridges between daylight and darkness.

Here is a lesson in perception. What a gift it would be to be able to always build bridges between people. To find that view that brings out only the best in what folks have to offer. To look past often unintended harsh edges. To notice even the simplest gestures and to recognize them as essential to everyone's well-being.

I sit on the deck at Dragonfly Place and watch the shift of the day into night. I try to train my eyes to notice the barely visible changes that make so much difference, to match the rhythm of my shifting glance to the in-the-moment and subtle shifts of the cosmos.

Learning to see is like learning to listen, and both are like learning to tell a new story. I'll patiently practice until I notice a difference, until depths emerge and show me their truths. Perhaps someday, in a moment of unexpected magic, I'll see the soft eyes of the universe returning my gaze.

* * * * *

30 July 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

At 3:00 in the morning I wake suddenly from an intense dream. For a few moments, I gaze out the window to the stars and try to remember the details of the dream. Nothing. Just the texture and the tone. No particulars beyond the theme of journeying deeper into my art. One of those little wake-up dreams that says, "It's time."

I do something I rarely do. I flip on the TV. To my delight, the film "Whale Rider" is being broadcast on PBS. Interesting follow-up to my dream, I'm thinking. All about making adjustments -- particularly to stereotypes and rigid thinking -- as a way to ensure that what matters most in a traditional culture continues to thrive and relationships between folks are healthy.

I doze for a bit after the film and wake up feeling well-rested and focused. Being awake and watching a film for 2 hours in the middle of the night might have left me tired and restless. But on this night it had the restful effect of a good dream.

I toss the plan I had made for the day. I immerse myself in my art, reaching a little deeper into new territory. I'll allow the stories to define this day's journey. My art will be richer for it and no task that truly needs my attention will go unnoticed. The stories will say something. They always do. As a storyteller, I learned a long time ago that they have the last word on anything that truly matters as long as I'm awake and listening, To be less aware does not serve the stories, and more wake-up dreams will surely follow.

At sunrise I call for my shadow to come home. The stars go their way and the sun sends summer sunlight onto the top of the far ridge. Growing light reveals details of the landscape. I look around. Many paths begin here, and all of them stretch beyond the horizon. Each path has a narrative. I wait in silence until I hear the words, "It's time, Mister Teller. This way for today's story."

Without hesitating, I pursue my art and take my first steps into a new day.

* * * * *

8 August 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

I'm back in my mountain lair after a 9 day saunter across Oregon. After performing and teaching at a wonderful conference in the Portland area, I traveled through awesome landscapes and visited ancient native sites in the Willamette Valley and the Columbia River Gorge, in the wonderlands of John Day Fossil Beds and Malheur, east into the high desert landscape and eventually back into familiar places in the Cascade Mountains ... the wocus-rich marshes and dramatic rivers of southern Oregon. I was blessed by making several new friends. Our experiences and shared adventures will most likely find their voices as I get back to scribbling, and words flow into stories.

* * * * *

11 August 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

As I stand on the deck before sunrise and greet the morning, a bear wanders across the meadow below Dragonfly Place. It's as if I had wished him into my presence. I had just been scribbling on a story, FOLLOWING MISTER BEAR, and my writer's imagination was fully immersed in the mythology and stories of bears.

I wrote these words of the story, set in a cave: "Doty is no longer a storyteller wearing a bear mask. He is Mister Bear of the myths traveling upstream along the great river that is the lifeblood of his native world. His flashlight is a pine torch. Waterdrops that cling to the ceiling are stars sparkling in the night sky. Each room of the cave is a community brimming with voices. Each voice tells a story, and together they compose a long narrative of the landscape Mister Bear has called home for centuries."

This bear in the meadow is not the same golden brown Mrs. Bear that visited my home almost nightly last spring. This bear is also large but fully black. In the faint light, before the sun clears the eastern ridge, he looks like a shadow escaped from the night, walking west and following the edge of what's left of nighttime. So far, all the neighborhood bears have eluded my camera. Though I am fast and head his way with camera in hand, he lumbers into the woods and disappears into the trees before I can get close to him. I have photos of bear tracks on my deck and driveway, smudges on my windows made by Mrs. Bear's wet nose, but no shot of these elusive semi-mythical critters of the night.

I go back to my story and scribble some more about Bear. On this morning, words are the best pictures I'll get. Down the ridge I hear a neighbor's dog bark as the shadow of a bear wanders past, heading deeper into the woods.

* * * * *

3 September 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

An hour before dawn, there is silence here on the ridge. Even the crickets are dozing, or at least they are quiet. I hear no critter footsteps through the late summer landscape of dry grass and madrone leaves. No sounds for a spell.

Then comes the turning of nighttime toward day. Some mornings an owl shares one more story from his pulpit in the woods. Or from the pines in the meadow, the first morning birdsongs begin faintly and grow into a chorus. Or I hear the distant yip from a neighbor's dog as Mrs. Bear wanders through on the last leg of her nightly rounds. Sometimes it's Mister Fox that rouses the dog. Sometimes it's both and I hear stereo barks from different spots on the ridge.

Each morning, just before dawn, I listen for that wake-up sound that nudges the mountain stars and whispers, "Time to move on."

* * * * *

24 September 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Quiet morning before dawn. Mister Jackrabbit munches breakfast near the deck. He has plenty of family nearby but has chosen to spend this moonlit moment by himself, enjoying his favorite greens made crisp by last night's rain. I have a difficult time projecting him into any of the infamously mythic rabbit roles. He just doesn't seem the type. He looks more meditative than trickster-like.

In the mountains not far from here, in a Takelma myth, Jackrabbit goes crazy and clear-cuts the woods, including the medicine trees. Coyote passes along his version of the facts (never quite right), and people wage the first war and everybody dies. As it goes, the first war began because of misunderstanding and an abuse of the environment, circumstances that have changed little over the course of centuries.

Just over the mountains in the high desert, somewhat-misnamed Cottontail romps through the Northern Paiute myths tearing the landscape to bits, pounding folks into mush in his giant mortar and violently spreading havoc throughout the land. This is no cute bunny rabbit.

There is also Señor Rabbit, a south-of-the-border trickster, Brier Rabbit, Peter Rabbit, the Easter Bunny and Bugs Bunny, who is actually a jackrabbit. The list is a long one, and not one of them seem to have their origins in my rabbit quietly nibbling and minding his own business. Except for this. In many parts of the world, Rabbit is a lunar deity associated with Moon goddesses and Earth Mothers, and here is Mister Jackrabbit standing in a patch of moonlight. A bit of a stretch for world mythology perhaps, but just right for a quiet morning here on the ridge.

* * * * *

11 November 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

First snow of the season came and went here on the ridge. Six inches in early November even caught the squirrels by surprise. They scratched their heads and scampered over the drifts, carrying the last acorns they could find to their winter stores. When I looked out at first light, Oregon juncos were hopping around on the deck searching for the seed I put out after the bears have sniffed the cold and gone into their winter sleep. If I put the seed out too soon, the bears will tear down the feeders nightly. Next day, the snow melted on a day blazing with mountain sun. This morning there's a warm rain. At dawn, squirrels and juncos are going about their autumn business, making their morning rounds. Droop-eyed bears are half awake, sniffing the warm breeze, contemplating a few more walks in the woods.

* * * * *

20 December 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Here on the ridge, these long nights leading up to the longest night of the winter solstice are full of watchful eyes. Each critter in this forest neighborhood -- including the night sky critters, the moon and stars -- seems aware that this is a time for a deep gaze into the wonder of the season, drawn toward the coming light of longer days.

Any light is worth checking out.

My resident deer usually show up once a week or so. But lately they browse every night in the meadow below my home. When I turn on my porch light, they move in closer.

For the past week, Mister Fox has made at least two extra saunters across my deck on his nightly rounds. He acts like he's looking for something. When I leave the lights on, he lingers, takes a few extra sniffs and glances in the windows before heading up the hill and disappearing into the darkness.

In the nearby forest, as the full moon peeks through clouds between storms, the owls start a new winter story, tossing it back and forth between trees. When the moon disappears and darkness returns, the story is done. A few nights ago, before moonrise, a shooting star streaked across the clear mountain sky and fell into Rogue Valley fog far below. This also started the owls telling a story.

Toward morning, the bird feeders are crowded. Juncos and chickadees celebrate this moment between darkness and light with a feast. Jays take a different approach. They chatter with more racket than usual. They add a firecracker ambience to any celebration.

These long nights are full of stories, watchful wonder, and anticipations of light. And there is time enough to contemplate them all.

* * * * *

26 December 2005, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

These past few days have been unusually warm on the ridge -- an early false spring. Warm-weather insects are back. The bats woke up for this event and happily fly at night, eating their fill. The neighborhood chipmunks are also awake but without a feast except for the stash of nuts they stored up this past fall. I haven't seen any bears. They're stubborn about their winter sleep, and mountain berries are too smart to show up this soon. I'm enjoying these rare days. The breeze blows warm through the pines. The creeks are crazy with snowmelt. I know this won't last long, and soon everyone -- including myself -- will be searching for just the right spot for a warm winter nap.