Journal 2006

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16 January 2006, near Portland....

Before dawn at Dragonfly Place, I wander down the ridge through 3 inches of new snow. The wind shakes the trees, tossing clumps of snow from their branches. Between squalls, the mountain clouds stretch thin and the full moon floods white light onto the white landscape, so brilliant that each light-flood seems like a new sunrise. Then a sudden blast of wind swirls and thickens the clouds, and I am back in the dark depths of the storm.

From Ashland, I head north out of the snow, through Sexton Mountain slush and into Willamette Valley rain. Geese fly low over the Willamette River. The river is swollen, stretching its banks, its water brown with rain and mountain snowmelt.

* * * * *

12 February 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Native people everywhere have names for the various moons. One name for the last moon is "Shoulder to Shoulder Around the Fire." January is the height of the storytelling season. Traditionally, through the long winter nights, people sit shoulder to shoulder in the lodges, listening to performances of their ancient myths.

The current moon is called "Ice is Gone from the River." Here in southern Oregon we are enjoying gorgeous 70 degree days, what some locals call our annual "false spring." Mustard blooms bright yellow in the valley orchards and daffodils push up through the warm soil. This seems natural and on-schedule and not too false. The moons come and go as they always have.

We speak native moon names and honor the circling of the seasons. To experience this drama, we listen to the stories around the winter fire and then we go outside and enjoy the very-real first signs of spring.

* * * * *

12 February 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

A few hours before dawn, this mountain ridge brims with moonlight and the subtle night sounds of the forest. Before horn-blasts of the morning train and the roar of interstate trucks reverberate up from town, before my urban-minded neighbors fire up their growling four-wheeled, earth-ripping toys and explode through the woods, I listen for the slight sounds of the night. I hear a breeze swirl through the pines and the delicate wing-whoosh of a night bird in flight. I hear the light-stepping pad-pad-pad of Mister Fox trotting through moonlight, going about his nightly business with hardly a sound.

* * * * *

24 February 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

An hour before dawn, Coyote sings somewhere down the ridge and wakes me up. The neighbor's something-or-other toy dog, who yaps relentlessly at every micro noise or movement within half a mile, is strangely silent. Perhaps he feels humbled by his genetic superior. Perhaps he recognizes Coyote's song as a sound that belongs here, as natural as crickets singing or a breeze rustling the pines or early birdsongs calling the morning sun. It seems that either Mister Coyote is in an elite club of his own making or he blends in with the landscape so completely that his singing goes unnoticed by certain domestic breeds. Or perhaps the little dog has nothing on his mind at all.

I suspect that Coyote prefers the idea that he has created his own moment, above and apart from all other creations of nature, whether they belong on this ridge or not. Over the years I have noticed that Coyote nearly always seizes the power of his performance skills. At every opportunity he thrusts himself into his self-made limelight and revels in any attention his singing brings. Unlike his toy neighbor, Coyote has given careful consideration to the quality of his song ... the melody, the range, the passionate projection.... He has honed the shining blade of his singing to a fine and perfect edge.

I enjoy this wild dog serenade and scribble these notes in the dim light of a flashlight. I know from experience, were I were to flip on a brighter light this early, Master Something-or-other would yippity-yap for a long, long hour. Like Coyote, I seize this moment, and I carefully choose which music I wake up to.

* * * * *

8 March 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

The first days of spring are nearly here. After months of wild storms, I wait as Winter prepares herself for another curtain call. On this night she hides in the wings. I hear her breathing. Clouds rush the ridge to watch her entrance, so many they crowd out the moon. Their shadows darken the new grass and the first of the mountain flowers. A deep silence pauses the moment. Winter breathes full breaths, composing herself before once more revealing her beauty. With grace, she strides silently across the ridge. As she gestures, snowflakes drift out of the night. A few at first, then hundreds, thousands, and more.... The entire cast! Against the blackness of the sky, they look supernaturally white as if each one was dipped in a bath of pure moonlight before floating out of the heavens. I watch Winter walk downstage and step off the ridge. Young daffodils have never seen anyone like her. They shiver as she brushes past them on her way to another last show of the season, another curtain call, yet to be announced, somewhere down the valley.

* * * * *

17 March 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

This scene has been floating in my imagination waiting for a couple of stories to catch up....

In Confluence, Doty and Coyote are camped beside Coyote Creek. They have been exploring the dry lake bed of Fern Ridge Reservoir. The water level has been lowered while the dam is being repaired. For a few months, an ancient world has been revealed. Doty and Coyote are searching for the place made famous in the myths where Coyote Creek flows into the Long Tom River. In the distance, as they sit around their campfire in the mist of the night, they see three blurry figures walking along the old time Indian trail.

Meanwhile, in Long Walk Home, Doty has agreed to accompany Coyote and his grandmother on a trek from the Siletz Indian Reservation to the Rogue River, retracing in reverse the Takelma Trail of Tears. It is a magical journey. The world they see close-up is the primal landscape of the Oregon Country as it was before the native people arrived. Beyond, like the out-of-focus background of a photograph, they catch glimpses of more recent times. One night they see two figures sitting around a campfire and they walk toward the camp.

The two Coyotes are thrilled that their story paths have crossed. Grandmother Coyote sits back and watches the spectacle. She knows her grandsons well. She is old enough to sense the outcome of this meeting and wise enough not to get involved. The two Dotys take her cue and watch in silence.

The Coyotes taunt each other with verbal tidbits that give away secrets about themselves. Within a few minutes they get into an egotistical dispute over the facts. This results in a tussle, a dramatic dust bowl of tail-pulling and flying fur, Coyote curses and semi-creative insults. When one considers the endings of centuries-worth of well-told trickster tales, the conclusion of this scene is fairly predictable. They both lose the fight!

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15 April 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

My father passed away on March 25. He was 87 years old. Though he lived a wonderfully rich life, I suspect he continually mused over a question about me: "How is it that the son of banker could become a storyteller?" My father began his career rolling coins in his youth at the Medford branch of U.S. Bank. More than 40 years later he retired as Assistant Vice President.

My mother, who died 10 years ago, was the artist in our family. She responded to my artistic antics with gentle nudges of encouragement. My father often raised his eyebrows -- rarely his voice -- and then took a grin-and-bear-it cue from Mom and smiled. Because Dad trusted Mom's intuition and her judgement, he never asked his question. He was a quietly patient man.

As I was speaking at his memorial service, I gazed at the crowd of friends and relations and it struck me that I am now the elder generation of my family. Yet I still view my art through the eyes of my childhood. Each day seems more of an adventure than work. I find joy immersing myself in the Golden Age of stories. Words are the deep forest I explore on tiptoe with wide eyes and the playground where I carelessly frolic. I never ask myself: "What am I going to do when I grow up?" or "When am I going to get a real job?"

On May 10 I will celebrate my 25th anniversary as a storyteller. I have got to this place on my journey by a rough-and-tumble method familiar to folks who live creative lives: by breaking the conventional rules and making my own. During those moments when I pause and ponder my path, I think about the many things my parents taught me. Two lessons surface often. From my mother I learned to trust the conviction of my artistic calling. From my father, I learned that certain questions -- with patience -- find answers on their own.

* * * * *

7 May 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

After a wet spring, the daffodils at Dragonfly Place came and went quickly. One morning they shot out of the duff and bloomed, brilliant in the midday sun, looking like they would forever color the slope yellow. Now their petals curl and fade to brown. As the May sun slips behind the ridge, the sunset pales. Daffodils bend toward the coming night, and disappear into the darkness.

* * * * *

10 May 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

This has been a spring to remember for folks with allergies, especially here in southern Oregon ... the center of the universe for pollen soup. After weeks of sluggish energy and an abundance of distractions, I wander into the clinic and get doctored by the doc. A little fine tuning and boom! -- I feel like a kid again, clear-eyed, energetic, passionate, my creativity full of fire, inspired and in spirit. A smidgen of science and I'm an artist again!

And just in time for my Story Day. Each year on the anniversary of my first storytelling, I pause along my artistic path, breathe deep, widen my eyes and have a look around. I call for my shadow to come home at dawn, I poke around in my story attic, I explore a Dante-like forest at dusk. I listen to the language of the landscape, the wisdom of friends, the whispers of my heart.

This Story Day has a good number -- 25 years of sharing stories and the journey gets more interesting with each step.

As I write this, it is an hour or so before dawn. I am wide awake and following the advice of Rumi: "The morning breeze has secrets to tell you. Do not go back to sleep." Perhaps at the end of this particular trek, there will be plenty of naptime, perhaps a long sleep. Meanwhile, there are stories to live and stories to share, in the listening and in the telling. Each night is more full of moonlight on this trek toward the full moon. With the May sunrise, I'll contemplate Basho's wise words: "Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home."

* * * * *

11 May 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Light from the nearly-full moon floods this mountain ridge. It is as if the sun and moon struck a deal to work together and create a brilliant spring day whose length leaves the summer solstice in shadow. Indeed, it is like having a longest day of the year once a month. I hear this story from the owls. Bathed in moonlight in their perches in the trees, they tell the story over and over until myth becomes reality. I gaze outside and see that it is true.

* * * * *

18 May 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

During recent hot days, the pine trees have dropped their pollen through the heavy air. The deck is yellow with it. The evening breeze blows it into streaks, long lines of ants plow trails through it, and now, in the golden light of the sunset, the pollen glows. I walk onto the deck to say goodnight to the sun and welcome the stars. Pollen is everywhere! Back inside, I leave yellow tracks across the floor.

* * * * *

22 May 2006, along Ashland Creek in southern Oregon....

I walk along a familiar path and retell the story I know of that landscape. Spring has remade the world with new growth. The creek gushes with snowmelt, cleaning up debris of past storms and sweeping away the dark days of winter. Retelling the story mimics nature's springtime re-creation and helps the world get new again. When I take a turn in the trail and find myself in a landscape new to me -- a place with a story I haven't heard -- I start fresh. I pause. I look around. I listen to the language of the landscape. When I sense the rhythm, my words start to flow.... This place in the spring, with its beauty and green depth, begins to know me, and we become part of each other's story. The trick, an elder once told me, is to keep walking, keep watching, keep listening and be awake to whatever possibility each new story has to offer. Each morning, I can't wait to go walking.

* * * * *

9 June 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Dawn comes early these days. Most mornings, before sauntering into my day, I listen and watch the morning wake up. In the first light, Jackrabbit hops up and down the driveway, munching breakfast from tufts of new grass. Mister Fox slips across the deck on his last wild lap of the night. Below the meadow the neighbor's urban-raised dog yaps at the neighborhood bears. The first birdsongs dance from tree to tree. After hours of feasting in moonlight, the bats wriggle into their roost toward a daylong nap. I get up and call for my shadow as the first sunrays stream over the ridge.

* * * * *

20 June 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

As the seasons shift from spring to summer, I saunter to favorite places ... the lush green of the marsh on Upper Klamath Lake, the rush of desert wind at the entrance to the cave on Horse Mountain, the chatter of stories at the Sacred Salmon Ceremony, the deep, deep sky of mountain stars at Crater Lake, the snow-melt flood of water along Daley Creek, the center-of-the-world aliveness on the rock that is Koomookumpts' Bed, my connection to the ancient spirit world on Lower Table Rock.... Back home, days and nights are filled with sunlight and stars. The mountain breeze kicks into a warm gust, nudging me down the ridge toward another journey.

* * * * *

24 June 2006, Dragonfly in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

I have two chores on this hot summer day. First, I hand-carry firewood a quarter mile from the woods to my home. Each log is heavy, hard madrone and spring-rain-soaked. One log at a time is all I can handle, and even then it's slow going up and down the ridges. Second, while I carry firewood, I compose a poem in my head. One line at a time, as the woodpile grows, I trudge up and down the stanzas in the sun-soaked mountain air.

* * * * *

28 June 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Twenty or more jackrabbits this morning, more than I can remember seeing here at any one time. As I saunter down the ridge under a blood-red sunrise, jackrabbits crisscross my path from the ridgetop to the creek. No deer, no sign of Mister Fox or Skunk Man. No ravens or noisy jays. On this morning, jackrabbits quietly wake up these woods and alpine meadows, hopping from one wild breakfast nook to the next, munching lush grass in the first light of the rising sun.

* * * * *

28 June 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

I crawl into bed to the sound of soothing rain on the roof. For days the obvious weather has been blazing sunlight sizzling at a hundred-plus. Almost midnight, and the night swims with water sounds. I think of a lost love far away, how she loves the music of a tumbling creek or a steady rain. This thought fills me up between awake-time and dream-time. Tears drop from the clouds and cleanse me with sadness and longing, and then comfort. As I float toward sleep, I dip into the depths and grab this thought: when I share love again, it will be on a night like this.

* * * * *

1 July 2006

Twenty-five years ago I am camped on Harris Beach on the southern Oregon coast. It is near dusk. I sit near a small driftwood fire, staring at the sea and thinking about dinner.

A gull lands on the sand nearby. He does a little dance around a tasty tidbit and then moves in and starts tugging at it. Seconds later, another gull shows up and tries to steal the goody away from the first. A squabble breaks out with pecks and tugs and cries. With a flap of wings, the first gull performs a daring hop over the second, grabs his meal and glides out to a rock in the surf. The second gull does a little dance around nothing and flies down the beach, searching for a dinner that is a little easier to come by.

I stroll over to the sand where the story took place and inspect the prints of the two gulls. I toss off my shoes, jump onto an untouched stretch of sand and act out the drama. I do my best gull dance. I bend and tug. I flap my wings. I screech. I switch characters and dart and peck. I switch back. I leap into the air and land a few feet away toward the waves. I walk back and inspect my footprints. I compare mine to the gull prints like an actor glancing over the notes he scribbled into his script after his first run-through off-book. A little rehearsal, I'm thinking, and I'll have this performance down. The sand tells it all. This landscape has a language, and I've just had my first direction from folks I dub the original teachers ... the place itself and the characters who live their stories there.

I walk back to my fire and begin fixing dinner.

* * * * *

1 July 2006

Each day at the retreat will be a variation in this pattern.... I rise before dawn and scribble in my journal. Many of these notes will become source material for a series of Doty and Coyote books I am writing on the art of native storytelling. In the first light, I call for my shadow as I walk a mile through the woods to the creek crossing where I sit quietly inside the sound of mountain water. Each morning is spent writing Doty and Coyote stories, and each afternoon I rehearse. One day a week is dedicated to taking care of the business part of my art. Every few days a friend visits from the outside world. I eat two healthy meals a day and spend my evenings reading, researching, studying and doing drawings for my books. At dusk I walk through the woods before sleep and dreams.

I look forward to the days and nights ahead, to the depths of my art I will experience as I strive toward grace in body and spirit. The discipline I develop during this month will naturally become the pattern of my day to day living.

With distractions put aside, or at least my time with them better organized, I "hear" the stories more clearly in my mind as I create them. There seems to be more room in my brain for these creative pursuits which are the heart of my art. These intensely productive sessions of creative energy also provide passionate fuel for other parts of my life (and vice-versa). I am more available for a special someone to share my life with. I feel balanced, focused, aware, attentive and full of energy, and able to do better work in deep and meaningful ways. And now it's time to rehearse....

* * * * *

2 July 2006

Quiet beginning to the morning. At the creek crossing, several birds flew down to drink ... robins, canyon wrens, a flicker.... The cool mountain breeze gives a softness to the first light of morning, a contrast to the blazing heat that will be here by midday. Like the birds, I am refreshed and ready to slip quietly into a day full of stories.

* * * * *

5 July 2006

Early morning. After two days immersed in writing and rehearsing, I walk deep into the forest and taste my first thimbleberry of summer ... plump, deep red in the faint light of morning. I touch it and it falls into my hand. After several days of simple food -- no fancy treats on this retreat! -- this berry tastes sweeter than any dessert I've ever had. And precious: it is the only ripe berry I see all morning. The sky turns sunrise-red on my walk back and I welcome the first rays of the sun.

* * * * *

6 July 2006

As an artist, I never want to arrive somewhere in my creativity and stay too long. Though it is good to revisit familiar pathways and remind myself of the discoveries that brought me to where I am, I also want to be continually journeying deeper, edging ahead, pushing the boundaries of my expression. As Basho wrote, "the journey itself is home."

I have found that what is good for my art is usually a healthy model for how to live my life and how to love. My biggest fear is ever to become ordinary. Though my friends tell me not to worry about this, I know that there have been times -- and the last not too long ago -- when my day to day existence nearly sunk into complacency. It was doubt and despair -- not joy! -- that woke me up. This path is poison to passion and creativity and vibrant living, to me and to those close to me.

During this retreat I am reawakening parts of my spirit that were considering taking a nap. I'm finding ways to keep my eyes open and my blood rushing. Yesterday's writing was some of the best I've done, and my rehearsal opened doors to new ideas in how to perform certain stories. It was exciting to embrace this spirit of exploration. Each moment is a miracle full of metaphors.

This morning, between darkness and daylight, I nudge the edge and walk deeper into the woods along a path I've never been on. A good beginning to a day of new horizons.

* * * * *

10 July 2006

Full moon. Last light from the sunset mixes with the first glimmer of the moonrise. The night feels magical, mythic, inviting. I wander through trees speckled with this ephemeral dance of light and look around for an entrance into another world.

* * * * *

11 July 2006

Out of nothing, or the impermanence of telling....

Before a storytelling the stage is an empty space. As I step into a story I look around me and see a map of that story. A few words, a gesture, another step. The space becomes a landscape. I invite the audience to share the journey. Their presence inspires word tones, silences, characters, narrative twists and turns.... We walk along the river and into the mountains. On the summit, I gaze beyond where we're at and see the beginning of another story on the crest of the next ridge. After a trek that stretches the distance of mythtime, I whisper the last word of this telling. The stage feels full and I sense it would take centuries -- perhaps some marvel of imagination -- for the empty space to return. Yet at the next storytelling, there is nothing there. I take a few steps, gesture to the audience to join me and we share a story as if this has never happened before.

* * * * *

17 July 2006

Each July when I see bark peeling off the madrone trees, the bark looks to me like sheets of paper. I imagine some spirit of the woods, quill in hand, wandering through the trees scribbling poems on the bark. Madrones also drop some of their leaves at this same time. Walking through the woods, I see those blank sheets of bark and I am inspired to write. Watching madrone leaves twirl to the ground, I sense a new season of fall stories just around the next bend.

* * * * *

26 July 2006

Moonless night.... Black bats are invisible. Deep in the woods, stories wait for a flicker of firelight.

* * * * *

29 July 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

I think back to last evening.... For the first time in a hot two weeks, a mountain breeze cools the air. At sunset, the sun shatters and sprinkles the sky with stars. A sharp-pointed crescent moon spears a cloud. Bats flutter out of their roost and into the bug-buzzing night. Wrapped in a blanket, I sit quietly in the midst of it all.

* * * * *

31 July 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Musings on story maps....

Mapmaker is an interesting character who has yet to make an appearance in a story. Vivid in my imagination, he hangs out in my mythology and draws story maps, sometimes on stone, sometimes on paper, sometimes on sheets of peeled madrone bark.

Though most of his maps have a strong sense of place, they are much more. Not conventional flat representations of geography, his maps dramatize our experiences in the landscape. They contain history and folklore, metaphors and symbols, deep meanings.... Narratives often accompany the maps. Mapmaker says this is temporary while he gains skill in his art. Eventually, he says, the artistic qualities of the symbols and the aesthetic precision of their placement will clearly communicate their own narratives. Mapmaker's first map was a retelling of my story, WAITING FOR ROCK OLD WOMAN.

This imaginative collaboration gives me insights into my art. Just before a performance, I mentally overlay a story map onto the stage with such care that as I walk into the performance I feel fully immersed in the story, ready to interact with setting, plot, characters.... If I try to gage the success of my method then the storytelling lacks one or another of the qualities essential for a truly engaging and magical performance. When I am no longer aware of the technique is when the map is truly working.

* * * * *

5 August 2006....

Each morning is a new beginning in an adventure. Each sunrise sheds new light on my life and on my art. "They're the same thing!" Coyote reminds me. "Right, " I say. "You would know."

Each morning, after calling my shadow home, I pray to the Creator. I thank Him for another day to do the work that might make a difference in the wide world. I ask Him to give strength and courage to those who face challenges, and I thank Him for the love that I feel in my life. "And in your art!" chimes Coyote. "Amen, brother Dog. Ho!"

The first colors from the sunrise wash the sky. Something new, perhaps even unexpected, will happen today. I feel it in my bones. "Bones?" says Coyote. "Something to gnaw on? Ah, yes, time for breakfast!" "Yes, Mister Coyote. It's time for that, too."

* * * * *

5 August 2006....

Some story musing....

I have been re-reading each of my stories in the series The Adventures of Doty & Coyote, and scribbling various thoughts I have on each piece, particularly insights into how to lift each story off the page and bring it to life in performance. Indeed, if I have any strength as an artist, it lies not in any individual work, but in the overall scope of a mythology, the stories and events that take place in what I call Doty & Coyote Country. While I want each story to have an individual voice and style, and a unique approach to its telling, this makes for slow work -- lots of writing and rewriting and sauntering to those backcountry places the stories come from, lots of reading and research -- and plenty of dreaming and contemplating!

In many ways I dislike the concept of publishing as each story seems stuck in a narrow moment of its life. The performances of these stories are able to accommodate little changes and tweaks to make them thrive naturally within the ebb and flow of the mythology. The world wide web offers a similar means for their growth. They can be revised frequently and the results made public instantly. No story of mine is ever ready to be carved into stone. I have always thought that poets should publish their poems in loose-leaf binders to make it easier to provide new versions of each poem. Performances and the web are giant loose-leaf binders, a blessing to the creative process and a curse to those of us who are obsessed with giving every detail the perfect fit within the whole. And, of course, revising earlier works to give each a fresh and unstrained home in the mythic neighborhood of the latest writing.

I am drawn to short works with poetically compressed language. This is partly because I am a slow study. It takes me a long time to "learn" a story well enough to make it ready to tell or perform. And so I write short works. I also believe that much can be said with few words, and this takes great effort to get it right. My love of the language of poetry makes me want to get every word, phrase and pause just so, on the page as well as on the stage. This is where I need to begin with each story. I can "loosen" poetry and spontaneously make it lyric street language in performance but I cannot work it the other way around. I cannot take loosely related words and instantly compress them into poetry that has both music and meaning.

I play with the words, speak them aloud as I write them, fiddle with the punctuation to accommodate the spoken voice. When my art reaches out and blesses me is when I have caught a glimpse of that place where the performance and the page both disappear and together make something new, if only for a moment.

* * * * *

9 August 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Woke up early to view the full moon. Beautiful. Moonlight floods this mountain ridge, so much white light it makes the summer meadow look like a field of snow.

* * * * *

9 August 2006, Ashland....

Early morning along Ashland Creek, I watch a heron fish for trout. After each fish she swallows she takes a drink. If the fish is large, she takes two.

* * * * *

11 August 2006, Crater Lake....

I have been coming to this lake for over 50 years. The first time was June of 1953. I was 6 months old. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of this lake, and as an adult, many of my most poignant.

I have always enjoyed the lake for simply what it is: a beautiful, powerful place. But as I became an artist, I began to recognize that the lake wore many masks and that each "look" was dramatized by metaphor ... calm and quiet power, solitude, depth, clarity, a suspension of time, the blue expanse of inner and outer space.... It is my work to try on each mask and wear it until the mask is no longer needed as metaphor gives way to direct experience.

If it is healing I seek, the qualities of this lake serve my quest well. They also provide vivid insight and inspiration for me as an artist seeking a path into the most elusive and mysterious layers of my art. It is a wonderful place for love and empathy to find expression, in my life and in my art. It is a place to become maskless.

For my quests to be successful, I hone the skill of not seeking. I sit quietly on the rim of Crater Lake and what needs to arrive will show itself. For me, a true vision quest is not a quest at all. I empty my being to make room to receive what is offered ... calm and quiet power, solitude, depth, clarity, a suspension of time, the blue expanse of inner and outer space.... The longer I am empty and receptive, the more masks I try on, and eventually, the more masks I remove.

* * * * *

Tonight, again, Coyote's Star dances low over the north rim of Crater Lake....

There's that star again. She's a luscious chick and tonight she's dancing close but not too close, her tasty colors and lickable curves just out of reach. A delicious masquerade, a sweet-talking lure without the words. Coyote's got that peckish, toe-tapping look in his eyes. He's puffed up the slope to the peak. He's ready to make the leap and whirl into the light fantastic. By now his gut is growling and he's forgotten how he suffers the messy results for the sake of his dance. Coyote is a reassembly-required kind of dog. And to boot, he's the untiring cliches he can never remember. What are they? Dance like no one is watching? Love like you've never been hurt? Hunger works just as well, right old friend? Good luck, Mister Coyote! Gorge yourself on the moment! See you in the next story when you've put yourself back together. There you go! Yummy!!

* * * * *

21 August 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Doty & Mister Bat: Journal of a Story

Near dusk. As Doty steps out on the deck to admire the last colors of the summer sunset, Mister Bat veers to miss him, spots a tasty insect, veers again and follows the insect into the house. Bat flies up the stairs and heads for Doty's bedroom. This is all conjecture, of course. It happens quickly and Doty doesn't see a thing. He goes back to work in his office.

Hours pass. Doty ignores the usual critter noises ... scurryings and shufflings and buzzings, flapping wings, distant barks and yips.... After all, it's summer in the mountains and all of the windows are open, each one covered with a screen to keep all beasties happy in their places. Doty wanders into his bedroom at bedtime, flips on the light, crawls into bed and reads for a few minutes -- "Conflict Resolution in Rural Tibet" in the latest PARABOLA magazine.

More conjecture. With the light on, Mister Bat decides it is time to nap and finds some cozy nook and cranny to hang out in. Doty turns off the light, gazes out the window at the stars, and ... swoosh! It's nighttime again for Bat and he's flying. Doty leaps out of bed, pulls the screen off the window, dashes out of the room and slams the door behind him. He retreats to his office.

After several minutes of internet searches -- How do I get a bat out of my bedroom? -- Doty discovers he has done the right thing with the window and door. He is assured that the bat will most likely find the window and exit the house within a few minutes. Doty goes back to work.

An hour passes. Doty pokes his head into the bedroom. No one is flying around. Good. It worked. He goes in, does what he believes is a careful search of the room. No sign of Mister Bat. Doty crawls back into bed, switches the light off, and ... swoosh!

Back to the office. Another hour of work is followed by another search of the bedroom. Ha! Doty spots him. In the shadows, the brown spot of Mister Bat blends in with the knots in the knotty pine walls. He appears to be sleeping. Good idea, Doty's thinking -- it's 3:00 am! Doty grabs his pillow and a Coyote Pendleton blanket. Leaving Mister Bat to do what he will and hopefully notice the invitation of the open window, Doty heads for the downstairs couch.

* * * * *

22 August 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Doty & Mister Bat: Journal of a Story (Continued)

High noon. Mister Bat has been sleeping all morning 15 feet up in the rafters of Doty's bedroom. The door is closed and curtains drawn to offer Bat the illusion it is dusk and time to fly for the open window ... bat freedom and yummy insects! Bat is probably pretty tired from last night's stressful and frantic adventure and he's happy to doze.

Doty tiptoes past Bat to the closet. He gathers a few changes of clothes and sneaks out, careful to keep the door closed. He carries the clothes to the guest room and makes up the bed. This may take a while, he's thinking.

Just after sunset. Mister Bat is awake. He leaves his roost in the ceiling, circles Doty's bedroom a few times, ignores the open window, and lands on the wall above the bed. He must be hungry by now. Doty can't figure out why he doesn't fly out. Maybe some assistance is in order.

Doty gathers up a few tools: leather gloves, an empty Nancy's Organic Nonfat Yogurt container and a file folder to cover the top. The plan is to trap Bat in the container, take him outside and release him (after closing the window!), and watch him delight in a buggy feast as he returns to his species-appropriate company of family and friends.

As Doty slips back into his bedroom, outfitted for the task, Mister Bat flaps up the wall a few feet out of reach. It is beneath Doty's respect of wild critters to stoop to the base level of name calling. "Rat with Wings" briefly crosses his thoughts but he shakes loose of it. Doty silently slips out and heads back to the drawing desk in his office for some serious Bat contemplation.

He rereads "A Homeowners Guide to Bats and Bat Problems." This article -- and a dozen others -- clearly states: "Within ten to fifteen minutes the bat should settle down, locate the open door or window, and fly out of the room." Right, considers Doty. Twenty-four hours seems long enough. Maybe it's time for a ceremony.

Doty considers the possibilties. Perhaps if he sat quietly in his bedroom and told Mister Bat stories of his homeland, stories about bat communities and the satisfaction of finding the perfect winter roost where he can enjoy a long sleep cuddled close to those dear to him. It would be wise, figures Doty, not to mention the bat character made famous in the Modoc myths. This bat betrayed friends and community over and over until he had neither. Not a good idea.

Or maybe this is all happening because Doty's home got somehow out of balance or Doty himself strayed from his path. Maybe what is needed is a purification ceremony ... an eagle feather, a pipe, smudging....

Or perhaps it is time to ask a friend to come by with a ladder and a few clever gadgets.

Before heading to bed in the guest room, Doty checks in on Mister Bat who is alternating swooping through the room with landing high up and resting. Doty gazes at the open window. It is larger than cave openings he's seen bats fly in and out. With the wide world of the woods just beyond and the evening breeze full of delectable insects, what could be a better invitation to dinner?

* * * * *

23 August 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Doty & Mister Bat: Journal of a Story (Continued)

3:00 am. Quick check. Bat is looping through the room. The breeze blows in through the open window. Nothing new.

Sunrise. Doty pokes his head in. No sign of Mister Bat. Doty walks through the room, inspecting each shadowy corner. Nothing. Outside, he hears the usual rush of neighborhood bats fly back into their roost in the eaves. Perhaps Mister Bat is happily among them. He closes the window. He comes back in an hour and does another check. Still nothing.

Several checks throughout the day suggest that Mister Bat has left his temporary indoor roost. Looks to Doty like he rejoined the great outdoors sometime between 3:00 am and sunrise. Doty will let 24 hours go by with more checks, into every shadowy corner, under the bed, behind book shelves, in the back of the closet.... Tomorrow night he'll reclaim his bed, listen to the night, watch the stars, and dream of bats.

* * * * *

26 August 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

The Big Dipper was huge last night. Great Bear in the Sky was dancing a big dance around his fire, calling for a shift in the seasons. The first leaves in the mountains and alpine valleys are starting to show fall color. Squirrels and jays have been squabbling for a month over the best acorns. A new season of stories is on its way.

* * * * *

4 September 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

While sleeping in the redwoods a few nights ago I had a dream that that might have been a scene in a tale of magic realism....

There is a community of bears living in the redwoods. In the middle of each night, they silently lumber on tip-toe into the campground where they act out an original play of perfected skill: they steal the tents of sleeping campers without waking them up. Even tents with floors! (Especially tents with floors.)

In the morning, campers wake up tent-naked! Confused and angry, they report the theft. Puzzled and clueless rangers scratch their heads, ignoring bear tracks that crisscross the duff. After all, given the many expensive and successful bear-proof contraptions in the campsites -- trash bins, food storage containers and the like -- it is clear to those in charge that humans have successfully outsmarted their "slower" cousins to the extent that bears nightly escape the law's blank page of likely suspects. Surely the bears could not have thought up these near-impossible feats, much less pulled them off. No one gives them a second thought.

Meanwhile the bears have quietly carrried the tents back to their home in the trees. What was once a small community of rotting lean-tos and makeshift hovels has grown into an impressively sleek village of dome tents. The bears are happy in their red and blue and yellow shelters. Cozy and warm, they dream in color in the dark depths of the redwoods.

* * * * *

11 September 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

Midnight visit by a large black bear. Vivid in moonlight she wanders up my driveway, pauses at my rig and sniffs the hood, slowly circles my home before heading down the road and into the woods. No dome tents here worth stealing! The neighbor's dogs usually bark at every critter who passes by. Tonight they are wisely silent.

* * * * *

17 September 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

For me, spring and fall are seasons of transition and travel.

In the spring the urge grabs me to saunter into favorite backcountry places that for months have been inaccessible, buried under winter snow. Spring begins long sun-soaked days of treks to outdoor storytellings and magical moonlit nights in the mountains.

Each fall I feel the travel urge in a different way. Fall is the beginning of a new season of stories. This fall is particularly poignant. I have been on this mountain ridge for most of a decade. After a summer that has been unusual and wonderful, a morning soon dawns when I begin a journey that will most certainly bring new adventures to this long narrative that is my life.

The past few days have seen the first snow of the season on Grizzly Peak. Brisk nights have inspired oak leaves to begin turning gold. A day of rain rinsed away the summer dust. Mountain colors are deep and rich.

* * * * *

I imagine this:

Doty walks. It is a colorful fall morning of gold and yellow leaves against the blue sky. The landscape has a burnt richness that only Indian summer can bring.

Tras .. tras ... tras ... feet shuffling through dry leaves....

Doty walks after days of crowds and stories. Old friends visited and went home. A new friend waits just over the ridge. Doty travels light, his satchel half-empty. There's plenty of room for what he might find around each bend in the trail.

Tras ... tras ... tras.... With old visions behind, remembered with a backward glance, Doty walks. The horizon is here.

* * * * *

I also imagine this:

I have been standing here for a while wondering which way to go. Three paths ahead, one behind. Standing still is a fifth direction ... the sacred number.... I watch a turkey vulture circle over a flock of wild turkeys. Like the vulture, I imagine the possibilities, and I wait for a choice to present itself.

Images of transition surround me....

* * * * *

Where Is Everyone?

We continue to live our stories even when our stories are not being told....

Great Bear in the Sky slumbers low over Grizzly Peak. Nighttime feels like fall. Dawn is hours away.

I look out the window, past the pine and into the darkness. Yesterday -- all day -- squirrels robbed Grandmother Pine of her cones for their winter meals. Though I am awake the squirrels are napping in whatever lair will be their winter place of dreams.

This night is unusally quiet. Where is everyone? I can't account for the night critters, but I do know about story characters....

Coyote, as usual, is here and everywhere, maybe romping through the woods with Coyote Lady. Enough said.

Fox Girl just returned from a gaze at Crater Lake and some walks along the upper Rogue. This much I know. I was with her. Coyote stayed home. He said he had something to do.

Word Dancer has just arrived at Boundary Springs, the headwaters of the Rogue River. In the warmth and light of her campfire, she pulls out her journal and leafs through it. She pauses and reads out loud, "Thinking about Doty. Where is he now? He wanders in & out of my life like characters in the stories he tells. He's here long enough for the dance, long enough to have memories that turn into dreams, & then he is gone, & I am alone." She closes the journal and gazes to the east. In the spring she'll walk into the sunrise as she begins her journey to the Woman's Cave in the Modoc homeland.

Gwishgwashan, keeper of the Takelma myths, sits by the open window in her Creekside Cabin at Buckhorn Springs. She listens carefully to the words of Mother Landscape. She hears new stories. She misses nothing. Each story's life depends on her.

Old Man is finishing his all-summer walk through landscapes and stories, slowly making his way up the rocky slope of Table Mountain. Here he'll spend the long nights in the rickety fire lookout on the summit, remembering his summer saunters and shouting his stories to the fierce winter storms.

Lampman settles into his new role as a literary ghost. He wanders his favorite haunts along the Rogue River. He sees something move in the fog, He looks closely. He sees the story and writes it down.

Beyond the fog, Tommy and his pooch Tippy walk in the redwoods. They are part of a story that has already happened. Childhood makes no distinctions between real time and mythtime. Tommy looks ahead to the next adventure. He doesn't know it yet, but down the road there will be plenty of time for looking back. Tommy and Tippy scamper deep into the woods. Nothing gets in their way.

Great Bear in the Sky dips closer to Grizzly Peak. As I take stock of my stash of stories, I feel sleep coming on. A new dream opens the bedroom door and walks inside.

* * * * *

Questions

"I have a question," announces Coyote.

"Only one?" asks Doty.

"Depends on your answer," says Coyote.

"Well?" says Doty.

"Well," says Coyote. "A few months ago you put us out on this dry lake bed. We met an old man who told us an old time story. We're sitting around a fire at what may or may not be the confluence of Coyote Creek and the Long Tom River. Why don't you finish the story?"

"I'm waiting for something to happen."

"Telling the story is an event. Maybe that's what needs to happen."

"Right. I'll think about that."

"The dam was repaired a while back, you know, and the lake is back. At least pausing the story stopped time or we'd be underwater now. But there's something I can't figure out."

"What's that?"

"Time stopped and yet the leaves are turning colors, nights seem cooler and we're running out of firewood."

"Maybe that part of the story is moving ahead."

"I think you're a storyteller stuck chasing your tale. I recognize the signs."

"Maybe. I'll see what I can do. Meanwhile, I brought some extra blankets. Interested?"

"You bet. Where did that old man go? Maybe he'll tell us a Coyote story. That'll heat things up."

* * * * *

9 December 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

"Well, well," says Coyote to Doty. "You worders go on and on. This isn't a treaty signing, you know. You don't have to start with a creation story."

"It's my birthday. I'll blather as much as I want."

* * * * *

18 December 2006....

Cold, cold days and nights at Dragonfly Place, Doty and Coyote's lair in the Siskiyou Mountains. Each morning, before dawn, Doty welcomes his shadow home after Mister Shadow has been wandering around the countryside through the frozen night, visiting the hearths of friends and sharing old time stories during this height of the storytelling season. Coyote sleeps in until it feels warm enough to rise and poke his sensitive nose outside and see what's what with the world and how he might fix the world up for himself, or at least make it warmer. These long nights make for detailed dreams. Back in the old days, those all-night winter storytellings were dreamlike, and those who drifted off during a telliing made their own version of the story in a dream. Sometimes it was difficult to tell the dream from the story. Dreamtime and mythtime were different words for the same reality. Both narratives went on and on for hours until the weak light of the winter sunrise paused dreams and stories for a few short hours.

* * * * *

27 December 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon....

It is ironic how the weather inspires me to alter ancient traditions. During these wild, windy days and nights blasted with cold rain and snow, when the road down from my lair is barely passable -- and sometimes not -- all I want to do is cozy up and write and read in the warmth of the fire and watch the storms blow down the mountain slopes and across the valley. And that's exactly what my native ancestors did and why wintertime was declared to be the height of the storytelling season. But here's the problem. I'm the storyteller, and it is my job to travel through these storms and brings the stories to people wherever THEY might be cozied up. Here at Dragonfly Place, I have a large library. Between this and my rehearsals and my writing, I am surrounded by stories. I live stories all day long, and all night stories swell my dreams. One could do worse than have a life filled with stories.

* * * * *

29 December 2006, Dragonfly Place in the Siskiyou Mountrains of southern Oregon....

A snippet from a while back.... Doty and Coyote walk up the front steps of the Chinook Winds Casino where Doty will be performing stories. By the entrance are two easels displaying large posters of upcoming programs, one for Doty's storytelling, the other for a performance by Bill Cosby. "Hey, look," says Doty. "I have a photo and Bill doesn't." "Bill," smirks Coyote, "doesn't need a photo."