Wandering at the Waterfall

Today I am grateful for abundant shade trees, cool water from a deep well and an
afternoon breeze that took a bit of the edge off the heat wave. The elevation of the 
hills here kept the temperature well under the one hundred degree mark, but others 
I spoke with were not so lucky. I was thankful it wasn't hotter, I tend to melt in heat 
and humidity. Pasha and I both moved around from shady spot to shady spot, me 
attempting chores in between long sits under the trees sipping lemon verbena and 
chocolate mint water. It would have been a wonderful day to go to Glendale Falls, 
but, alas, that was last weekends journey. 

The hills here are often nothing more than mounds of ledge covered in a wee bit 

of soil. Stones and ledges peek up everywhere, whispering their ancient earth 

stories. Glendale Falls starts as a small tributary brook with a lovely pool at the top, 

then cascades down in a series of falls and pools to the bottom. In spring it is quite 

a rushing waterfall, but this time of year the pools are fed by small streams providing

many a wonderful swimming hole. 

The pool at the top is deceptively deep, below, a fellow wanderer stepped into 

the deepest part to have a real swim. There is a spot for a whirlpool massage as

well, as long as you don't mind an occasional small fish dancing in your hair. 

One can climb down the smooth ledges from pool to pool, or walk beside the 

falls in the forest. The way down is often a stone path with hundreds of tree 

roots holding on for lack of deep soil. 

Walking slowly between roots and stone, a magical moment of light captures me. 

Small streams and pools sing gentle forest songs, 

and everywhere the trees seem quite able to pull up 

their roots and join me as I wander. 

Two trees reach for each other, perched together 

for a hundred years or more, holding root-hands 

at the edge of the waterfall. 

Scarred and knobbed, this broken root healed into 

something that looks rather like the eye of a tree. Or

maybe a giant, green dragon once met a great sorcerer 

and was changed forever into tree. 

Small springs sprout from stone and moss and tree, and 

I find myself walking further into the forest and away 

from the people scrambling quickly down the 

waterfall to see what is at the bottom. I am reminded 

of the importance of the slow, meandering path. 

I come upon a woodland cave, cool and dark and deep, and 

know this place must be a favorite of bobcat and mountain lion, 

once the humans have departed and the darkening forest 

belongs again to the wilder ones.  

As I look more closely at the pair of reaching trees, 

I see tree spirits peering at me. I could feel them

here in this forest, and now I know they saw 

me, too. 

Forest Medicine

Long ago and far away, in the time of my great, great, great grandmother's 

grandmother's grandmother's grandmother, it wouldn't have been odd, living at 

the edge of the forest, knowing medicine to be something other than what comes

in bottles from a store. I am grateful, that the source of greatest healing for me 

wraps me in evergreens and softens my footfalls with great tribes of mosses. 

  

Months, days, hours of doing, accomplishing, making lists, grant paperwork, setting

up shop, web sites, meetings and lastly a shiver-making dentist drill and novocaine 

piled up one upon the other like sacks upon my back 'til worn out I halted, and remembered the wild that would heal me. 

Walking out into the forest in a healing way, a medicine way, requires a deepening

into the moment, a slowing - reverence. Beginning inside unplugging phones and

holding an intention to bring with me on my journey, I packed a basket of offerings.

My prayer eggs from Equinox, nuts, and cornmeal, sacred to the first people of North America. 

Snow boots still needed, but, thankfully, not snow shoes. I crossed the paths 

of many critters, though with the wet snows of late, hard to know which was 

animal and which snow-plop. Some places full of deep snow, some bare ground. 

I left my offering at the Forest Circle, pouring cornmeal into the toe track of a 

fisher who trotted right across the altar. I wonder which furry neighbor will

be the first to eat from it? 

It seemed that everywhere I looked, Tree Spirits were watching me... 

Do you see the one below? 

At a favorite spot, I stopped to place a spiral of cornmeal on a stone, 

and to listen awhile. 

      When I turned, another face peered down from a towering, hemlock snag. 

      This old tree is a favorite of the woodpeckers and I imagine a home for many. 

 Faces, everywhere, with astonished open mouths and wide eyes.... 

I realized this might be the reason my sculptures look as they do. 

Such a beautiful, slow turning to spring. Grandmother Winter gently pulls the snow 

away from the edges of things and collects it in her cauldron to take with her as 

she journeys to the south. Delicate ferns emerge as the snows recede, many having 

stayed green under the warm snow blanket all winter. 

A tall, healthy beech tree, rare in these parts because of a blight. Her 

smooth, silver trunk right next to one gnarled with disease. 

 Peeling bark of the paper birch. 

Pasha, off on his own journey, finds me at last. 

He invites me to sit with him to share stories.  

He tells me of Partridge Berries and looks quite dashing 

on his stump-perch: moss-colored eyes and coat of 

hemlock brown. 

I see what friends have long said, that he and I have 

the same mossy eye color.... I think my mane is also turning 

into tree bark. 

 With me on my travels these days, is a beautiful, 

Enchanted Forest necklace from Delila in Finland, 

a country not far from my father's, father's father's home. 

I like that. 

There is magic in this necklace, I feel the forest whisper 

to me when I'm away.