July 4and July 14?
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- rock in falls
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- Lake Quinault
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- moss on trees
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- my tent beneath the tree
I camp at Quinault Lake, in the national forest, mosquitoes fly around my head as i type. i am in the national forest, on or beside indian land. The forest here is not as razed and hurt as it was on the drive up. Does some know that it has been preserved. I sleep deep, my tent at the base of one of the few giant spruce trees that remain. I chose this spot, at falls creek campground, in part because of the tree.
But i wonder now, how i give most to the largest trees, those that stand above. so many struggle to just survive and grow to grandeur too. do i look away from the clearcuts because i can feel their pain? are those not the very places that need our energy and love the most? Yes, this area has been restored for recreation, but can a place be true if it is surrounded by those areas hollowed out, those places that are only a shadow or what they once were, or what they could be.
But of those areas, can i not accept them for what they are?- a woman on the bus turned around like i did the other day, a local girl said “she did not like what she saw” – and that is true, and i turned around for the same reason, went back to where i stayed and saw it there – the clearcuts and deformed hills that stood beyond the town. but we have done it, used it up, cannot just run away, cannot say i don’t like you anymore. we do that with people too, ask why they cannot thrive when all has been chopped and distorted too, used up for the profit machines. We do not see the light they still have, the beauty somewhere inside. the communities as hollowed out at the land. We cannot do it to the land, and expect to survive – but do we reject what has been created, move on through, no longer wanting to see. can we send love, connect not out of pain but of something higher.
a child came down to the lake, the lake that shows its beauty, glistening beneath the mountains that surround, though in the light or lack there of the forest shows its pain, becoming grey, and the older chopped zone still can be seen – but he does not see, the best that he knows, and that is the energy that he sends, of love and appreciation for what is. and this Lake is an oasis of sorts in the coastal realm, and i know further back more grows still.
as i sleep under the giant, i see that is what it is with the razed places, nothing left, no giants to inspire the others who are coming up, showing the heights to which they may reach, the grandeur they may become; do the trees not know, have they forgotten what their potential is. or having been cut down to many times, do they refuse to grow, not seeing the point of it anymore, knowing they cannot become what they were meant to be,, only timber, and not leaving any offspring.
Still this places is healthier than the lands i passed through, the forest grows again here, and is more than timberland – ihe timberland of the lumber companies, who have turned trees into merely resources to serve another end, without respect for what they are. and yes, i smiled, the depletion that i felt left me when i came back in to an area that was more preserved or allowed to regrow. and i see the forest is more than the trees – it is the ferns that grow, the slugs along the path – though not today, the mosses and so much more. it is a place of life, where life forces meet and join.
Still it does feel heavy mixed with joy, i am in the rain forest on a sunny day, a day where birds sing and people come out to play. I remember when i first came here, the only time, 10 years ago, and wanted to leave, a rainy day, and i did not yet know about the rain forest, about rain pants or protecting a camera. beauty, wanted to return, and see how i have changed.
I had thought about staying longer but the store is closed, shut down for good. A lodge next to the campground where i buy coffee, but with an overpriced restaurant. The sun shines, but i do not hike, walk the edge of the lake, stare at the rocks that come alive in a small waterfall, and then take the bus north, to yet another lake.
I return to the rain forest at Lake Quinault a week later after having traveled to different lands, after having reached the location where i was to go. I came back and slept under the very same tree, and this time i felt it’s pain – being one of the survivors must be hard, one of the few who still stands, who has witnessed it all – but who still stands tall and proud.
This time i experience the rain forest in the rain, laying in my tent for hours on end, my tent that i was able to set up before the skies opened and poured down tears, bouncing off the ground, splattering the dirt upwards, nourishing that which will grow again. I have been through the park, and to islands where much is being restored, islands of forests and preserves and farms. The rain pours down, and then it stops, i walk a path, and in places it feels like forest again, it is alive, and it see the moss dripping down, and a few slugs along the path. i pack up a drenched tent, the bottom soupy with mud, and catch a bus to the south. But as i have passed around here, i feel something has been stripped out of me – is it just the rain and gray, or is it more. I pass through towns and cities, and then i yearn for it again, yearn for the lake where some of the trees grow tall, and nature sings, but i do not return – I almost do, for what grows there does have a place in my soul.
Energies of Place 