Thor's Day: Spirit in the mountains

A tale of two hemispheres

By Edward Jarvis

High Sierra: September [2004]

Heavily stepping at
altitude toward the meadow, a vast
award notched in the mountain,
I notice late lupin squatting,
lingering at the trailside
like so many tiny blue urchins.
The aspen have already begun
their brightening, the wind-flicked
yellow shimmy that dazzles.
A rubric of baneberry lines

a deer path. Later, bold in their
domain, coyotes will stalk the darkness
infusing the night with an easy
banter, the moonless
sky sluiced by the Milky Way.
O holy presences. By first light
the creek will be speaking in tongues.

This is two stories, each told by half of the brain. The left half narrates the particulars, tells what happened, and makes a couple of humorous observations. Then, the other half, the right hemisphere, will have its say, offering, as is its custom, a synecdochic interpretation of the linear sequence of events played out by its minion.
    I am an introvert. Yet my profession keeps me engaged and interacting with people for ten or eleven hours a day. As a result, I need a period of time in solitude every year, preferably in an isolated natural setting. I am a backpacker and some years ago—twenty-one, I think—I was exploring an area of the eastern Sierra that I had not before known.
    At one point I entered a pristine canyon far from any human activity or evidence of it, walled by steep forests with tangles of aspen, clumps of juniper, and spreads of fir. I stood at the berm of a swiftly running creek that made an S-curve at the edge of a large meadow, which spread before me, forest beyond and at my back. Beyond the meadow was a high mountain ridge. It had been a substantial hike to arrive there. The canyon was an isolated spot within a much larger isolated area. I have been returning for these many years, setting up my simple camp and savoring the silence but for the ulalia of the creek and the breathy whispers of the wind in the trees, and never have I encountered another human being nor any sign of anyone having been there in my absence. I have, however, encountered bear, mule deer, foxes, coyotes, river otters, a wolf (more about that later), eagles, hawks, owls, and more. There is, at that altitude, a sound, or perhaps a resonance, if not heard, then definitely perceived from the extravagant splash of celestial occupants in the night sky. All of this serves to nourish me, to restore me to internal order.

Now, the story as told by the left hemisphere of my brain. As I have stated, in all the years that I have been returning to the canyon I have never encountered anyone human. On the first day of my arrival this year, as I set up camp in the usual spot by the creek, I noticed two redtail hawks circling low over the site. I had not seen them in a number of years. Among my Cherokee forebears, to hear a hawk’s cry is to be put on notice to watch for a sign: one would be forthcoming (more on this further on). I had promised myself the year before that this year I would explore the source of the creek that ran through the canyon. So, on the second day, I set off following the stream up the valley. Some miles later I found what I was seeking near the top of a ridge in a tangle of willows. A large mule deer stag grazing nearby was not disturbed by my presence and we spent over half an hour together. He was a brawny fellow with broad shoulders and a six-tined rack. More about him later also.

On the third day, I came down to the creek edge with a cup of coffee to watch the alpine glow as it íllumined the mountain ridge before me with a honey gold light that spread steadily downward as the sun rose behind the forest at my back. As I sat in serene awe at the sight before me I heard a distant “whop whop whop” crescendoing behind me. Having been a Marine during the Vietnam war, I recognized the sound of a Chinook helicopter. Soon it was overhead, skimming the tops of the trees above my campsite, hovered over the meadow, then landed. Its rear hatch dropped and a squad of Marines hurried out of the craft and into the forest to the south. This was soon followed by two more helicopters, which did the same As a potpourri of old images surfaced, my mood was addled, serenity forsaken for a decent adrenalin rush. A few four-letter words and twenty minutes were enough for me to regain a semblance of what I was indulging before the interruption.
    The hunger was on me so I began to prepare a little breakfast. As I squatted with my back to the forest above a pot of oatmeal, I sensed something behind me. I stood and peered into the forest, detecting movement among the trees fifty or so yards in. Soon a Special Forces first sergeant entered my camp, his men lingering at the tree line, and asked if I had seen any Marines. “I’m a former Marine,” I told him. “Semper Fi! You guys are going to have to hone your tracking skills; I’m saying nothing.” We had a chuckle over the brass displayed in the face of such potential force. One of his men caught my eye and I had a brief conversation with him before they went in pursuit of the missing Marines. More about him later as well.
    I was standing in the creek washing my bowl a while later when I saw another armed group entering my camp, these with different uniforms and weapons. “Have you seen any American Special Forces, I was asked. “Who are you?” I inquired and was told that they were Canadian Special Forces. “Is this an invasion, or are you lost?” With no hesitation, I put them on the trail of the army. “Semper Fi”, as I said. This is getting to be like a Monty Python movie, I said to myself, considering the unlikelihood of so much commotion at my isolated spot. Since all of these groups appeared to be heading south, I decided that I would take a hike into the woods to the north and began to gather come granola bars and fill my canteen.
    At that point a troop of mounted American Special Forces came to the edge of my camp and asked if I had seen any Canadians! Sending them off in the right direction, I began lacing my boots so that I could escape all of the traffic. Just as I had finished with my boots, a Marine staff sergeant entered my camp, strode manfully up to me, and asked whether they were disturbing me; they had not known that I was there. I didn’t go into it but talked with him about Marine subjects.
    He had done four tours in Afghanistan so we compared notes with Vietnam. He mentioned that he had been blown up by an I.E.D. and had suffered a numb left hand and a sore neck since. I told him that I was a chiropractor and had him sit on a rock so I could examine his spine. I gave him an adjustment and he felt immediate relief, in both hand and neck. He thanked me and strode off into the woods with all of the straight-spined authority of a Marine sergeant, his cover brim riding at that dipped angle just above the brow that exudes confidence and competence.
    looked up and saw a golden eagle circling low above the trees at my campsite. It was the eagle’s presence that revealed the entire story that had been unfolding. It was time for the right hemisphere to engage and reveal the meaning of it all. It read like a paragraph, and I got it.

To explain, too briefly, the purpose of each cerebral hemisphere in an overly simplified fashion, let me offer this outline about the complexities of human waking consciousness.
    The right hemisphere—which is slightly larger and has been appointed by nature to be dominant, to have the last say—orients us when we are conscious, locates us in our environment, at which time the left hemisphere removes us from the environment, makes us a witness and particularizes what it contains, giving the sensation of seeing the environment as a separate entity. If one remains in this consciousness, which has been the case in Western Civilization since the Industrial Revolution, there results a sense of isolation that permeates our existence.
    What is supposed to happen, and does happen in primal cultures, is for the right hemisphere to re-engage, placing the “particulars” of the left hemisphere into metaphoric context and assigning them a mythos that engages on a cosmic level. The result is an awareness of being an intimate part of a whole that informs through a “personal language” of signs and intuitions. As a result of this cultural left-hemisphere dominance there is a pervasive feeling of loneliness and emptiness, which many attempt to assuage with drugs, drink, texting (which it is now known to release dopamine), shopping, watching three movies a night, etc.—the addictions of our (anti-)culture.

Now, back to the mountain and what my right hemisphere “read” in the events of those first three days. A number of years ago it began to snow while I was camping there. There was no sign of a let-up, so I decided that it would be prudent to hike out before the snow got too deep. It was on my descent that I encountered a timber wolf just a few yards from me. He lingered awhile aware of my proximity, eyeing me but in no way threatening, before trotting off into the woods. At the ranger station where I stopped on the drive home, I mentioned seeing him and was told that there had not been a wolf sighting in the Sierra since 1893.
    I had plenty of time on my continuing journey home to consider this, what it might mean. What I concluded was this: I had been having inner promptings for several years to edit my poetic work to publish a second volume. In some way that I do not understand, there was an urgency about the matter. I am, I confess, lazy when it comes to doing the drudge work, the editing, the organizing that is necessary, and I am easily distracted from doing it.
    I have mentioned the Native American line in my family, Cherokee and Osage. As a boy I knew through dreams and visions that the bear was my totem animal. When a bear wants to go from Point A to Point B, he’ll wander all over before getting to Point B. When you are on a wolf trail, the line between Points A and B are absolutely straight. It is characteristic. I have definitely been influenced by bear in my journey through life, mentally and in my desire to experience new places. I got the message that the wolf brought: I was to get focused on the task of putting together the new volume.
    And I did, for several weeks, but, alas, soon backslid and let it languish.

Let me now “read” the paragraph given to me during this year’s sojourn to the meadow.
    Remember the hawks? They told me to pay attention, that I would be given a sign. And the stag? In Gaelic, the word for stag is damn (pronounced dav). It also means poet, the association being that the stag in Irish mythology is the messenger of the Other World, the office also filled by the poet. So the stag told me that we were in poetic mode, that it would be the theme. All of those armed groups entering my campsite functioned in a sense like wolf packs: organized, skilled groups on the hunt, two-legged wolves, as it were.
    And the eagle. In Norse mythology Odin was the god of war and the god of poetry. He became the latter by stealing the caldron that contained the mead of poetry from a giant who possessed it. When the giant was off on giant business he left the cauldron in the charge of his daughter, a comely if large lass. Odin saw his chance, moseyed up, seduced her, and did a serious ravaging for three days, leaving her cross-eyed. As he gathered up the cauldron, the giant reappeared and gave chase. Odin did one of his shape-changing tricks and became an eagle, escaping with the coveted mead. So, when I beheld the eagle as the staff sergeant left my camp, I got the message.
    The wolf, incidentally, is Odin’s totem animal. I had been given the message several years ago with the arrival of the “impossible” wolf. This time, because of my laziness, the message was emphasized in extremis. And I have heeded it.
    The fact that these men were warriors (as well as symbolic wolves) emphasized the message: discipline and focus. When the two hemispheres are in balance, in alliance, we live in an inner world that is connected intimately with and informed by the cosmos from which we “receive” necessary guidance through the synchronicities we experience. All of the intrusions into my solitude occurred within two and a half hours. Beyond that, for the remainder of the days that I was present, there was not a sign nor sound from anyone.

To add a postscript: the Special Forces soldier with whom I spoke told me that he was a writer, wrote fiction about his experiences in Afghanistan and the Philippines. I told him that the Artist archetype, which harbors the Great Chaos from which creativity results, seeks instinctively the Warrior archetype early on in order to learn the discipline and focus necessary for craft, but if one lingered in that milieu the inherent structure would stifle creativity. I presume that he thought about what I told him, because as his squad entered the forest, he was next to last to disappear into the trees and he turned and waved at me as I stood by the creek.
    I later thought about him and the Marine staff sergeant, amused that when they arose in the early darkness of that morning little did they suspect that they would encounter in a forest in the middle of nowhere a white-bearded old guy with a staff who would heal one of them and give the other sage advice; Merlin meets Monty Python, what.

Rib

The coyote rib is broken, halved
and no more than the length
of a palm and open-fingered hand.
It contained a thousand thousand
breaths. I found it
in the shallows of a Sierra stream,
meat bleached away, where there was
marrow, a hollow straw. Holding it
a ceremony of howls is loosed as the wind,
giving voice to aspen,
a whisper to the firs, this cold
bite to my stubbled face.

_______________
Copyright © 2014 by Edward Jarvis
Ed Jarvis spent his youth in Tulare, California, as did staffers Morris Dean, Tom Lowe, Jim Rix, & Chuck Smythe, and also character Sharon Stoner. He is an alumnus of Lycee Knudsen (the entourage of high school teacher & classicist Morris Knudsen, who is the father of staffer James Knudsen). Ed served in Vietnam with the United States Marine Corps. He is a published poet and practices chiropractic in Pacific Grove, California.

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