R. Mark Liebenow's Blog: Nature, Grief, and Laughter, page 13

100-Year Flood

Eighteen years ago this month, in 1997, Yosemite Valley experienced a 100-year flood. Warm rain melted the snowpack in the high country and all that water flowed into the valley. The damage was so great to the roads and infrastructure that the valley was closed for several months. When minimal facilities were restored and I could get in, I hiked the seven-mile length of the valley, going from the east end by Half Dome to the west, surveying the damage and hoping that the places I loved have survived.
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In Tenaya Canyon, the bridge crossing Tenaya Creek above old Mirror Lake is gone, washed away like many of the other footbridges in this area. I reach the other side by stepping across boulders in the stream. The trail that went along the riverbank disappeared with the riverbank. The tranquil spot by the river that had a reflection of Half Dome overhead is gone.
In many places the water is red-orange, which indicates the presence of iron. There is an actual "Iron Spring" below the lower pool of Mirror Lake that colors the water there, but this coloring is new since the flood and starts just below where Snow Creek joins in. The pine trees in the middle section of Tenaya's landscape are dying, whether this is due to the change in the river's route, damage from the flood, the new presence of iron in the water, an infestation of insects made possible by the environmental changes, or all of the above.
Change one element in nature and the effect ripples throughout the ecosystem.
The riverbed going by Mirror Meadow has been altered from a quiet, pastoral scene to something that resembles the rugged, torn-up delta below Yosemite Falls. Furrows have been dug through its broad plain, and huge boulders line the new river banks, pushed to the side by the brute force of the water. Footbridges that managed to stay intact now have no trails leading to them or from, like London Bridge sitting in the desert in Arizona.
Below Mirror Lake, the riverbank eroded away to such an extent that the main metal footbridge across collapsed into the flood and was swept away. The flood also took shortcuts over bends in the river and swept away the Upper and Lower River Campgrounds.
At Happy Isles, where the Merced River comes down the Merced Canyon, more than 10,000 cubic feet of water per second were flowing through at the peak of the flood.
The heavy concrete bridge was destroyed. The small islands look scoured of vegetation, but the cascades still dance. Up the canyon, the metal bridge above Vernal Fall was torn off its foundation and sent tumbling down the river to wherever it is that the river collects its trinkets.
In the middle section of the valley, the broad meadows of Cook, Sentinel, and Leidig are buried under a foot of granite sand and look like a wasteland. There won’t be any wildflowers this year. The cabins below the Lodge were swept away or destroyed. The place on the bank of the Merced River where I used to sit and watch water ouzels play in the water, and where I would watch the colors of the sunset deepened and spread across the sky above the mountains, and feel the presence of nature’s great spirituality, is gone.
Other creeks that come down into the valley — Yosemite, Sentinel, and Bridalveil — as well as all the water flowing over the canyon walls added their water to the surge. In the Cathedral Rocks beach area, where I would watch mallard ducks drift by on the water, and watch climbers on El Cap through binoculars, the flood shifted the river 150 feet away, leaving a massive gravel sandbar behind. A large section of the forest eroded away on the bend, and uprooted trees still lay in the woods where they were flung.
At Valley View in the west end, where the canyon walls come together and the river leaves the valley, the rushing water compressed and flooded the forest. Everything being carried along in the water battered the trunks of the trees like bowling pins, taking out huge chunks of wood and bark. Further down the canyon, the river washed out the highway.
Looking at the meadows, I see other low areas where the river flowed perhaps a century ago. Although this flood is the largest in recorded history, it is simply another step in a long process, because looking 3000 feet above me, I see where the river used to be, before glaciers came through and carved the gentle river channel into this deep valley. But that’s a story for another time.
I will miss the beauty that I have come to love, but change is constant in nature. I look forward to the new beauty that is forming.

Zero

This morning before dawn it’s zero degrees out.  
Zero, as if there was no temperature outside. Nothing is moving, no animals or birds, not even the wind. I stand motionless not wanting to ruffle the stillness holding the world.
The frozen sun rises pink on the horizon, shifts to light canary yellow that fades as the sun warms the air to eight degrees. 
Hidden in the stiff, unmoving trees, the unseen longing of leaves is tucked deep inside the wood waiting for spring. Beneath the snow, mice, voles and woodchucks sleep.  
A cardinal comes to the feeder of black sunflower seeds, his brilliant red feathers bright against the white background. Wrens flitter in, then chickadees, and a Downey woodpecker. The birds bring soft chattering to the brittle forest.Squirrels emerge from their hidden nests, knock snow off the tops of branches that drifts to the ground and sparkles in the crisp sunlight.
Zero is also the door between the living and the dead. A synapse. Which way will this day turn? Some things will die today. What will be born?
I look for a sign, as if this stunning scenery isn’t enough, and listen for words whispered by the snow or woods, some transcendent message attached to this vision that I can carry with me. But I think this is it. The message today is THIS. I only exist in THIS moment. If I fail to notice it, it ceases to exist and disappears. But if I pay attention to it, then it becomes a reality, a presence that becomes part of me.
Sometimes transcendence surrounds me with such beauty that I don’t want to breathe for fear of disturbing it. Sometimes it is small, like discovering, when it is light enough to see, the footprints of a bird in the snow beside me.

(It's Aldo Leopold's birthday today.)

Solitude of Trees

Ostrander Hut, Yosemite
In a back issue of The Yosemite Journal, Howard Weamer writes about the Ostrander Hut that is in the area behind Glacier Point. The Hut is ten miles out in the backcountry, at an elevation of 8500 feet, and in winter is accessible only by cross-country skiers. Weamer was its caretaker and host for a good many years, and writes of the wide-ranging discussions that would go on into the night between people of different backgrounds. He also mentions the need for solitude that was often expressed by his visitors: "those who welcome it are assumed to have attained something special."
This phrase stayed with me as I hiked by myself out to the hut one gorgeous autumn day. The stone hut was locked up when I arrived because it’s a winter destination, but I looked in the windows at the tight sleeping quarters, then looked out at the tranquility of the forest, mountains, and the small lake that feeds Bridalveil Creek, and I felt contentment.
Does being comfortable with solitude mean that we have arrived at our goal of attaining solitude? Is there nothing that happens once we arrive? What about self-exploration?
Does solitude lead us into self-awareness, or does self-awareness lead us into solitude?In our society it takes great effort to get away from the bustle of the city and find a place where nothing seems to be going on. And being happy when you’re alone with yourself shows an acceptance of solitude. But it’s in solitude that we sort things out, drop useless habits, set aside limiting conceptions and empty traditions, and focus on where we want to go. It’s spring cleaning for the soul.
Certainly solitude is good for restoring our sense of balance, but it can also be transforming. Attaining solitude means slowing down enough not only to notice a hillside of trees shimmering in the afternoon sunlight, but also to see the differences in each one.
“The beauty and natural silence overwhelm me here.... How do you ask people, though, to walk into the trees and listen to ... nothing?"            Joe Evans
It’s not easy to get people to be still and listen to the natural world around them. When we finally stop our activities and stand quietly beside trees and listen to the silence of the woods, are we listening with the trees as they commune with nature, or are we listening to their voices in the silence, hoping to reach the place where we can finally hear our own?
During my hike, every time the breeze picked up, the sugar pines hummed. One time my mind jumped to the song "I Talk to the Trees" that Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin, in his gravely voice, sang in the western movie, Paint Your Wagon, but as I sang the lyrics myself and started touching trees, I began to laugh and lost track of my thoughts.
As caretaker of the Hut, Weamer found that he often had to answer the same questions with each group that came in, and he tried, as with the Buddhist's bell, to speak and be heard as clearly on the fiftieth ring as on the first. He discovered his impatience and, in solitude, learned to let go of his pride. I would think that he also learned how to answer better, becoming, through careful listening, more tuned to hearing the nuances of how those same questions were asked. People do not always say what they mean, and sometimes they do not even know what they want to ask.
Learning to hear our own unspoken helps us hear the unspoken of others.
Today I walk into the woods near my home, along a creek to a place of solitude. The water is low and the boulders in the river are meditating in the still water of winter. I sit with the birds and squirrels to spend time in the quiet, and think about the Ostrander Hut. I let the rush of the holidays fade, and wait for a vision to guide me in the new year. 

Rituals of Grief

People are kneeling in the darkness of a cathedral as a candle is processed by a dancer through the middle of the group to the center where a circle of candles is lit. A cello plays a meditative melody. A loaf of bread is broken and passed among the people. A bell rings, and we open ourselves to the mystery of this moment, not knowing what we will discover tonight.
No words have been spoken, but the gathering is filled with symbols. It is ritual, and we feel something rise within us, something we had forgotten was there, something that quickens our pulse and draws us in.
The holidays are filled with rituals. Which ones affected you the most? Which ones were comforting? Which ones disturbed your focus on what you thought was important?
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For this post I gathered two pages of background material on rituals, but I’m not going to use them because they have too many words. In our rituals we find a great symbol, but then we feel the need to explain the symbol in words, diluting the power of the symbol to speak in its own way.Ritual is what engages our whole being, the body and the spirit in addition to the mind. It involves all of our senses. Movement, poetry, incense, bells, candles, and art help us move outside our conscious mind, which perceives only part of reality, and guide us into Presence, into the Unknown beyond our knowing.
For death and grief, there are communal rituals like the Irish wake, sitting Shiva in the Jewish faith, and the Lakota Sioux coming together for mourning and dispersing the dead person’s belongings. There are personal rituals like lighting candles in the evening, a small remembrance altar at home with ashes and objects important to our loved ones, visiting the gravesite, and keeping an empty chair at the dinner table. The Japanese have shrines in their homes where they continue to communicate with their ancestors.
In her TEDx talk, Elaine Mansfield, author of Leaning Into Love, says we turn to rituals to connect our lives to the sacred.
In her husband’s cremation box she put mementos of their life together and things important to Vic. She put in coffee beans and chocolate, not that she thought he would actually need them, but they were symbolic of what he enjoyed in life. She put in photographs of their life, flowers, and written prayers. Later she buried his ashes near their favorite tree and built a cairn of rocks from the stream over it. She goes there to be close to him, bringing, at different times, red crabapples, gladiolas, and candles, and moistening the rocks with her tears.
Ritual carries us over the chasm of disbelief.
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Imagine a weekly ritual of drinking tea with someone who is also grieving, and no one speaks. The two drink tea in silence and watch each other’s eyes. They watch expressions change on their faces as each one thinks about and feels their grief. There are touches on the arm and hand. When the tea is gone, they rise, hug each other and smile, then depart until next week.

We are drawn to create rituals with our lives, to get lost in the language of our hearts like poets, be filled with the images and curiosity of artists, and dance like Zorba the Greek when our emotions can find no other way of expressing what has filled our entire being.

Unexpected

This holiday season, I am not looking at the decorations on the houses in my neighborhood. I am looking beyond them to the trees and woods, to the sky and birds, I need the transcendence of nature.
Maybe it will be a sparkling, crystalline dawn             with the rays of the rising sun glinting off ice-covered trees. Maybe a herd of deer will meander down my street at midnight,             with no one but me seeing them. Maybe a cardinal will sit stoically on a branch             as snow drifts down and collects on his back.
These I have seen in past years; they won’t likely be repeated. But I won’t know what the transcendent will be this year until it appears in the corner of my eye and surprises me. I can’t make awe happen. I can only stay alert and wait.I am watching for that one unexpected image that will shake up my imagination and make my heart skip a beat. And when it arrives, I want to stay focused on it. I want it to envelope me with its mystery crenelled with wonder. It is a privilege to see this. I don’t want to hurry on looking for the next surprise. I want to let whatever this is settle deep within, crack open a window into a world I barely know, wrap me in its arms, and overwhelm me.
This watching for, and the expectation of, is the season’s gift.

Grace of Community

Perhaps in no other season are people as aware of what is missing in their lives. In December we look for signs of hope, renewal, faith, and affirmation that the struggles we are in are worth the trouble.
In the midst of celebrating, we see people who are suffering, who are poorly dressed for winter, who are hungry, who are alone, and we try to help, because something reminds us that we are members of the same community.
December is also when much of the natural world in the northern hemisphere goes into hibernation. There is grace in this, in the letting go of what is past, in the retreating from active life and preparing for spring, and grace in the slower movements of the season. We think of people we had to let go, and in this holiday season we are reminded again and again of how much we miss them. We think of our own mortality. We think of the sources of energy for our life, what inspires us, and we feel the pull to live what we believe in everything we do.My background is in Christianity, and what follows comes from people and examples I know. May they guide you in thinking about people in your own tradition.
Kerry hikes the Santiago de Compostela in Spain and finds what she thought was lost.
Brother Lawrence washes dishes in a hospital kitchen in Paris. When he gets home, he answers letters from people struggling with grief.
Beth goes each day to L’Arche in Toronto where she helps the developmentally challenged get through another day. 
Catholic Workers in Chicago gather food to feed the hungry as well as provide spiritual nourishment.
Ann collects blankets and coats and hands them to people who are trying to stay warm on Oakland’s cold streets. 
Alone in her hut in the woods, Catherine prays and fasts for other people. It is a place where she exists in solitude and explores the desert of her heart, a place she calls poustinia.
In the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, 3000-year-old Giant Sequoias stand quietly in the snow, under stars moving across the wonder of the night sky, watching as they have since before the baby was first foretold.
Nothing happens at Christmas, except the birth of hope. I feel this when I look up at the stars in the depths of the night sky, whether I’m standing in the mountains at Glacier Point, on the shore at Bodega Bay looking over the Pacific Ocean, or waiting in my backyard and listening for what I can do to bring hope into the world.
We come together during the holidays, and we feel the grace of community when we slow down to help one another. 

Early December Evening

The evenings in early December are quiet, the earth shaded in the pastel colors of the sky, the darkness moving across the earth lengthening into night. Nature settles down into the blues and grays of somber winter.
I stand on my deck and listen to the woods — the creaking of the trees in the light wind, the clicking of black sunflower shells landing on the ground, dropped by wrens and finches at the feeder. My thoughts drift among the trees and follow the squirrels as they chase each other over the snow. Dusk fills the woods with shadows and enough presence that discernment on my part is not needed, only openness to the mystery of what this is.
The mystery of what this is. That is what I need to feel again. The presence of Eternal. I need to get lost in this.If a specific feeling should rise inside me, that would be all right. I would accept it and reflect on it. And if this quietness should bring back a forgotten memory, or an insight into something that once seemed impenetrable, that would be okay, too, and I would let it sink into me. But I don’t need anything to happen tonight. The presence is enough.
The silence of the woods, the sparkling of the stars overhead, the slow journey of the earth through the dark blue and silent cosmos, remind me of Sigurd Olson and the words he wrote from his listening point on the shore of Lake Superior:
The movement of a canoe is like a reed in the wind. Silence is part of it, and the sounds of lapping water, bird songs, and wind in the trees. It is part of the medium through which it floats, the sky, the water, the shore.
In a few days, people will begin walking the streets of my neighborhood caroling of hope and joy. Houses will fill with revelers and lights glow from every decorated window. Holiday parties will overheat and people will open the back doors and come out onto their decks to cool down. They will find themselves listening, drawn into the quiet celebration of the woods.

Snow Falling Along the Merced River

adapted from Mountains of Light
Snow begins falling while I'm sitting by the river that winds its way through the middle of Yosemite Valley. Birds splashing in the water along its edges don't seem to notice, although some begin to play with a little more excitement. The large flakes quickly change the landscape, covering the rocks and trees, the granite domes and mountains, and unifying everything in a blanket of white. 
My thoughts turn to the Ahwanechee who used to live in this valley. Did Chief Tenaya's people gather inside their shelters during heavy snowstorms to share stories, traditions, and tribal concerns? Or did they go out and play?
Black Hawk, chief of the Sauk and Fox, spoke of this sense of community:
We always had plenty; our children never cried from hunger, neither were our people in want. ... The rapids of Rock River furnished us with an abundance of excellent fish, and the land being very fertile, never failed to produce good crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, and squashes. ... Here our village stood for more than a hundred years in the Mississippi Valley. Our village was healthy and there were no better hunting grounds.
The call of a Steller’s jay brings me back to the storm. I must have been thinking for some time because now I'm covered with two inches of snow.

Yosemite in Winter

from Mountains of Light
Rising from my sleeping bag, I crawl out of my tent and head for the frosted meadow. The sun is just peeking over Glacier Point and lights up the bare granite rock of North Dome and the meadows below with a warm yellow glow. In Cook’s Meadow, acorn woodpeckers hop up the trunks of dead trees, picking out acorns they stored there in the fall. By Sentinel Bridge, three young bucks hang out looking for trouble, their breaths coming out in small white puffs. 
The quiet, crystalline beauty of a winter dawn in the mountains fills my eyes, my heart, my soul with awe.
The crow in a nearby tree makes a gurgle noise repeatedly. It's a funny sound, and each time the crow caws, its tail goes down. By Swinging Bridge, a square chunk of light gray granite that was washed downstream by the spring flood, now sits on the edge of a reflecting pool of emerald green. A white lace of ice edges the banks of the calm, meandering Merced River; its tranquil water reflects the early blue of the young morning sky. An ouzel flies up near me and dances in the rapids flowing over a two-foot-stretch of pebbles.   Taking a physical inventory, I find that my only warm place is in the small of my back. It’s seriously cold today, and the moist air near the river penetrates my protective gear. Shivering, I adjust my clothing trying to get warmer but without success, and head to the cafeteria for a hot breakfast. Then it's back outside to see more of the valley in this early light. Later in the morning I duck into Degnan's for hot coffee. At noon I heat up soup.
When the sun reaches camp, it’s finally warm enough to take off one layer of clothing. After hours of shivering, my body relaxes into the hours of the day and I head off on today’s hike.

Invocation of Trees

The trees, naked of leaves now in the woods behind the house, stand proud and hold their strong bodies up to the sky, raising their arms up in thankfulness to Creation for the year that is ending, raising their arms up in prayer, praise, and celebration.
The birch trees twirl in the wind like whirling Sufis, reuniting heaven and earth. The pine trees, heavy with snow, scatter their resinous incense on the air with bowed heads and open hands. The oak trees spread their arms to the side, feeding the animals their acorns, and protecting the people with their stout branches and trunks. 
As we notice, so are we blessed.