Becoming Sage

Spring Wildflowers

This year is the first since my stroke that I have been able to spend hours outside exploring the awe-inspiring display of flowering plants that is such an intregal part of spring. My dear friend, Karen Sjoholm, has been my companion for the past 20 years in the delightful task of discovering the colors, shapes, textures and scents that are wildflowers. My passion for this gift of nature however began long before we met. The following story is a brief glimpse into that part of my life.

In the spring parts of me begin to wake up from a winter’s long deep sleep. I feel a stirring under my skin, my eyes open wider, my grin is longer and the wrinkles that smiling create run deeper. I love going outside and feeling the warmth of the sun as I admire the many flowers, the trees budding out, the new green shoots emerging from the earth. I took a wonderful walk yesterday in the Botanical Gardens in Tilden Park. They must have had 4 or 5 different kinds of fawn lilies in bloom, those rare early spring beauties that take my breath away. Imagine every different color of a dozen cean0this all deeply fragrant and surrounded by swarms of fuzzy honeybees.

Many years ago, I fell in love with wildflowers. I carried a field guide with me during college summers spent working in remote Christmas tree plantations deep in the Appalachians. Later, I took that same dog-earned volume with me into Duke Forest and then Redwood Park in the East Bay Hills. I remember the day, although not the date, that I realized that I recognized more than half of the wildflowers I encountered and knew their common names. The achievement might have been the culmination of years of self-study, but to me it was a sign that it was time for me to get really serious about this exploration of the botanical world.

I signed up for a class at the Academy of Science called California Wildflower Identification. Four years later I had taken the same class three times. I also took some related classes and went on dozens of field trips with my instructors. I photographed hundreds of wildflowers and arranged them in albums according to family and genus. My friend Karen joined me on a number of trips to track down flowers we had heard of or places were they grew in abundance. I fantasized of taking a year off to follow the progression of blossoms from the coast to the high sierra. Like a modern day John Muir, I would trek just west of the snowline, on foot, kneeling and marveling as I went, at the divine beauty that rests in each wild flower.

I never did take that trip in real life. And the world is not much like it was during John Muir’s youth when he walked through fields knee deep in wildflowers for as far as the eye could see. Instead, I packed the car and drove to some amazing places. Table Mountain outside of Oroville has got to be the best. At least as far as massive meadows awash with color goes. A purple lupine hillside would melt down to a stream marking a boundary between those resplendent annuals and the pink money-flowers and owl’s clover on the other side. Around the bend and acre of shiny yellow buttercups swirled amongst white popcorn flower and pale sun cups with their many stamens.

I have sat in the mud under redwoods to smell the acrid fetid adders tongue and climbed down steep paths to admire the deep red Wake Robin trillium. There is one trail in Mt. Tam where fuchsia pink calypso orchids bloom under the Douglas fir on one side of a fire road, and baby blue eyes carpet the other. Which way to turn? This time of year I dream of shooting stars poking their pink heads above the green grass. There are so many. Too many. How wonderful.

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The Regional Parks Botanical Garden is located in Tilden Park, Berkeley CA. It is the largest botanical garden in the state devoted to native plants. Dr. Glenn Keator teaches botany, leads field trips and has written several books on native California plants. I studied with him at the California Academy of Science in San Francisco. Duke Forest is located on the outskirts of Durham, NC where I lived before moving to California in 1978. Karen and I have hiked over 2000 miles on the trails of Mt. Tam in Marin County. Mt. Tamalpais State Park and adjacent public land comprise one of the most beautiful places in the world. Although the best spring display of wildflowers I have ever seen was at Table Mountain outside Oroville.

Karen Sjoholm is both a faculty member and administrator for the Arts and Consciousness Graduate Program at JFK University. Her office is down the hall and around the corner from their art gallery and classrooms in Berkeley, CA. On the weekends she goes hiking.

Lampshade heaven

It is becoming rare to find a store like Asef's Appliance in Santa Rosa, CA. I wrote a story tonight that describes a recent experience I had there. I chose specifically to shop at this one of a kind store rather than at one of the big box stores or malls.

In this place I call home, I have been gradually making improvements. They are really just changes, but in their newness, they feel better to me. The new lampshade is an example. I tried taping the old one back together when it began to fall apart a few months ago. Then I covered it with a nice sarong and that improvement satisfied me for a while. Still, I had this itch to replace it with something nicer. A friend suggested I junk the whole lamp. It works fine however and so I was reluctant to throw it away or even move it to the garage. I had the bright idea to paint it and make it a work of art. I haven’t gotten around to that but I finally did get around to buying a new lampshade. On Saturday I decided to shop locally and avoid the chain stores. So I ended up inside Asef’s Appliance on 4th Street. It is a wonderful shop crowded with shelves up to the top of the high ceiling. Asef sells replacement parts for all kinds of appliances and the shelves are full of coffee pots, switches, bolts and belts, some of which are coated with a layer of dust that speaks of just how esoteric they are. The aisles are narrow and boxes have to be moved to allow one access to some corners. The highest shelves, and we are talking about shelves 12 to 20 feet above the floor, are filled with lampshades, all shapes and sizes. I came in through the back door, along the narrow dim hallway lined with old sewing machines on the floor. I get dizzy easily when I look up, so I just told Asef what I was looking for. I brought in the old shade to check the size. Something not white and with a natural looking pattern. He picked up a pole with a hook on the end that was hanging on the wall. I had not even noticed it before. Hoisting it up into the air, he maneuvered the hook underneath a nest of about 8 pale brown lampshades. He brought them all down and plopped them on the floor. They were different sizes but all the same paper fabric. I liked it. We compared it with my old one and I chose one. Then I asked him for the price. It was more than I had hoped to pay, but this was infinitely easier than shopping in every secondhand store in town for something that would do. Then I told Asef that I also wanted a carpet sweeper, something that did not make that awful noise that the vacuum cleaner makes. He stepped around the pile of lampshades and began to show me what he had. I thought it was interesting that he didn’t put the unpurchased lampshades back on the shelf, especially given how little space there is to move in the store. Anyway, he had a number of sweepers, each of which, according to him, was a very good choice. I picked one that had a battery assist and we returned to the counter. The high glass counter is crowded with all manner of devices to use with keys. Lamps and electric coffeepots that have been repaired sit haphazardly on top leaving almost no room for him to set down my purchases. I also noticed a number of vacuum cleaners sitting nearby and a few more sewing machines, all marked with manila tags detailing the names of their owners, a date and the cost of the repair. I asked him if they buy old vacuum cleaners and he told me to bring it in. On Sunday I discovered that the sweeper I bought is for bare floors, so today I took it back and took in my old Kirby. I exchanged the one I bought for a simpler model that works on carpets. He bought the Kirby for $40, not much, but I am so relieved to be done with it. It worked great but was loud and very heavy. Now, all I have is this tiny manual carpet sweeper that requires a bit of elbow grease but actually works quite well and makes virtually no noise. It also takes up a great deal less space in my coat closet.

Not surprisingly, Asef's does not have a website. I found a listing for them however.

As told to me by a feather

I wrote the following story during the Monday evening StoryCircle. Susan passed around a basket of objects she found outdoors and each of us selected one. I chose this feather, not knowing from whom it came. As I held it, stroked it, smelled it, ran it across my fingers, it shared with me a story that is part bird and part me. Enjoy...

The story I hold in my hands is delicate, fragile, dark and enduring. The story I hold in my hands beckons memories of life, transition and loss. It is a story told by birds, given flight on fickle winds, rising and falling, swooping and landing, gliding into the mirror surface of a lake that reflects everything and holds onto nothing.

Once upon a time there was a shy merganser that watched the other ducks in her flock from a bit of a distance. She looked away during the fluttering displays that her brothers so proudly erupted into whenever a female approached. She turned her tail when the others copulated and paddled quickly away if one came after her. This is not our nature said her grandmother. We are destined to breed and lay the speckled eggs, protect them with our warm bellies and then teach the ducklings how to swim and dive. I know, she replied demurely, its just that I can’t. I am not called. And then she glided away wondering why her mirror on the water’s surface was always distorted by ripples. The young merganser never left her flock. She stayed nearby, watching, observing, taking notes that she stored in the minute folds inside her round head. With one red eye scanning for osprey and the other looking beneath the surface, she hunted. With a great surge, she lifted her body almost completely out of the water and then dove like an arrow toward the shiny glint of silver that slipped beneath her. Within the body of the lake, she could fly almost as easily as when she took to the air. Webbed feet propelled her in steady strokes as she pursued the minnow into the shadow of an ancient tree trunk. Her sharp pointed bill moved as if on its own toward this morsel that would be lunch should she be lucky and skillful enough to catch it. With only a second to spare, she grasped the wriggling fish. She turned and propelled herself toward the light, bursting out of the surface of the water in a motion so graceful that there was hardly a splash. Lifting her beak to the heavens, she gave thanks for her success and in one smooth, practiced motion tossed the minnow up, caught it and swallowed. She glanced around to see if any of the others were watching, concerned that they might be jealous of her meal. They were ignoring her as usual however, diving and bobbing as if she were not really there. The act of stalking, she mused, is both mindful and cruel. In order to live, I consume another living being. As I do so, I am aware that muskrat, snake, osprey and eagle consider me as fair game too. There must be more to life than just eating and raising chicks. I want to eat, but I do not want to be the mother of my own flock or the nanny of another’s. Is there something wrong with me? The merganser girl was soon distracted by the urge to preen. With her pointy bill she groomed each feather, cleaning the grains of sand out and smoothing the edges. Her feathers were practically dry even after a long dive, so tightly knit were they and slick with oil from her skin. As she preened, a feather on her chest came loose. She pulled it all the way out, noticed the down clinging to its shaft. Saying goodbye to one of the last of her baby feathers, she dropped it into the lake. It floated away only to be picked up from the shore later by she who has no feathers of her own.

The nature of animals and the human nature of recovery

I am fortunate to be a student in one of the StoryCircle groups facilitated by Susan Hagen. My living room transforms into a women's writing class most Monday nights. We check in briefly, Susan talks about an aspect of writing and then leads us in a guided meditation. Our creativity is enhanced by the way our process is safely wrapped in a sacred container. After writing, we each read to the group and they reflect back their impressions without analysis. The process works incredibly well for me.

Susan is co-author of the book Women at Ground Zero. For more information about StoryCircles, go to WomenatGroundZero.com and then click on the Classes & Workshops link in the frame to the left. To contact Susan directly send her an email Suzhagen@sonic.net.

Following is the story that I wrote tonight...

Becoming a precocious 3 year-old at the age of 54

Originally sent to friends and family as a letter, my friend Janet talked me into posting this. It summarizes the last 3 years of my life, especially last year (2004).

It is the end of the year and the anniversary of my stroke. I find myself contemplating what has transpired since that fateful evening and where I am headed. If you consider coming back to life as a birth, then I am now 3 years old. The aneurysm that exploded in my brain on December 30, 2001 apparently attempted to kill me a number of times over the next two weeks. I was awake some of that time, talked with friends and medical personnel, even gave my opinion on matters of treatment. Too bad I don’t remember it. I started developing the skill of mental recall about a week after brain surgery.

Today I look back on that time in my life and I marvel at the miracle of it all. I was lucky. I was with friends. I was rushed to a hospital where the attending physicians knew what they were doing. I got transferred to another hospital where the west coast expert on aneurysms and AVMs performed microsurgery inside my head to stop the bleeding and remove the cause of the stroke. Nearly anywhere else in the world and I’d have been a goner. Under less fortunate circumstances I would have been an angel here. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

Beginning Becoming Sage

Back in 1998 I wrote the following:

PURPOSE STATEMENT
To provide spiritual and practical guidance to individuals and groups for the purpose of deepening their love and connection to the earth with the ultimate goals of enhancing their personal/spiritual growth, encouraging cultural change, protecting the environment and promoting world peace. Adhering to the ethical guidelines established by the Wilderness Guides Council to protect fragile ecosystems and promote conscientious land use.

NAME Becoming Sage
This name is inspired by the desert sage plant which lives out its life in service to the earth. In an environment that is dry and windblown, sage serves Grandmother Earth by providing cooling shade, creating habitat for numerous creatures, conserving precious water and creating fertile soil out of which grow the beautiful desert wildflowers. Each sage plant is at once complete unto itself and part of a larger community. It is no coincidence that the word sage also means "wise through reflection and experience" and is derived from the words sauge, salvia and salvus meaning healthy and safe. A sage is one who is venerated for her/his wisdom and sound judgment. We can all benefit from becoming sage.

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Today I still feel the calling. Then I was just a novice apprentice. Now I guide vision quests and I am part of the leadership of the WGC. I have opted to lead trips for other organizations rather than to establish my own, but the affinity I feel for sage lives on. I am honored to have a plant as one of my most valued and respected teachers.

Welcome to Becoming Sage

Today, with the help of Janet Tokerud, my good friend and an experienced blogger, I entered this world of the weblog. My intention is establish this and my sister site, WGC Netkeeper, to stay in touch with friends and colleagues, and hopefully discover some new ones along the way. For me Winter Solstice is the beginning of the new year. I am only a little late. Beginnings may be conceived intentionally but they are not always born on time.

Some years ago I conceived the name "Becoming Sage" when I was in the initial formative stages of becoming a Vision Quest guide. I spent a few days in the high desert of California that year and encountered more than a fair share of big-leaf sagebrush. It is a rather ubiquitous plant in those parts, yet because it is so common, it is frequently overlooked like so much background noise. That year I spent literally hours hunkered down on my haunches gazing at twisted branches and gray-green leaves. I learned more than I could have ever imagined about an ordinary bush. Enough so that after a few days sagebrush appeared to me as anything but ordinary. These bushes with roots plunged deep into the dry desert soil are each like us, individual beings living in a thriving community. A sage plant is like an oasis of shade, preserving water and filling gravel bottoms with lucious organic matter. As a family they spread out over the land creating a maze of paths that slow down even the most rushed of travelers.

And so on and so forth... TO BE CONTINUED