Tag Archives: Sedona

April: Cruelest Month (?), Earth Day, Earth Mother, and the Possible Limitations of Agnosticism

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lilacs, Denver Botanic Gardens

lilacs, Denver Botanic Gardens

I want to go on record that I don’t think April is the cruelest month. How could I believe that when my youngest child and my father were born one day (and about 70 years) apart in early April? I just like T.S. Eliot and so I usually remember these words about this time of year:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

From “The Waste Land,” by T.S. Eliot, 1922

I have also been thinking about Earth Day/old days. In 1970, I went to the Teach-In on the Environment at the University of Michigan. We were big on teach-ins back there in Ann Arbor. 1970 was also the first summer I went west and thereby became even more taken with nature than I was growing up on a lake in Michigan. In Ann Arbor, I was a minor functionary in ENACT (Environmental Action for Survival). In fact, in 1971, I submitted testimony for ENACT related the Trans-Alaska Pipeline to Congress. My own comments related to possible drawbacks of the pipeline for native peoples were included along with other, more academically expert, testimony. Since I am bringing up this tiny historical footnote, you probably notice that it was a big deal for me. I think we all stopped the pipeline for a few minutes or something.

Not only was I not very successful as an environmentalist, I didn’t even make it as an Earth Mother, and that designation didn’t seem to require any coursework. I sort of went back to the land to the extent that I have been an (mostly) organic gardener for forty years. I do recycle (some), I do clean with vinegar and other non-toxic materials, and I think our children feel a connection with and a responsibility to the natural world.

The Part about Agnosticism: Actually, I am a flaming agnostic (some might say waffler, know-nothing, etc.). I don’t claim to know anything  about god or the meaning of the universe–and I have a hard time figuring out how one would claim to know such information–and I don’t have much use for or patience with organized religion. The thing is, because of my broken wrist (see, Scat Happens), I have had call to stretch my hands like this:

hands

hands

This exercise has made me think about prayer. I am still a flaming agnostic and proud of it, but I am still reverent and hopeful within the natural world. So, below are a few of the photos I’ve taken on our travels. Happy Birthday Bill and Dad. Happy April. Happy Earth Day/Week/Month.

butterfly and coneflowers

butterfly and coneflowers

 

Scenic Lake, Michigan

Scenic Lake, Michigan

Sedona, Arizona

Sedona, Arizona

Great Sand Dunes, Colorado

Great Sand Dunes, Colorado

View of Cape Royal and Wotan's Throne, Grand Canyon

View of Cape Royal and Wotan’s Throne, Grand Canyon

Great Salt Lake from Antelope Island, Utah

Great Salt Lake from Antelope Island, Utah

Garden of the Gods, Colorado

Garden of the Gods, Colorado

 

 

Places and Names

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One of the happy memories of my intensive child-rearing days is watching PBS’s Reading Rainbow with our children, Sarah and Robert.  In those hot and humid Virginia summers, the three of us looked forward to piling on the bed, cooling off with the faint air of the window unit, and enjoying LeVar Burton’s light, upbeat delivery of the good news about books (or the news about good books).  My favorite episode, from 1983, featured Paul Goble’s Gift of the Sacred Dog.* In this episode, Phoebe Snow sang a song written for the show by Steve Horelick, “Ancient Places, Sacred Lands,” which evokes the power of American names. I cry whenever I hear the song, including twice this morning. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odd53Y3d2GM):

Come sit beside me, and hear a story 
Of long ago when the people lived free 
And named the waters, and all the places 
High and low
Refrain:
Ancient Places, Sacred Lands 
Names we know so well 
But no one understands

I guess it is either the English teacher in me or my somewhat obsessive nature that makes me love lists. Furthermore, I particularly love American lists. Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, Maya Angelou, Stephen Vincent Benét, Edward Abbey, heck, even Vachel Lindsay please me with their incantations of American experiences, people, and places. 

Why I am telling you this now: For the last seven weeks my husband Tom and I have been traveling by car in the intermountain west in fulfillment of a long-held dream.  I’ve tried to post some insights (or, at least, experiences) of this trip, but that has proven difficult.  I don’t have words to describe the places we’ve seen. I have some photographs (below), but even the best of them are only crude likenesses of what we have seen. Likewise, I can’t describe my emotions accurately either.  Tom and I have been happy and sad, giddy and pensive, and satisfied or not. We have visited some of our dear friends from the old days and found them to be as dear as ever. That is, we have not arrived on a different plane; life has gone along with us on the journey.  So, I have turned to the names of the places we’ve visited, hoping, as with the poets, that some of the power of the places can be transferred to this page:

Colorado, Denver, Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction, Book Cliffs, Utah, Uinta National Forest, Price Canyon, Soldier Summit, Salt Lake City,Quince Street, Marmalade District, Little America, Goshen, Kolob, Zion, Rockville, Springdale, Refrigerator Canyon, Walters Wiggles (a few), Pa’rus Trail, Angel’s Landing, Oscar’s Café, St. George, Ivins, Santa Clara River Reserve, Arizona, Arizona Strip, Kaibab Plateau, Jacob Lake, Vermillion Cliffs, Flagstaff, Coconino Plateau, Mogollon Rim, Sedona, Sally’s house, Teacup Trail, Jim Thompson Trail, Chapel of the Holy Cross, Jerome, Prescott, Thumb Butte, Nevada, Boulder City, El Cortez Hotel, Las Vegas, California, Needles, Mojave National Preserve, Barber Peak Loop Trail, Opalite Cliffs, Banshee Canyon, Colorado River, Cattail Cove State Park, Virgin River Gorge, Springdale (again), Zion (again), Great White Throne, Pioneer Lodge, Watchman Trail, Coalpits Wash, Scoggins Wash, Weeping Rock, Hidden Canyon, Temple of Sinawava, Page, Big Water, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Wahweap Hoodoos Trail, Kanab, Sq**w Trail, Coral Pink Sand Dunes, Moccasin Mountain Dinosaur Track site,  Mt. Carmel Junction, Elkhart Cliffs, Long Valley, Sevier River, Panguitch, Panguitch diner, Panguitch in the snowstorm, I-70 to I-15 in the blizzard, I-15 to Payson in the whiteout, Art and Skip’s Mardi Gras, Spanish Fork Canyon, Price Canyon again, Soldier Summit again, Glenwood Springs, Vail Pass, Eisenhower Tunnel, Denver.

 

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*In the last three years I have divested myself thousands of books and papers, but I still have all of our Paul Goble books safe and sound in storage. I highly recommend Goble’s retellings of Native American stories, but you don’t have to take my word for it…. I’ll see you next time.