Earth Day Epistle - 2008

Ocracoke - 2008

Thoreau's Conchology - 2006 

 West Indies - 2006

Our Wild Side - 2004

The Tropical Storm - 2004

Six Hundred Moons - 2001

Ayamama - 1998

EARTH DAY EPISTLE 2008
APRIL 22

dear friends and family ...

the past year has turned out to be a critical year for our planet.  the accelerated extraction of hydrocarbons from deep within the earth continues unabated.  although there have been some advancements in clean energy technology, the world's political and industry leaders are giving them little priority or support (relative to GDP). the breakdown of natural ecosystems that sustain our planet is happening everywhere. on a personal level, i find my biggest challenge is to live a less consumptive lifestyle, finding meaning and pleasure in activities that require less manufactured goods and energy based services.  I could use this earth day epistle to mention a number of positive examples of people at work to protect our planet, but i feel compelled to state that, from my perspective, our future looks grimmer than it did one year ago.  I feel that the challenge is so great that it calls all of us to rethink what it means to be a citizen of the planet and to take on lifestyles that may look significantly different than what we have experienced in the last fifty years.

for those concerned about the eno river, 2007 was a challenge as a severe drought gripped our area and water levels dropped to consistently low levels.  fortunately, our wafting program operates on the west point mill pond where water is backed up behind an old mill dam.  while the rest of the river had a flow of less that five cubit feet per second for most of the summer, the mill pond remained deep and clear.  in fact, the absence of rain meant that the millpond was mainly spring fed and free of surface runoff water.  with crystal clear water at west point, a wafter can easily observe aquatic wildlife such as fish and turtles.  the spring fed waters have a refreshing and clean feel and smell to them, making our river trips more delightful than ever.  in fact, our year 2007 wafting season was our very best ever in terms of numbers of wafters, even with our summer break to attend the annual gathering of the thoreau society in concord massachusetts.  so while other aspects of life were made more challenging because of the drought, wafting had its banner year, for which we are very grateful. but i do believe that the drought was a helpful lesson for all.  our days of unlimited natural resources for consumption are over. the commoditization of water is underway ...

besides wafting, this past year josie and i put a huge amount of our personal time and energy helping our nonprofit group, the friends of west point on the eno park, face the daunting possibility that a high density development was likely to move into a sixty acre forested parcel of land adjacent to west point park that would severely compromise its integrity.  after much community organizing on our part, the momentum of the development has reversed and the powers that be are working to include the land into our park system. the deal is far from concluded, but we feel that progress has been made and the remaining issue is how to fund the four million dollar acquisition.  for josie and me, this has been our first serious foray into land conservation. we have made some mistakes along the way, but seem to have learned quickly and recovered and are pressing on to a hopefully positive conclusion. this is a very strategic piece of property that should have been included in the park at its inception back in the seventies, but somehow was overlooked.

our third activity of 2007 was our continued pursuit of certification in the art of traditional thai massage.  we returned to montreal, quebec in september to take our second level of training at the lotus palm studio.  something about this city has appealed to us and caught our fascination.  montreal is located on an island in the middle of the st. lawrence river. at the center of this river city is a mountain that is preserved as parkland with numerous trails to it's summit. the park was designed by frederick olmstead, the same person who designed central park in manhattan. located near the massage studio is a lovely b&b, chez maggie maguire, that provides us with a very different experience than we've ever had in traveling. back in durham we have offered free, hour and a half thai massages to as many family members and friends as were willing to let us practice on.  both josie and i have now completed our first level of certification with the help of over sixty volunteers , many of them more than once, who have come by to experience traditional thai massage in our home on wanda ridge.

so no tropical trips this past winter!  that is a big change for us after eight straight years of winter retreats on the island of abaco where josie and i were married in 2000.  allowing quebec to be our exotic travel for the year, in march we rented a small cottage on the island of ocracoke off the coast of eastern n.c. and let that satisfy our need for a coastal experience.  islands, islands, islands!  we sure love them as one of the planet's unique natural features - little self contained worlds unto themselves where a visitor can feel connected to all the elements at once.  we have found the island of ocracoke to be one of the least developed islands off the carolina coast, most of it being a national seashore park.  in the off season the local people return to close to a normal community life and that is when we like to be there. on the two hour car ferry back to the mainland we came across flocks of thousands and thousands of migrating sea ducks known as scoters, a magnificent phenomenon i had never witnessed before. 

this earth day evening we are at our home on wanda ridge with our grandson, owen, who is visiting from manhattan.  this is josie's and my first full night alone grand parenting, as melody and chris are spending the night at the arrowhead inn b&b where they were married in the year 2000. owen's most requested book for bedtime reading was the cat in the hat. it's reassuring to know that at least some things just haven't changed since my childhood!  tomorrow, earth day, will be owen's second birthday and we are delighted to be by the eno, tossing stones in the river together this year.  saliima and yasmiin also dropped in this weekend and we were all able to share together a sufi dance ceremony at the quaker center in durham.  saliima is working at let's dance studio in cary http://www.letsdancecary.com/index.html and yasmiin has gone back to school at unc charlotte to get her teaching certification in dance education.  we trust that this earth day will also find you and your families ever mindful of the source of our life, this marvelous mother of ours, planet earth, from whom our lives have flowed and to whom we owe the utmost care and respect. 

OCRACOKE ISLAND NORTH CAROLINA
MARCH 2008

dear family and friends:

josie and i decided to take our major winter retreat time this year on the island of ocracoke in eastern north carolina.  after eight straight winters of retreats on the island of abaco in the bahamas, we felt that it was time to revisit an island closer to home.  we have found the community of ocracoke village very compatible to our style of winter getaway.  during this off season we have been able to rent at a reduced rate, a small cottage nestled into the coastal red cedars and live oaks in an old neighborhood just a couple of blocks from the harbor. 

the tourist season won’t begin until april, so life is pretty laid back in this town during march.  most of the restaurants and shops are still closed and traffic coming in off the ferries from the mainland is minimal.  the owner of the house we rent from is a ranger in the national seashore park that begins about a mile from our cottage and extends north for a dozen miles.  this time of year in march, our favorite beach activity is simply late afternoon walks along this vast stretch of pristine natural area.  at low tide the beach stretches out to a couple of hundred yards wide below a line of continuous high dunes.  sunsets bring an incredible play of pastels to the sky and shallow surf.

just as there is a maritime hardwood forest about a twenty minute walk from our cottage in abaco, there is also an evergreen maritime hardwood forest roughly the same distance from our rented cottage here in ocracoke.  since 2002 it has been a protected area of about 31 acres along the pamlico sound with nice trails.  these days the forest canopy is filled with myrtle warbles that will quickly descend to the sound of my pishing.  no migrants from further south have arrived yet.  in the open marsh areas outside the forest along the sound,  a flock of white ibis have a rookery and are easy to spot  wading in the shallow water or flying in a long string as is there custom.  a sandy, secluded cove there reminds us of “little bay” in abaco.

in and around ocracoke village virtually the same birds are heard as in the village of cherokee in abaco - mockingbirds calling from rooftops, red-winged blackbirds and boat-tailed grackles chattering constantly.  the ever present, nonnative, ringed turtle dove that coos from atop power lines in abaco has also taken up residence in ocracoke.  the familiar, two note call of the smoothed-billed ani of abaco is sadly missing in ocracoke, but is readily replaced by the emphatic, two note call of the fish crow. one bird we did not hear in abaco is the laughing gull, which frequently calls over the ocracoke harbor. i find that the wild, loon-like call of ocracoke’s laughing gulls may become one of my favorite natural experiences on this island.  i am trying to learn to imitate its call, but it is a tough one!

just as our village in abaco had two churches, the methodist and the assembly of god, so does ocracoke have the same two.  although we are not church goers, we do appreciate the bell of the ocracoke methodist church that chimes on the hour during the day, a reminder of earlier days when the bell served an important function in a community as the main tracker of time.  the ocracoke bell harmonizes well with the sound of the sea breeze in the oaks and cedars.  a hymn follows the six o’clock evening chime.  strangely, i find myself recalling most of the words of the old hymns.  i do find the ocracoke bell more soothing than the moaning of the electric organ that we often heard from the methodist church across the street from our cottage in abaco.

our next door neighbor here in ocracoke is hard at work preparing his spring garden.  it is interesting that he is able to grow bananas, even though they go dormant in the winter.  he says that any day now the brown stalks will send out the first green leaves.  this is news to me, as i did not know that bananas could be kept outdoors year round anywhere in north carolina.  i suppose it never freezes here in ocracoke, being twenty-five miles off shore from the mainland. watching him garden makes me nostalgic for my own banana plantings in abaco ...

one of our favorite pleasures of abaco was finding the huge honduran avocados for sale in the grocery stores and letting them be a major part of our island diet.  for some reason, we could never find a grocer in north carolina who would carry them. the small california avocados that have always been offered in our carolina grocers just didn’t match up. but in the last few months i finally found them in durham at the new hispanic grocery chain that recently opened in durham called “compare.” we were able to load up on them before we left and bring them to ocracoke to continue our island cuisine tradition!

i have found that the natives of ocracoke, like john, speak with an old english accent that is very similar to that of the white population of abaco.  (even the cardinals here have a certain trill in their calls that their land side brethren don’t have) both fishing communities were isolated for two centuries on offshore islands before modern tourism flooded their lives with new choices for making a living and raised the value of their land.  The most conspicuous sign of new wealth displayed by the locals seems to be the enormous chevy and ford pickup trucks that they proudly display about town.  in striking contrast, it is big business to rent bicycles to mainland tourists eager to adopt a simpler life for a few days.

my reading projects for ocracoke consists of two books.  i have just finished a newly published american transcendentalism.  the author, unc professor philip gura, details the 19th century spiritual, literary and social protest movement that henry thoreau was a part of. i am ready to start my second book, the spirit catches you and you fall down by anne fadiman.  this is a book that came out in 1997 and has been highly recommended to me by a number of friends through the years. what motivates me now to finally pick it up is my new practice of traditional thai massage, as this book is an account of a clash between traditional and modern medicine among the hmong people of southeast asia.

weather ...  daytime highs have been in the sixties here in ocracoke as compared to seventies one would find in abaco eight hundred miles to the south. during the winter, both islands experience the regular passing of cold fronts that drop temperatures by ten degrees for a period of a couple of days at a time.  winds will kick up to a gale force as they clock around to the northeast.  that’s when josie and i turn to our thai massage practice and have a nice, upper room floor to work on. another option exists just down the street from us at the ocracoke library that now has a wireless internet connection that allows us to stay in touch with friends and family. 

the full moon ...  i usually plan travel to special places around full moons and this week’s moon turned out to be superb. in the evening the moon is rising in the east over the atlantic, the direction of many of the exotic adventures of my past.  but i especially like to rise early in the dark, predawn morning hours and drum and dance on the west side of the island.  the moon is sending its pathway of sparkling silver as an invitation that i can almost walk upon!  i watch the moon descend and melt into an hourglass in the waters of the pamlico sound to the west, the direction of durham and the current affairs of my life and my upcoming season of moonlight wafting on the eno river.  

while walking out to the south point of the island several days ago we recognized that strong winds and tides had caused an over wash through the dunes leaving large puddles of standing water.  josie spotted a fish trapped in one fast evaporating pool in the sand.  we were too far from the surf to return it, so i ran to our parked car and grabbed a bucket, filled it with water from a drainage ditch and hurried back.  as josie was yelling to me that the water in the pool was about gone, i grabbed the ten inch whiting just as it was left writhing in the sand.  that lucky fish got tossed back into the sea for a second chance with life.  it was such a dramatic moment!  we have pondered what it all might mean as that day was josie’s 52nd birthday ...

the most unusual bird spotted in our time in ocracoke will probably turn out to be an american bittern.  the number of encounters with this large bird in my lifetime that i remember can be counted on the fingers of only one hand.  the bittern looks similar to a great blue heron, but is streaked brown and white.  yesterday, as i approached one in the marsh grass, it froze, raised its head and pointed its beak skyward, a posture unique to the bittern.  i wanted to watch it fly so i could acquire better aerial sight recognition, but it was so frozen that i had to clap my hands and shout to send it off.  its profile in the air is very similar to a heron, but the coloration is quite different.  we also had a nice view of a northern harrier, or sometimes known as a marsh hawk, fly off with freshly caught prey dangling from its talons. 

the ocracoke coffee shop has opened for the season just down the street from us.  it is the only one on the island and is spread out with chairs over a grassy area under sprawling, shady live oaks.  we met some former wafters from durham there yesterday.  the easter weekend has brought in a few more folks to the island, but their numbers are barely noticeable.  the most famous gathering spot on the island is howard’s pub, located just outside of the old village.  we noticed quite a lineup of cars there last night.  as is commonly our style, we have stayed clear from the restaurant, drinking and loud music crowds.  we did have one meal out so far, a pancake breakfast at the pony island diner.  that may be it for our time here.  we have been quite content with the food supplies we brought from home and a few extra veggies we picked up at the ocracoke variety store.

the big talk in coffee shops and restaurants is the lawsuit that the audubon society, along with several other environmental groups, is bringing against the national park service for allowing motor vehicles on the beach that disturb the nesting sites of birds, turtles and other critters.  many locals strongly believe that such a ban would negatively impact the tourism business on the island.  my feeling is that it may detract certain kinds of high maintenance fishermen who like to bring out tall profile trucks loaded with family members with beach umbrellas, fishing supplies, and immense coolers of food and alcohol for the day.  but if the word gets out that ocracoke is more respective of wildlife, it may actually attract other types of lower maintenance tourists to replace the roadster crowd; those, like us, looking for a more pristine beach where we are the strangers treading carefully and managing our footprints, so as not to disturb the wildlife.  some compromise will probably be reached in the end, with the most sensitive wildlife breeding areas being out of bounds for motor vehicles. 

the other local news is that ocracoke’s oldest resident, mrs. belle bryant, has just passed away.  an african american woman, born in the year the wright brothers launched their plane at kitty hawk, she lived her entire life on ocracoke and died at the age of 104.  she remembered her grandmother as a slave in the antebellum South.  there are no african americans living on the island now.  a number of mexicans have recently moved in as a new minority to work in the modest island construction industry.  such is the odd human balance that currently exists in the republic of ocracoke! 

on sunday the 23rd the first wave of tropical birds finally arrived on ocracoke, probably having navigated with the aid of full moon light in their last leg from central america. the island’s trees suddenly swarmed with gnat catchers, a tiny bird that loves to nest near water.  it was easy to call them down to within three feet of my face.

our departure back durham was on the 25th. on the ferry to the mainland we encountered flocks of thousands of surf scoters on the pamlico sound.  these black sea ducks, with yellow bills and white napes, over winter in the sound before returning to northern canada in april.  this was a new bird for me. and i was amazed at their vast numbers and the fact that i could have lived in north carolina for so long and never have had the occasion to make the acquaintance of this beautiful form of life until now.

on the drive back to durham, we stopped briefly to explore the river parks that line the  three towns of bath (colonial home of naturalist john lawson who in 1709 wrote the book a new voyage to carolina), washington and greenville, through which the tar river makes its path to the pamlico sound.  i have been contemplating a paddling trip from the piedmont to the coast on this river for a number of years and am waiting for a good series of rains to send the river swiftly along and allow me to surf to the coast ...

Thoreau’s Conchology
February 2007

“What a place it must be to bring up children!”  exclaimed Henry Thoreau to himself after passing through Prescot Gate in the old walled city of Quebec in 1850.  These words echoed my own thoughts that I spoke to myself as I walked through the Damascus Gate in the old cIty of Jerusalem in 1974.

Thoreau stated that the walls of Quebec “carry us back to the Middle Ages, the siege of Jerusalem and St. Jean d’Acre”, (p.72, see below) but there remained one basic difference between his experience and mine.  Thoreau was a single man with no children whereas I was married and carrying a ten month old baby girl in my arms. Although Jerusalem was far from being a secure city in 1974, as a foreigner entering that walled microcosm of habitation,  commerce, and pilgrimage, I felt a sense of comfort and community embrace me.  Later I returned to Jerusalem with my family of three children to live within those walls for a period of five formative years.

Three years after reading Thoreau’s travelogue, A Yankee in Canada, I entered St. Louis’s Gate of old Quebec for the first time in November 2006.  I came to try to understand the reasoning behind Thoreau’s remarkable entry way comment about a place to raise children.  I felt that for a Concord bachelor, naturalist and lover of wild places to give an old walled city such high praise was quite extraordinary. 

During my extended stay within the walled city of old Jerusalem and for many years afterwards, I  both struggled with and carefully examined my own reasons for wanting to raise my children there. Dream analysis was particularly helpful in this endeavor. I came to the conclusion that a desire to be nurtured by old medieval walls sprang from a subconscious personal need to heal myself from deeply embedded psychological birth trauma.  The labyrinth of tight cobblestone streets, arches and tunnels leading the pilgrim to the vortex of the ancient temple site, which was encircled by yet another set of inner walls, evoked for me a return to the safety of a mother’s womb.  After reading his narrative A Yankee in Canada,  I sensed that Thoreau may also have been drawn to a medieval walled city by similar subconscious yearnings.  From my study of Thoreau’s text, I have found five feminine birth metaphors and one masculine metaphor that I believe reveal his attempt to heal himself from some kind of birth trauma.

In November 2006 I had reservations to stay at Chateau de Lery, in front of the Parc des Gouverneurs in old Quebec.  The building, which once was a dwelling for government officials in the nineteenth century when Thoreau made his visit, is now a modest hotel. From my second story window I commanded a fine view of the park and beyond the old city walls to the St. Lawrence River.

The setting felt familiar.  Dwellings in the old city of Jerusalem are usually second story flats as the lower floors of buildings are often reserved for street front businesses. The weather that day in quebec was cold, rainy and windy, actually not unlike a winter day in Jerusalem.  I bundled up with a jacket and scarf and headed out for what would be three days of exploring Quebec’s labyrinth of cobblestone streets and alleys, seeking to confirm what I suspected to be Thoreau’s six birth metaphors.  

#1 - Conch

Thoreau provides a particularly apropos feminine metaphor to describe the walled city of Quebec. He notes that “Quebec is chiefly famous for the thickness of its parietal bones. The technical terms of its conchology may stagger a beginner at first, such as banlieue, esplanade, glacis, ravelin, cavalier”.  (p.69)  He likened the old city’s founding hospitals and convents to “pearls, and the wall the only mother of pearl for me.” (p.69) By extension, those children fortunate enough to be “brought up” in such a place might be thought of as pearIs nourished and mothered by the hermaphroditic
shellfish.  Although this is the only incidence where Thoreau actually uses the word “mother” in his narrative,  it comes at a central point in his actuaI description of the old city walls.  I therefore see the conch as the chief and overriding of Thoreau’s five feminine metaphors and establishes the theme of “conchology” for his entire journey to Canada.

#2 - Waterfall

A second metaphor that expresses a perinatal concern was Thoreau’s fascination with the abundance of waterfalls that tumbled into the St. Lawrence River.  Around Quebec City he visited at least four, the closest and largest one being the Montmorenci Falls just seven miles east and downstream from the city.  He claims that the St. Lawrence River “must be the most remarkable for its falls of any in the world.” (p. 55}  The breaking of the amniotic waters of birth just downstream from the city could well have been another subconcious notion that drove Thoreau to explore the falls so carefully. Waterfalls were the goal of all his walks outside the old city and he summarized his experiences with the statement  “Falls there are a drug; and we became quite dissipated in respect to them.”

Thoreau’s description of his descent into the “chasm” surrounding the falls of St. Ann de Beaupre further downstream leaves little room for the reader to doubt his feminine focus.  After making his way to the bottom of the falls, looking up he describes “the most wild and rugged and stupendous chasm”, “a winding gorge”, “a cleft in this precipice ... perfectly straight up and down from top to bottom”, “cracked into vast cubical masses of gray rock shining with moisture”, masses of birch and arborvitae trees “overhung this chasm on the very verge of the cliff and in the crevices”. (p.51)

#3 - River

“Here we are, in the harbor of Quebec, still three hundred and sixty miles from the mouth of the St. Lawrence, in a basin two miles across, where the greatest depth is twenty-eight fathoms, and though the water is fresh, the tide rises seventeen to twenty-four feet”. (p.20) My pilgrimage to old Quebec also impressed me with this geographical layout of the city.  Being inland, next to a river that stretches down to the sea, provides a remarkable third perinatal metaphor of a birth canal extending from the womb. Its ebbing tides emulated the cycles of a mother and further filled out Thoreau’s conchological theme. Thoreau added to his admiration of the riparian layout stating “The most interesting object in Canada to me was the River St. Lawrence. (p. 82)

#4 - Wilderness

Thoreau frequently mentions in his travel narrative how there exists to the north of Quebec and the St. Lawrence an unparalleled and vast wild area.  “We had only to go a quarter of a mile from the road to the top of the bank to find ourselves on the verge of the uninhabited, and, for the most part, unexplored wilderness stretching toward Hudson’s Bay.” (p.39) I find this to be yet a fourth birth metaphor, confirmed elsewhere in Thoreau’s writings in his essay Walking, where he describes nature as a “vast, savage, howling Mother of  ours” but that “we are so early weaned from her breasts to society.”  The uncharted, untamed and creative energy represented by the Canadian wilderness extended northwards and seems to appear in this narrative as the very body and context for the city of old Quebec and the St. Lawrence River.

#5 - French Vortex

On the train ride up to Quebec, Thoreau’s thoughts quickly orient the reader to his conchological theme. “The number of French Canadian gentlemen and ladies among the passengers and the sound of the French language, advertised us by this time that we were being whirled towards some foreign vortex.” (p. 8)  Although he does not explicitly mention a need to experience his French roots as a reason for his journey to Canada, it is hard not to conclude that there is a strong hint in this passage and when he later stated that Canada “appeared as old as Normandy itself and realized much that I had heard of Europe”. (p.53)  Normany was the region from which his grandfather immigrated. The fact that he describes this French connection as a vortex adds yet a fifth perinatal metaphor possibly revealing his drive to explore the mystery of his own French origins. In addition, Thoreau aligns the history of old Quebec with a French heroine.  He stated that its walls “carry us back to the Middle Ages, the siege of Jerusalem and St. Jean d’Acre,” (p.72), avoiding what one would expect to be a credit to the Ottoman caliph Sulayman the Magnificent, the builder of the present walls of old Jerusalem.  

#6 - Sapper

After first walking around the outside of Quebec’s walls and then around their inner side, Thoreau concludes with “I think that I deserve to be made a member of the Royal Sappers and Miners.” (p. 71)  A sapper was an engineer in the British Army that specialized in tunneling to undermine an enemy fortification.  As he takes upon himself this personal masculine metaphor of a sapper, Thoreau candidly reveals his own nature as a tunneler on a psychological level.  His fascination with medieval walls, waterfalls, rivers, wilderness,  and vortex, all of which are in a French context, indeed propels Thoreau into the ranks of the royal sappers.  And like myself, perhaps Thoreau, by virtue of his methodical exploratory survey of a medieval walled city and its surroundings,  has even made himself a candidate for an honorary Ch.D. - Doctor of Conchology. 

The West Indies
February 2006

dear family and friends ...

i want to pass on a description of our exploration of the island of eleuthera.  we ended up staying in an apartment next to uncle gene zimmerman's methodist minister colleague, charles sweeting, in the town of current.  rev. sweeting was actually the pastor of the methodist church in cherokee when our cottage was purchased by dad and uncle gene from the previous owner's widow in 1972 as part of the settlement of her late husband's estate.  like cherokee, the town of current is a somewhat isolated town but there seem to be many kinship ties between the two communities.  but unlike cherokee, current is now a racially mixed community with a black majority.  but the owner of the apartment we stayed in, a mr. algreen, appeared to be of neither strain, and we were told that there is a good bit of indigenous arawak indian blood still flowing in the veins of many of the islanders of north eleuthera, more so than on any other island in the bahamian archipelago.

the town of current is a seaside fishing village and we continued our ritual of walking down to the waterfront to watch the evening sunset on the shallow western caribbean side.  sunset at low tide is exceptionally beautiful. if the water also happens to be dead calm, as it often is, for several minutes the sea turns an incredible pink from shore to horizon giving a surreal aura to the entire world around you.  i had never witnessed anything quite like that before. this startling phenomenon doesn't happen on the eastern atlantic shore of the island because both deeper water and rougher waves keep the water blue in appearance.

for dinner in current, i bought fish to cook from local kids who were fishing with hand lines from the shore.  they were catching what they called "crawshad."  it looked like some species of jack, but suited our taste quite nicely.  i later noticed that the fish was very abundant in the sea when i got a chance to snorkle further down the coast.

we first visited the two largest old colonial settlements, harbor island, slurred as "briland" by locals and spanish wells, both of which are reachable only by ferries.  both have quaint old sections with tidy colonial homes. we walked around briland and rented a golf cart for exploring spanish wells, roaming the old streets and peering into the trim little tropical gardens maintained by their owners.  harbor island is a tourist town and spanish wells is fast becoming a retirement community for wealthy floridians, but we enjoyed getting to know how these offshore island communities make their livelihood.  comparing them to abaco's offshore cay communities, we think abaco's islands still maintain a quieter atmosphere that we prefer.

we swam at the harbor island beach, and found it, along with most of eleuthera's other many beaches, to be in much bigger and in better shape than abaco's beaches.  (except for cherokee's isolated little bay beach with its fabulous shady sea cave!). so if one is solely intent on finding long pristine sections of pink sand beaches, eleuthera is a great place to find them.  of course sitting on sunny beaches is not the main reason josie and i like the bahamas.  in fact, both of us don't tolerate well the direct sun that one gets in exposed beaches.  after a dip of ten minutes, we head for a shady sea cave or protective forest. but the contrast of the cool, clear, sparkling waters and a hot sunny day is a most exhilarating experience.  winter water temperatures run about 73 degrees in eleuthera and abaco.  on a cloudy cool day this is not an inviting swimming condition, but on sunny hot days it is the very ultimate in refreshing ocean bathing.

next our attention shifted to exploring the island's other natural features.  north eleuthera contains what is known as the preacher's cave, a large cave with a forty foot high entrance that recesses into the limestone hill about 150 feet deep. it's post arawakan history begins with a band of 200 british loyalists who headed south from charleston, south carolina after the american revolutionary war ended and were then shipwrecked off shore from eleuthera.  they took refuge in this immense cave for months as they began to build more permanent dwellings.  their descendants now live in spanish wells and harbor island.  the cave was also used as a place of worship by this group and others and hence it's name today - the preacher's cave.  sitting inside this immense cathedral-like cavity and looking outward to the colorful lush tropical vegetation that surrounds it is quite an inspiration.  we also had our best dip in the sea just in front of it.

rev. sweeting proudly informed us that all of his relatives, on both sides of his family, trace their history back to the shipwrecked band in that took refuge in cave.  i pondered that situation while meditating deep inside the cave.  what an amazing sense of connectedness to a single geographical space he must have - to be able to trace all your origins back to a particular seaside cave two hundred years ago!  his mother and father were even fourth cousins.

we rented a car and drove 110 miles to the southern tip of the island.  unlike abaco, there are no pine forests on eleuthera and instead of being flat has rolling hills.  the  northern half of eleuthera is covered with a resurging bush forest that is reclaiming the land after years of experiencing a once flourishing citrus and pineapple industry.  unfortunately, agriculture does not seem to be a priority of the present government of the bahamas. once a big exporter of tropical fruits and vegetables, it is now a net importer of food by a huge margin.  it seems that the government of the bahamas has chosen to invest in a limited number of expensive and fashionable, high end tourism projects at the expense of sustainable agriculture for its people.  from my perspective, this looks like a mistake.

but much of the southern half of the island is covered with a wild and untouched west indian subtropical hardwood forest. we went there on a mission to find the great lizard cuckoo, a large indigenous bird of the island.  although we found the more common mangrove cuckoo as we walked the final mile to the southern lighthouse point, the lizard cuckoo failed to make its presence known to us.  but the end of the island is a spectacular place with huge rocks jutting out into the sea and a pristine, coconut palm lined beach.  it was a very hot day and we barely had enough water to remain comfortable in that wild and rugged place.

mother earth did compensate us for not finding the eleuthera lizard cuckoo this time.  before we left for eleuthera, three bahama parrots flew into cherokee and spent a couple of days feeding in the forest on the hill and we got to seem them up close on several occasions.  that was only the second time i had seen them, the first time being when i was here with my parents in 1998.  another aspect of this present trip that has been a revelation to me is how much the mockingbird is the dominant singer here in abaco and eleuthera.  there are actually two species of mockingbirds in the bahamas - the northern mockingbird which we also have in north carolina, and the bahama mockingbird, which looks almost identical but which is a shade browner than the northern species that is gray.  but both sing their cheery repertoires with great vigor all over these islands, at all times of the day and sometimes at night, rain and shine, town and countryside. i had not noticed their energy quite like i did this time, or perhaps they have just turned up their volume and intensity this winter.

probably my favorite experience on the island was the discovery of an extensive banyan tree grove in the countryside north of rock sound.  we parked the car, climbed through a barbed wire fence and found a string of banyan trees that stretched at least a half mile.  we asked permission to walk from the local hatian laborers that were wielding machetes in a nearby field.  i asked them what they called this magnificent tree and their reply was, "hey mon, whah tree?"  it is amazing how often we fail to notice what is in our very own backyard!  the banyan (ficus bengalensis) is probably the largest tree in the world - or at least shares the distinction with the sequoia of california, depending on the criteria for measurement.

the banyan is a native of india, but is planted ornamentally in all tropical regions of the world (the strangler fig, ficus aurea, is the largest native tree in the bahamas). my first encounter with a banyan tree was on the campus of the american university of beirut when we arrived there in 1974.  i was so taken back by its fabulous shape and size that i have since sought them out whenever i am in tropical lands, often finding them in city parks as ornamental trees. but this one in eleuthera had a wilder country setting.  it is actually located in the middle of a sprawling cattle farm.  my guess is that it was planted a couple of hundred years ago, perhaps even in spanish times, as shade for cattle from the intense tropical sun.

the banyan's complex structure of massive horizontal limbs and vertical prop roots reminds me of structures that i used to build with "tinker toys" as a child.  if i was visiting planet earth from another cosmic realm and had only an hour to see the most wondrous sight on earth, i would ask to be taken to a mature old banyan tree!  the eleuthera tree is the best example i have ever seen.  there may be better ones in india, but there we would have to cope with cobras hiding in its limbs and naked hindu holy men camped out underneath its sacred branches.  all we had to contend with in the eleuthera tree were a few friendly white cows, hummingbirds and anoles (arboreal lizards).  there are no venomous snakes in the bahamas.  although advertised nowhere as a tourist attraction, in my opinion this is the star attraction of the island.  it was worth the time and effort to travel to eleuthera just to experience this wonder of a tree.

shortly after we were under the banyan tree, we picked up a nassau newspaper only to read that the u.s. supreme court had ruled, six to zero, in favor of making ayahuasca use legal in the united states for a church in new mexico.  attorney general gonzales prosecuted the group but was soundly overruled on this one! this bodes very well for the future use of this wonderful tropical medicine in the united states that i have worked with for eight years now.  the bahamian columnist reporting the event gave an amazingly positive philosophical perspective on the event.

while in the south we spent one night at a small resort in a hexagonal cottage atop a dune overlooking the atlantic side of the island.  it was refreshing to be up high with a view after being in the low apartment in the town of current in the north.  i snorkeled among the coral rocks and we watched a fabulous sunrise in the east the next morning. josie recalled times spent with her mother who loved to spend winter months on the island of bequia further south.

in our six days of travel in eleuthera, we ate in restaurants only three times.  all our other meals we prepared ourselves from materials we picked up at small local groceries and bought from kids on the beach.  this allowed us to "picnic" our way through the island, the unique "owen" style of traveling.

we flew over to eleuthera and back in six and eight seater airplanes.  we got to see cherokee from the air as we passed over all our familiar spots, flying at an altitude of just one thousand feet.  back at "home" we are having to get trevor to fix a major leak in the plumbing under the kitchen sink at the cherokee house, so that is our big project in the coming days before we leave.  

weather during our eleuthera trip was perfect, with highs in the lower eighties and lows around seventy with light sea breezes.  since we have been back in cherokee, the temperature has been mild, but at present lots of wind and rain is coming in ahead of the cold front descending into the southeastern u.s. we saw the big frigate birds yesterday as they always show up just before a storm.  it is now mid-afternoon, but it is so dark outside the street lights are on!

our neighbor's dog "ninja" lies lazily on our front porch today as it rains, dreaming of more promising weather to accompany us on our next bush hike.  he showed up as an abandoned puppy the year josie and i were married here at cherokee. he took refuge across the street from us under the methodist church until he was adopted by our neighbors gurney and katherine.  ninja really is a "bush dog" too.  i have noticed how he browses on a particular shrub in the forest that has a square stem, so it must be in the mint family. my guess is that he does this to deal with the medicine his owner gives him for his occasional seizures  i think that these seizures are really the altered states of consciousness that a bona fide bush dog goes through in the course of his island life.  you see, ninja really is a shaman ...

i have not read much this trip - only one small book on birth trauma and have plowed only about one-third the way through a new annotated edition of walden.  on the other hand, josie brought a pile of books that she is enjoying.  i just squeezed the juice out of fifteen sour oranges, gathered in the forest behind the schoolmaster's house, that i have frozen to bring home for mom to use to make her renown sour orange pies.  u.s. customs won't allow the whole fruit in, but frozen juice will pass. for some strange reason, a pie usually shows up around my birthday in april!

in the next day or two we hope to make it to the neighboring settlement of little harbor for lunch at pete's pub on the beach before we leave. that will just about conclude our itinerary. we will wing our way back to the u.s.a on thursday.  Unitil then ... Riverdave

Our Wild Side
September 2004

There are numerous ways to understand the complex personal aspects of the human primate. Some would say we are composed of a body, soul and spirit. Others might insist that we have both a corporeal body and an energy body. Still others would reduce us even further to only a corporeal body that includes a highly developed central nervous system. After interacting with the public by means of guided nature experiences through the years, I have evolved another format of understanding ourselves, that of a dichotomous personage consisting of two primary aspects - a tame side and a wild side.

As I observe those who come to our parklands to participate in river trips, I see these two sides at work. It is obviously necessary for us to develop a tame or domesticated side to our life on the planet if we are to live together in family and community. There must be a consensual agreement of cultural norms for us to function together as a group. But the problem comes when some of us become so engrossed in our human community that we neglect our wild side, which has co-evolved over millennia with other wild forms of life and the elements - animals, plants, rocks, water, sunshine and air.

Pent-up in a complex urban setting, we develop an inbreeding that comes close to total domestication as our tame side mingles only with members of our own species. And as asphalt and concrete provide only an artificial environment, our wild side is often channeled into unhealthy practices. Such an unnatural, human centered mode of living becomes the source of every personal, social and environmental evil, generating stress, sickness, greed, crime and violence. In such a state we are also prone to blindly run roughshod over any remaining natural areas around us. A herd of frustrated human wild sides run amuck is an insidious phenomenon to behold.

So what can the Eno River parklands offer our Triangle community to help forestall the onslaught of such a burdensome situation? The answer is simple ... balance. Protecting the Eno River and its adjacent woodlands and meadows is one way to ensure that wildness still exists in this corner of the Carolina Piedmont. It means that there are still wild animals roaming freely in our midst, relatively undisturbed by the pressure of expanding human development. It means that we as human primates are provided an opportunity for our wild side to interact with other species of life on their terms.

I daily work with people who manage to pry themselves away from urban life, who come to the river eager to let their wild sides roam in this beautiful natural area. I have observed enough human behavior to know that if you don't let your wild side, at least occasionally, roam in wild natural areas, it will end up doing crazy things in the city. I have also raised three children who are now young adults and I know that if you don't take children out to let their wild sides have free reign in river and forest, they will surprise you down the road when they are older and do even crazier things in the city!

Until this year I had concluded that the red fox, a species that has its origin in Europe but which was brought to the New World by early settlers, was the most common fox along the Eno. But this year I have had a number of very close encounters with our native gray fox. To suddenly stumble upon this wild canine sauntering through the forest is a startling experience. While recently sitting on the steps of my office at the old blacksmith shop at dusk, a gray fox stepped out of the forest right in front of me. The fox paused in its tracks while looking me straight in the eye and then retreated shyly into the underbrush. The whole scene flashed before me in a matter of ten seconds. But that momentary eye contact with this wild native of the forest was enough to excite and activate my wild side, setting off a dream several nights later in which I was running with abandon through the forest with a pair of wild canines!

Peoples from primitive cultures around the world believe that our human wild side often takes on the visionary form of a particular wild animal. They have come to learn that frequent and serendipitous encounters in the wild with one kind of animal along with subsequent reoccurring dreams of it, might just mean that this animal is imbuing us with a certain power or ability unique to its kind. The animal could also be functioning as a guardian animal spirit bearing messages. Could the true guardians of our local communities actually be found living along our forested river corridors? And now I hear from the state park headquarters that there are three unconfirmed reports of coyotes along the Eno. Anyone else having dreams out there?

The Tropical Storm
October 2004

More than any other aspect of nature, weather is the medium by which the average person most directly experiences the natural world. The atmosphere is turbulent, changing and reforming itself constantly. It is more immediately vulnerable than the solid earth to the direct influence of the sun’s energy. Although we may feel that modern meteorology has a firm handle on our weather with its daily forecasts, the weather never ceases to toss up surprises. Weather is still quite a wild force on this planet, and with the distinct possibility of rapid climate change looming in the near future, weather appears to be even more ready to assert its own independence and wild side.

One of weather’s wildest and most unpredictable manifestations is the hurricane. Although modern forecasting can sometimes lay out a fairly accurate tract for these storms, the hurricane will often suddenly veer off and choose a new direction or intensity. We all acknowledge the human suffering and economic loss that these storms sometimes bring. If modern technology could figure out how to actually stop these catastrophic events, we would probably engineer their halt. But such manipulation would most likely create some unforeseen imbalance on the planet that would have other yet unknown devastating effects. The result would probably turn out to be similar to the effects of trying to control beach erosion on our coasts. We would simply be passing the problem on down the line for someone else to deal with.

Facing the reality of five hurricanes that have recently visited the southeastern United States, all of us have developed our own ways of coping with this powerful weather phenomenon. In the Carolina Piedmont, we mainly experience what are known as the "remnants" of storms that have begun to break up on coastal regions and then finally drift our way. The effects locally are usually moderate to strong winds accompanied by several inches of rain within the space of twenty-four hours. Once the storm passes by, often we awake to high atmospheric pressure and a gloriously blue sky to cheer our sullied moods. Our local reservoirs are replenished as well.

As a naturalist guide on the Eno River, my work is vulnerable to repeated storm conditions and my volume of paddlers is going to be off by 7% this year. But I have evolved a way to personally deal with this aspect of nature as it seemingly intrudes its presence into my arena. As a storm approaches, I prepare myself mentally for those couple of days after its arrival when the flow of our local rivers will be high enough for white water paddling. Often, on the day immediately after a storm, river levels are too high for safe paddling. So, I simply wander down to the river banks and sit and watch in wonder as the volumes of tropical energy rush by. Usually this means a rise of several feet in water level, but on one occasion, I saw the Eno rise as much as twenty feet as it did during Hurricane Fran in 1996.

On the second day after the passing of a storm, often that inspiriting blue sky will appear and the Eno will have dropped to a safe range for paddling - between three and five feet on the USGS computerized scale. I rise early and cancel my scheduled public outings. For most people this would amount to "calling in sick to work!" I choose a starting point up in Orange County and then ride the class II waves of tropical energy all the way down into Durham County to the last rapid on the river at the Sennett Hole, just below my cabin on Wanda Ridge. On other post-storm occasions I will paddle the Haw River where the rise in water level will last even longer than on the Eno. This season, my paddling contemplations covered a wide range of thoughts, from the thousands of lives lost in torrential flooding in Haiti to the widespread chaos of homes and businesses affected by wind and water in the Southeastern United States. This is also an issue for me personally, as my family has long been a part owner of a cottage in a vulnerable region of the Southeastern coast where we have shared many happy and carefree times together.

But for me, my ability to transfer all this tropical storm fury into a manageable and pleasurable experience locally is cathartic. As I glide down my hometown river in an inexpensive inflatable kayak, my thoughts also drift to the coast of West Africa where many of these storms begin as tropical depressions before picking up strength and heading westward to the Caribbean and then up the east cost of America. Once, while walking the sands of Hammocks Beach State Park on the North Carolina Coast after a tropical storm, I found coconuts and red mangrove seeds scattered along the shore. Oh, but would I love to know the story of their journeys! These storms disperse seeds, fell weak trees to provide habitat for wildlife and replenish low water supplies. And despite the obvious suffering and economic losses involved, my guess is that they provide some form of emotional cleansing or energy realignment for us all as well.

Last week, while surfing the energies of tropical storm Jeanne on an engorged Haw River, I came upon a small flooded island whose only inhabitants seemed to be seven persimmon trees, all of which were loaded with fruit. I quickly veered my boat in that direction and grabbed one of the trunks as the Haw swirled all around me. While holding the paddle in one hand, I shook one tree trunk with my other hand and bright orange fruits came down plopping in the water all around me. I realized at that point that I sorely needed a third hand! But through a delicate act of juggling I was able to release one hand from the tree, grab a falling fruit and drop it in my boat, and then quickly reach out and grab the tree again. After several minutes of effort I was able to harvest what is my favorite wild fruit in our area, what the Algonquian Indians named the "persimmon."

Most of us living in the Carolina Piedmont are of either European, African or Asian ancestry in the not too distant past. Perhaps we have not yet passed through enough generations in the New World to have fully integrated the tropical storm into our psyches and inner workings. But for the Native Americans who have co-evolved with these storms for untold millennia, the tropical storm has embedded itself deep within their life’s experience. For the Maya of Central American, the tropical storm was understood as an emissary of the storm god Hurukan, a force to be respected and honored and whose name has evolved into our English word hurricane. From my experiences with natives of neotropical lands, I have learned that the shamans of those regions are on such intimate terms with storms that they have developed techniques of protecting themselves by actually altering the paths of storms if need be.

Perhaps the energy of our intense 2004 hurricane season has played itself out with Charlie, Francis, Gaston, Ivan and Jeanne. But I’m still ready to surf that tropical energy if it charges at us again - even if it comes down to Zola!. In some inexplicable way, I feel that when I paddle a local river with its waters dancing with tropical energy, I magically absorb a drop of the storm’s wild essence into my life. And perhaps there will also be some practical wisdom that I will learn from those turbulent waters, symbolized by the falling persimmons. Or maybe I will just internalize the whole experience and grow in some unseen manner, co-evolving with this important event of nature which continues to blow up into our region year after year.

Six Hundred Moons
October 2001

A dozen boats huddle together on the still, night surface of the Eno River
under the assuage of a leaning elm tree. The full moon has just risen over the
south bank ridge and casts its hazy spell on the waters. Moonlit faces gently
glow, attached to bodies lavishly reclining on the cushioned seats of our inflat-
able wafts. Bull frogs groan all up and down the river. The hypnotic pulsation
of katydids rings in the forest behind us. A beaver persistently circles our posi-
tion, slapping its tail on the surface as it dives into mirky depths.

Such is the context that we often find ourselves in when I offer “moonlight
wafting” trips at the West Point millpond on evenings just preceding the full
moon. This is my twelfth year of leading such trips. I have had to carefully work
with both the public and myself through these years to help evolve this experi-
ence so that we could make the most out of what the river has to offer us at
night. Some of you may have heard rumors about a new emphasis that I have
recently brought to the Eno on my night journeys, so I thought that it might be
a good time to offer some clarifying highlights about what is REALLY going on
out there under the moon with Riverdave

The announcement of a moonlight boat trip on a river is interpreted in dif-
ferent ways by the public. Since I rely on the gracious, free announcements
that local newspapers carry in their weekend sections to get the word out, I am
limited to a bare bones message that gives no details about how we proceed
on our night expeditions. It is left to inquirers to call in to my office and ask
me personally for details or to bring to the evening their own expectations of
what might happen.

One expectation that I occasionally encounter from those who show up for
moonlight wafting is the “after midnight, we’re gunna let it all hang down” atti-
tude. After a hard week of work and an eagerness to escape from the confine-
ment and tedium of an indoor job, this type of seeker is ready to have a few
drinks and blow off steam with loud joking and boisterous behavior when ini-
tially confronted with the unexpected exhilaration that the nocturnal river scene
has to offer. The owner of one popular local restaurant once phoned me about
organizing a moonlight trip for his wait staff as a team building experience.
When I described to him what my emphasis was, he declined, commenting
with a sigh that the only kind of “moons” his group would be interested in were
the ones left shining after certain drawers had come down ...

Another expectation is that moonlight wafting will provide the backdrop
for a true romantic encounter with a partner. Since I place two people togeth-
er per boat in fairly close proximity, this does make for the possibility of inti-
macy. But I have long since stopped matching single people up who don’t
already know one another and now require that everyone come with a partner.
This can also include friends or even parent-child duos. The burden of being a
matchmaker was just too much for Riverdave and I got myself in trouble more
times than not. I am aware, though, of at least one marriage that took place
after I once indiscriminately matched two singles in one boat. They later wrote
me from Paris, happily married and grateful to both me and the Eno for bring-
ing them together.

I have no problem with the idea of a romantic river encounter as nature
herself is always brimming with sensuous energy. But a strong, interpersonal
focus by couples can detract from our mission as a group. Also, I question
whether those who are intensely centered on one another are really learning
much about the wonders of the night experience on the Eno. Often nature man-
ifests herself in very subtle ways at night. If one’s antennae are not up and
attuned to what is happening all around, one might as well be back home on
the sofa with all the doors and windows tightly sealed and the air conditioner
whirring away!

Then there are the inquisitive nature lovers, those eager to learn about the
wild creatures that roam at night and the energies of their shadowy world.
These folks seek a night experience in order to allow their wild side to connect
with the moon and the night calling creatures and to discover what message
the evening might hold for them personally. It is for this group that I have tried
to mold the moonlight wafting experience. Yes, the Eno River can be a place
of unwinding for the weary and also a romantic hangout for couples. There is
nothing wrong with that. But I have found it too difficult to orchestrate the
needs of all three types of nocturnal seekers simultaneously and have decided
to tailor my night experience for the last of the three groups described above.

My night trips began to change in 1997 after I made a solo, two week pil-
grimage in an inflatable waft from West Point Park down the Eno to Falls Lake,
then connecting with the Neuse River and on to the coast arriving at the town
of Oriental 240 miles later. I timed this adventure with the appearance of the
Comet Hale-Bopp. But in the remotest part of the river between Kinston and
New Bern, a second mysterious light appeared to me one evening, hovering
about six feet over the water in front of my encampment next to the river in a
cypress-tupelo swamp. That experience proved to be transformative for me
and my relationship with the river. I realized, as Henry Thoreau did on one of
his wilderness expedition to Maine, that “the woods were not tenantless, but
choke-full of honest spirits as good as myself any day, not an empty chamber,
in which chemistry was left to work alone, but an inhabited house and for a few
moments I enjoyed fellowship with them.”

Bereft of a scientific explanation for what I had encountered on the Neuse
River, I sought answers in other places. Up until that year I had been taking
ecotourism groups to explore the Amazon River during the winter. While there,
we would always visit a Yagua Indian tribe that lived along the river and briefly
meet with the shaman or medicine man. We would listen in wonder about all-
night ceremonies in which the native river people would participate, where the
shaman would guide the group in how to navigate the night in ways that were
not familiar to me as a westerner. I inwardly coveted such an experience but
realized that it could probably not come to pass within the context of my eco-
tourism forays that were open to the public.

Soon after my encounter with the Neuse River Light, I decided to aban-
don my winter ecotourism efforts for a while and return to the Amazon with a
physician friend to seek assistance from those folks who might be able to bet-
ter help us interpret the night environment. These Amazon river natives have
inherited an unbroken tradition of meaningful night experiences that have not
been severely altered by the introduction of electricity and all the dazzling,
indoor entertainment that modern electronic media brings. I did find those
remote river people and was fortunate enough to participate in their ancient cer-
emonies, received some help with my concerns and went back again the fol-
lowing winter for more. Then, last year, I invited my Bolivian shaman friend
up to visit me here on the Eno and we did some exploring together in my ter-
ritory.

For the past three years I have shifted the focus of my moonlight wafting
trip to include more than just watching for beavers and listening to summer
frogs. While daylight wafting will continue to focus on the natural history of the
river, I am working to transform moonlight wafting into an opportunity for our
community to enhance the inward significance that we find in our relationship
with the Eno River through what I call neoprimitivism. I have encouraged a new
respect for the pandemic, cross cultural tradition of the cosmic tree or axis
mundi - the elm tree as it would be applied in our region of Eastern America.
While reclining in our wafts under the branches of a riverside elm, I teach my
groups how to do an inward journey using the gentle influence of my drum-
ming and the natural elements of the night environment.

For those who are not able to appreciate this type of encounter, there are
other places for revelers and romantics to have their evening out. But I have
noticed a better focus in my groups as my moonlight wafting experience has
evolved in its new direction over the past three years. I believe our attempt to
rediscover our local river as a place of hallowed pilgrimage can have a pro-
found impact in supporting and establishing our preservation efforts. It is only
when a community sees its own natural places as inviolable, “choke-full of
good spirits as good as ourselves any day,” will it ever begin to take its eco-
logical mandate seriously. And maybe when we find ourselves as content to
face upstream towards the source of the Eno, as we would bowing in our pews
towards “Jerusalem,” we might finally strike a more healthy and natural bal-
ance in our modern American lifestyles.

After graduating from college I was fortunate enough live in the Middle
East for many years. The community amongst whom I lived followed a lunar
calendar, as opposed to the solar calendar I had been accustomed to as an
American. They celebrated festivals and birthdays around lunar occurrences,
named their children after the phases of the moon, a crescent moon even being
the symbol of their faith. I discovered the lunar calendar to be a very intimate
experience and easily followed by observation. I began to count my own
moons as well. As I write this essay, I am under the influence of my six hun-
dredth moon! If I am good to life and life is good to me, I hope to celebrate
one thousand moons on the Eno River one day. If you are around too, be look-
ing for an invitation to a grand celebration ...

AYAMAMA
December 1998
                                           
The following is the author’s account of events that occurred outside of the town of Tamshiyacu, Peru in December 1998.

          On my knees, I hung my head over the back of the bench, staring into the ground just a couple of feet in front of my face.  I had vomited eight times in the last couple of hours.  I begged for it all to be over.  What came up tasted horrible in my mouth and burned my throat.  After emptying my stomach of all fluids, I still retched but nothing came forth.  Staring into the sand below I saw faces on the ground.  I felt that my life was pure garbage made up of petty concerns, self-serving interests and outright lies.

          “Oh Ayahuasca, provide me with  a beautiful experience!”, I had asked of the vine just hours before the ceremony began. Yea, right ... those sure were famous last words, I now thought to myself.  I had come to the Amazon in search of a cathartic purgative experience that would release me from a chronic psychological dislocation I had expereinced all my life. I was certain it had its roots in the trauma of my infant abandonment and my intuition told me that the Amazonian plant medicine known as Ayahuasca beckoned with hope for a cure.

          I had prepared myself for this moment by working as a naturalist-guide, studying the flora and fauna of both my hometown region in North Carolina and the Amazon Basin. From what I had heard about this jungle medicine, I understood that taking Ayahuasca would be challenging. But I honestly felt that with my preparation I would have a head start on other initiates. I now realized that my pre ceremony confidence, boasting and exuberance was totally unfounded and lay shattered in ruins.  I was caught completely off guard by the intense purgative challenge of this ancient jungle medicine.  Ayahuasca had not answered my request for a “beautiful” experience. I felt devastated.

          Now, just two hours into my first ceremony, I was mired in a nightmarish darkness. I would give anything to exit with haste, but there were no doors for retreat.  I must rally my emotional and physical resources and bravely face this challenge. Still hanging my head and trembling body over the back of the bench, I heard our leader, don Agustine Rivas, stop directly behind me and noisily cough up phlegm into his mouth.  Then I felt a big splat on my back between my shoulder blades and saw juices fly by my head into the forest.  I was appalled!  “So this is the way medicine is imparted here in the Amazon jungle,” I concluded. I began to realize that this whole Ayahuasca ritual seemed to integrate the grosser bodily functions with the healing process in ways that I could have never imagined.  My WASP sensibilities were not respected in the slightest by this presiding peruvian mestizo shaman. Nothing in my graduate degree in cross cultural studies prepared me for this complete debunking of my ego.

          As for my original intention of exploring the circumstances around my unhappy entrance into the world, I seemed to hear the jungle medicine asking me if I sill even wanted to face the reality of my birth and abandonment.  In a complete reversal of my original intent, I pleaded “No, no!”.  I felt totally unable to face my origins.  It was ghastly. It had taken a huge effort and expense to bring me to this place of opportunity for an exotic herbal ritual, and now I wanted to just dismiss my tragic birth experience completely. I wished that I had never brought the issue up in the first place.

          I was suddenly terrified at the thought of my abandonment and sensed that my conception was probably a horrible moment of struggle and debauchery.  I felt no love emanating from that union and sensed that at the moment of my birth my life consisted of naked genes and a bundle of traumatized negative energy.  There was no positive significance to my existence.  My life was zero, and most likely weighed in on the minus side.  I hated myself.  I loathed the way I had dealt with my own significant relationships.  I felt like a coward.  I was worse than the stinking vomit on the ground before me.  I wanted to pack up and flee from it all but I could not.  I worried about my family back in the USA, whether they would ever even see me again. I felt that I was actually facing my own death.

          In the midst of my misery I heard a most unusual call to my left somewhere in the darkened forest -”hahahahahaha,”  six descending, sarcastic notes that I felt were a prudent mockery of my life.  But the call momentarily awakened my naturalist sensibilities. I  thought that I might have heard such a bird call somewhere else before, but then perhaps not.  Maybe it was really some sort of forest demon that had finally gotten the best of me.  Being deceived by something masquerading as a benign primitive spirituality, perhaps I had finally succumbed to its hellish payoff. Suddenly something made an abrupt and loud racket in the forest that startled both don Agustine and I, as he momentarily stopped dancing and looked up.  Filtered through my Ayahuasca experience, even familiar and friendly jungle calls had a distorted and frightening feel to them.  I had no idea what had happened.

          Don Agustine’s stringed instrument, known as an arco del duende or spirit bow, was a totally new experience for me.  With its unearthly “twang,” it sent me to the most strange and often uncomfortable inward places.  But other strains of music produced by don Agustine’s flute, drum, harmonica and vocalizations were mildly uplifting and could be at times even cheery.  In fact, music was the only element of the ceremony that helped me trust that don Agustine was a genuine healer and not an agent of tormenting darkness. I actually liked the voices of his two apprentices even more. They were tenors and carried lighter tones than don Agustine’s deep voice.  A couple of hours into the ceremony I discovered how to work with the music to help alleviate some of my personal distress.  The silent interludes in the ceremony, when there was no music, were still as frightening as ever and in them I would begin to get mired in my personal muck again. It became obvious to me that one of the important roles of the shaman in this ceremony, and in the larger framework of everyday community life, is to keep the struggling spirits of the participants from sinking too low.

          But don Agustine's magical music had yet another side to it. I discovered that if I focused on the music too much by tapping my feet or my fingers or humming along, I would start to be drawn into what I feared was a black hole of no return.  The music was strangely energized with a power of its own. I felt that if I allowed it to, the music would literally suck my soul right out of my body!  So I could make use of the music only up to a point when I would then pull back from the brink.  At that last moment I would spontaneously wave my hands from side to side in front of me as a signal of dismissal. Perched precipitously at the brink, I caught no glimpse of what was at the bottom of that black hole and did not care to further investigate.

          During a quiet lull in our ceremony, once again,  the same unsettling bird like call wafted through the damp night jungle air. Seated not far from me was don Agustine’s wife Marlene. I heard her speak in an audible whisper ... “Ayamama.”  Immediately I had a flash of recollection. It was the potoo bird!  I was remotely familiar with this species, having heard it sing its ghostly delusions only once before while drifting at night in a boat on the Tortugero River in Central America.  I had also seen one in daylight hours perched in an erect, bittern like posture atop a dead tree along the banks of the Amazon. But this amazing creature prefers the magical environment of a full moon night to vocalize its eerie wailing call.  I remembered our Peruvian guide pointing out this bird that he identified as “Ayamama.” Nyctibius griseus is its Latin scientific name and nictibio grisaceo in Spanish.

          Marlene’s impromptu identification of the bird at that point in the ceremony entirely changed the tone of the evening for me.  It was as if my soul flew out to join this nocturnal phantom and I discovered a new spirit helper.  I began to feel that this bird’s mocking “hahahahahaha” must hold something both specific and appropriate for me that night.  I knew that Ayahuasca was a Quechua word meaning vine (huasca) of death (aya).  But why would a bird be called a mother of death?  I felt renergized by these fresh ponderings as my mind became distracted and wandered away from my body’s present sufferings.

          After finding an ally in the midst of my ordeal, I began to relax enough to notice some of the visual effects of the medicine.  Waves of liquid blue color appeared in both my open and closed eye vision.  I warmed up to the full moon, an old familiar friend of mine as she began to rise over the forest.  Under the influence of the medicine she seemed many times brighter than I was accustomed to and I could only expose my eyes briefly to her shine. At the beginning of the ceremony I found it disturbing that don Agustine bemoaned the presence of the full moon, as he preferred total darkness when working with Ayahuasca.  But I was thankful for the moon and as an initiate I clung tenaciously to her as yet another ally.  I wanted to try to get up and walk around outside in the moonlight, but I was fearful that my legs would collapse under me and I was too self conscious to ask for help from one of the assistants from Tamshiyacu village at the ceremony.

          Under the influence of the medicine my peripheral vision was blurred and I would briefly see grotesque figures lurking about on the gray edges of the temple where moonlight was filtering in.  When I would then move my face towards these figures they would pop into full view. Were these the legendary “sacha runa,” or spirits of the forest, elemental spirits or shamans of old that don Agustine had promised would join us in this primitive ceremony to help us on our path to healing?  My vague perception of these shadowy figures in our midst added to the nausea of my condition.  But better to see such uncanny sights head on than lurking around the periphery of the sanctuary.

          Odd sounds often entered the arena but I could not discern their source. Disoriented, I ended up looking in the opposite direction from where they seemed to originate.  Throughout the entire ceremony and for hours afterwards a disturbing two note sitar-like sound resonated through my mind. I wrestled with the fear that this monotonous ringing in my ears would be with me for the rest of my life.  Such a negative consequence would vindicate all the nay sayers back home who tried to talk me out of what they called my “tropical escapade.” I dismissed that unsavory thought by spitting heavily on the earthen floor in front of me.

          The medicine started to lighten up at three hours, or perhaps I just became more adept at managing its effects on me.  I was then able to surf out the remaining time on don Agustine’s magical music. At five hours he came around with a monstrous, hand carved pipe and blew tobacco smoke on each participant’s head at the fontanel, and then down the front and back of our shirts. I felt his saliva drip down onto my scalp and then gurgle in my hair as he exhaled with force again, trailing off his breath with a whistle.

          Our eyes squinted as a candle was relit and an invitation was given for us all to rise and join in together to perform a snake dance. Ahead of me in this line dance was a typically short local village woman.  It was very difficult to reach down and hold her low waist as we swerved through our dance of concentric circles still woozy with the jungle tea. We were finally dismissed and I said “adios” to the villagers and then stumbled down the quarter mile path from the jungle temple to my awaiting hammock.

          The next morning at 9 AM we all gathered to discuss our previous night’s ceremony.  Don Agustine began by stating that the work we are doing at his camp of Yushintaita is all about rebirthing. With that startling cue, I immediately questioned him about the Ayamama bird that I heard during the ceremony.  He confirmed that it is a well known belief throughout the Amazon region that a local woman once had a lover who told her that he would take her as his wife, if she would first kill her two young children. Only then would she be free to go with him and their new life together as a couple would be unencumbered. She did as he demanded, and her abandoned and sacrificed children promptly became potoos, the birds that call mournfully on moonlit nights and sometimes appear as two children alone in the forest during the day.  I noticed in my field guide to the birds of the Amazon region that their haunting six note call is often remembered as “poor-me-I’m-all-a-lone.”

          I was astounded to learn of this local folkloric tradition. At first I had found the call of the ayamama almost intolerable to listen to.  There was something mocking and almost sardonic about its tone when I heard it through the filter of the jungle medicine.  Could it be that the forces of nature were actually commiserating with me as an abandoned child through the voice of this melancholy bird on that full moon night?  When I hung my head over the back of my bench staring at my own vomit on the ground, perhaps my undisguised feelings were really ”poor-me-I’m-all-a-lone!”  Maybe that was the song of my own wounded spirit that I had habituated myself to sing while lying alone in the Duke Hospital nursery after my birth mother walked out of my life.  Could this be a song of self pity that I have been repeating to myself all these years?  Was I now indeed mocked by a bird who finally sang it back to me in the middle of the Amazon rain forest on a moonlit night through the lens of a dark red jungle tea?

          At noon, still exhausted and low on energy, I straggled up the trail to the now deserted palm thatched temple to meditate for an hour.  In the midday heat bees buzzed about me as they were attracted to our previous nights vomit which lay freshly on the ground around the outside perimeter of the temple.  A large brightly colored hummingbird flew inside the temple and probed an orange plastic vomit bowl that still lay on a bench.  What a bizarre scene - hummingbirds and bees scavenging the remains of our Ayahuasca ceremony! Seating myself upon don Agustine’s maestro “throne,” I reviewed out loud the issues that I had struggled through during the previous night’s ceremony and also added some hopes about the future. I felt revived.

          As I sat rapt in a tropical reverie, amidst large sections of dried Ayahuasca vine that our maestro had hung from the ceiling, my thoughts seemed to center around the word “primal,”  a concept that we had discussed the day before as a group.  I tried to understand how it applied to our setting. Primal: “pertaining to origins as individuals or groups; birth, sex, animal and plant encounters, eating, death, wilderness encounters, night experiences.”  Some of these events like birth, sex and death have always been considered sacraments in the western spiritual tradition that I grew up in.  But it now was more apparent that to have a fully primal experience, one would also need to connect with and embrace the non-human elements of the natural world as well.  

          In the rain forest along the Amazon River, sacred plants and magical animals were acting as mediators to reconnect me and heal my dislocated infant psyche.  It is a spirituality that does not just project and protect the very superficial dreams of a greedily expanding urban human society.  Instead, the shamans of the Amazon are passing on to us a vision for embracing the totality of life.  Ultimately, my healing consists of being fully aligned with the mother of all mothers - planet Earth.