Cuter than a Can of Spam

And tastier to boot, is my parent's little Vintage Cardinal trailer on it's maiden voyage through the redwoods of the north.  We called it home base while we traversed forest and fields, chattering and clucking for hours, sitting in quiet contemplation.

Mug after mug of piping coffee, steam rising up to greet the dawn song of the birds.  Hands full with crow feathers, jay feathers, and one small pup who could melt the heart of the hardest stone.

Raccoons scuttling in as soon as Mars shone bright, leaving prints of ash and mud for us to guess their sizes.  Creatures with a multitude of legs and creatures with none, joining us for first meals of the day.

And the small things, the minuscule, the detritus, the ephemeral bits of moss and the tiny legs of lichen, we took them all in.

And the light, oh that light...

Woods and water, these things fill my cup to overflowing.  And so I drink deep, ducking my head low to catch the spill and lap up all that goodness.

Observations at Twin Falls

One of the strangest things to me about photographs is how small they seem.  Standing on that bridge, a sharp wind blowing bits of spray onto my cheeks, the evergreens crowding my nostrils, the mating calls of song birds persistently ringing above the thundering of the waterfall, I felt so tiny.  The trees canopied over my head, and I could see so far from my little wooden perch, the entire river laid out like an eternity below me. 

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I faced off with a humming bird, but as we were of equal size, we were an equal match.  For ten long minutes we sized each other up, I bound to the ground, standing in the midst of the most beautiful swarm of golden gnats, the humming bird high in a tree, sitting frozen one second, buzzing threateningly the next, red breast flickering flames in the sunlight.

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I saw my first trillium of the season, no small event for my year.  I keep noticing trilliums in my dreams.  As I'm hiking through brittle snow, I look down and dozens of bright white petals are springing up around my feet, I look closer and see that the snow is just a thin layer of ice and I am actually walking above the treetops of some underground world.  I realize if I stomp and crack that ice, the trilliums and I will fall through in one brilliant tumble of blooms like a bird shot in flight.

***

I sat quietly before three totem trees.  Gnarled and twisting, eyes raised like the saints, each seemed to hold a thousand faces.  Ferns sprouted twenty feet up in every which direction, the unruly hair of the elderly.  I tried to listen, but my young ears could not be silent long enough to hear their song, so instead I bowed and promised to return with a more patient spirit.

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