What a glorious day to be living, and dying. The Yamsi Valley is nearing the height of its perfection. No fires burn in the Klamath Basin so the deep blue sky is scrubbed clean; its vastness made dimensional by swooping streaks of gray-white clouds and mountain tops. There are a millions shades of green slathered across the meadows. The wet spring means seed-topped grasses reaching to four feet tall in places. Willows and aspen are just now fully leafed out, their freshness retains the sparkle of golden sunlight mixed with new-green. The Upper Williamson River is well on its way to resuming normal flow so it is clearing somewhat. Unfortunately upstream cattle will keep it murky until they leave in the fall. A gentle breeze, bursting with occasional gusts, kept the 75 degree day just right for walking and working. The mosquitoes aren’t bad and I suspect they have peaked and will diminish even as we move into a week of warming weather.
After a gentle morning stroll along the river with Chami–who seems well and happy today–Bob and I settled in to some office work. At noon, the call of the glorious day dragged us outside. After some yard work and sunbathing I took a nice long walk with Rio across the big meadow to touch the birthing flank of Yamsi Mountain before turning back. I was looking for Meadow Mushrooms but found only one. I knew it was a bit late in the season for them but hoped the cool moistness of past weeks might encourage a few stranglers. I did find a nice bunch of perfectly fresh, baseball sized Puffballs so we had them sautéed in garlic butter with our grilled, organic, free range Rib Eye steaks. I need to get a couple cows this summer as I can’t afford the price of eco-friendly beef any more, and we have 200 acres of luscious grass that needs mowing.
Though there were quite a few Mayflies hatching I didn’t see any fish rise during my 6 to 7 PM kayak paddle. I’m perplexed and can’t imagine where all the fish have gone, or why they’ve died off so much in the last two summers.
As I write these words the sun is wrestling with the western horizon and very soon the day will die and night will be reborn. I recalled walking through the meadow in the early afternoon discovering the brown, shriveled remnants of Meadow Mushrooms that found life for a few days, or a couple of weeks with the wetness of the spring, then moved quickly into decay. Only a burnt gold leathery shell smudged the earth to remember it by. Still, its spore, like a soul, departed the dieing fungus at just the right moment, spreading its life-energy into the wind and earth to mingle with the Cosmic All. When the time is just right, new mushrooms will sprout to life. They’ll feel the cool wetness nourishing them, bask in the spring sun’s warmth, and reach toward the blue heavens above, soaking up the richness of living. And the cycle goes on and on. With Chami’s bright living and impending death I find myself focused on the issue of death, and living well. I want to come to embrace the part of living that is dying and reinvigorate my faith in the cycles of nature, of which we are all a part.
Just two weeks ago when I was here last I marveled at the bursting of green grasses, barely reaching above the bleached gray decay of last year’s growth. Now, already the heads of many grasses have ripened and grown heavy with seeds. Another few weeks and a strong wind will blow the seeds into the atmosphere to spread their lives all about, the remaining bodies of grass will fade, turn crispy and golden. In the fall their summer-born lives will end. Today, blackbirds flit about eating the mayflies. Nests along the river are plump with black speckled, blue eggs. The shells will fissure in another week or two, the scrawny sightless babes will scream to be fed, they will learn to fly by Independence Day, and fledge and be gone with the red burnished leaves of fall. Many of these birds will die before ever returning to the Yamsi Valley. Some things live only the briefest of moments; others grace the earth for a century or eons. The Cosmic All that our souls return to, blend with, lives for an eternity. I can, and will, mourn the loss of the ego informed bodies of those I love, but solace can be found if I seek and believe and trust in the Oneness of us all and that we will always be alive and together when our soul’s merge together in a timeless/spaceless place after death. Even rocks crack and crumble and become sand, then dust, then only a memory. We may not, and probably don’t, retain our individualism, our own memories, our selves after death, and it is that which challenges my emotions most. I don’t believe in God, or heaven, or angles, or any sort of infinite Dawn-ness in a dimension after death. But I feel quite certain that our souls–the life force that infuses everything–is infinite and All. Perhaps looking forward to being One in love/knowledge/energy (what others might label god or heaven or both) with everything that IS, WAS or WILL BE, is cause enough for ultimate joy. And it is here that I can become closer to Chami, someday, than I’ve ever been in body form in this life.
I spent my day today so very aware of the bursting of life all around me; and a growing awareness, and even acceptance, of death as an impermanent part of this infinite cycle. We are only alive because of the spiritual spark of energy that enervates us all. That energy ebbs and flows through one being and all things, but It never dies. And in that energy Chami, and mushrooms, and hawks, and wind, and my parents, and all that I love and all that I am will exist for eternity.