Most of us have received pointed messages, often encouragement and perhaps sometimes warnings, from sources that are hard to define. I believe these come from some beneficent, spiritual place, and that they are gifts that come with some purposeful reason and timing. There is also something about abrasive environments that seems to improve our reception.
My daughter, Aimee, and I rekindled our tradition of annual wilderness forays with a lovely backpack trip to the Trinity Alps in July. We saw Shasta and Lassen jutting into the thinning crystalline air. The frosted crown of the Trinities unfolded before us once we climbed high enough…along with soaring eagles, gushing springs, thundering waterfalls, lilting swallowtails, and bursting anemone. We returned with no visible trauma this time, although my quads tell me I've been sloughing on my duties.
Arriving home, I learned that my father had died early on a Sunday morning. His passing was neither a surprise nor a tragedy, but it still leaves me with a number of lumps, as we all have experienced…or will. Among those lumps is the crying need for healthcare reform to march forward courageously.
Something exceptional happened that Sunday morning, and now I think I know why. My father died in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina almost simultaneously with the setting of the full moon over the rugged mountains of Northern California .
My daughter, Aimee, and I rekindled our tradition of annual wilderness forays with a lovely backpack trip to the Trinity Alps in July. We saw Shasta and Lassen jutting into the thinning crystalline air. The frosted crown of the Trinities unfolded before us once we climbed high enough…along with soaring eagles, gushing springs, thundering waterfalls, lilting swallowtails, and bursting anemone. We returned with no visible trauma this time, although my quads tell me I've been sloughing on my duties.
Arriving home, I learned that my father had died early on a Sunday morning. His passing was neither a surprise nor a tragedy, but it still leaves me with a number of lumps, as we all have experienced…or will. Among those lumps is the crying need for healthcare reform to march forward courageously.
Something exceptional happened that Sunday morning, and now I think I know why. My father died in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina almost simultaneously with the setting of the full moon over the rugged mountains of Northern California .
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I awoke unusually early that day and crawled out of my bag to wander around the glaciated slabs in the dim light, a little stiff but not too creaky, a little chilly but able to feel a few warm breaths from the valley far below. I watched the ephemeral rosy blush on the snow in the palisades high above, and then nodded to my physics teacher as it snuffed back to flat gray. A Townsend's Solitaire greeted the brightening sky with loquacious enthusiasm, perched of course on the highest point of a blasted snag. A few frogs were apparently still seeking companionship in the tarn, offering a baritone backbeat to the Solitaire's soprano improvisations. Water slicked over smooth granite like black ice, then tumbled into laughter as it bounded to the stream below.
I looked down on Aimee sleeping, bubbling proud of her new position, pretty as can be, and tough as nails. I sat down next to a bonsai foxtail spruce resolutely clinging to life in a finger-wide crack in the polished stone. I'm guessing it had been struggling for two hundred years, and it boasted new tufts of feathery green needles. As the sun melted upwards through the firs on a distant ridge, Aimee quietly joined me. Clouds of pink Lewisia sparked with the light, and the nodding tops of the hemlocks turned gold. More birds joined the chorus. Normally, that would mean it was time to make coffee and plan the day, but instead we spent a long time talking about each person in our family, our friends now spanning 4 generations, the sadness of so many cruel and premature departures, our admiration for the survivors' courage and perseverance, and the legion ways we felt gloriously lucky.
This was uncommon serenity, and as it has happened in the Trinities before, it came in a timely way.
I treasure the chances to appreciate the beauty of our Earth…and the company of so many brilliant and generous people who live here…and the enduring inspiration of those who have left it cleaner, safer, and kinder than they found it. Let's not let too many chances slip away.
Peace, Love, and Happiness. That Sixties' blessing was pretty close to right on, wasn't it?
Well, Salamandre is part of that, too, and we hope you enjoy it with friends, music, and laughter.
Wells Shoemaker MD, Winemaker
I looked down on Aimee sleeping, bubbling proud of her new position, pretty as can be, and tough as nails. I sat down next to a bonsai foxtail spruce resolutely clinging to life in a finger-wide crack in the polished stone. I'm guessing it had been struggling for two hundred years, and it boasted new tufts of feathery green needles. As the sun melted upwards through the firs on a distant ridge, Aimee quietly joined me. Clouds of pink Lewisia sparked with the light, and the nodding tops of the hemlocks turned gold. More birds joined the chorus. Normally, that would mean it was time to make coffee and plan the day, but instead we spent a long time talking about each person in our family, our friends now spanning 4 generations, the sadness of so many cruel and premature departures, our admiration for the survivors' courage and perseverance, and the legion ways we felt gloriously lucky.
This was uncommon serenity, and as it has happened in the Trinities before, it came in a timely way.
I treasure the chances to appreciate the beauty of our Earth…and the company of so many brilliant and generous people who live here…and the enduring inspiration of those who have left it cleaner, safer, and kinder than they found it. Let's not let too many chances slip away.
Peace, Love, and Happiness. That Sixties' blessing was pretty close to right on, wasn't it?
Well, Salamandre is part of that, too, and we hope you enjoy it with friends, music, and laughter.
Wells Shoemaker MD, Winemaker