Wind River and Chanting Canyon Streams

Tomorrow, Mick and April are taking us on an outing up past the Bonneville Dam to the town of Carson, then up the Wind River Road to Curly Creek Road and then to the Swift Lake, and then west to Woodland.  They are providing a fine picnic lunch and drinks.  Good paved roads make this journey easier.  

Wind River, 30 miles

Swift Lake, South of the Mt. St. Helens' Volcano

"A white crowned night sparrow sings as the moon sets.
 Thunder growls far off.
 Our campfire is a single light.
 Amongst a hundred peaks and waterfalls.
 The manifold voices of falling water
 Take all night.
 Wrapped in your down bag
 Starlight on you cheeks and eyelids
 Your breath comes and goes
 In a tiny cloud in the frosty night.
 Ten thousand birds sing in the sunrise.
 Ten thousand years revolve without change.
 All this will never be again."
 -  Kenneth Rexroth, The Wheel Revolves, 1966



Time - Quotes and Poems 


"I first met Chang San-Feng above the forest, 
near the clear spring,
when gathering clouds darkened the day,
and Mt. Shasta was silent.
His long beard was black as emptiness,
ear lobes to his shoulders,
holding obsidian in his hand,
pointing to the sun,
eyes staring into infinity,
his long body clothed in silence.
We exchanged "hellos"
smiled and bowed,
a barbarian and an Immortal,
both panting from the climb,
laughing,
ten-thousand echoes
between our rocky minds.
After billions upon billions of heartbeats past
(for he must have been 888 years old),
I was so bold
as to ask the ancient one
for the sacred mantra of yore.
He lifted his whisk,
and brushed my face,
I could not speak,
my lips were stone,
ideas stopped -
I was alone." 
-  Michael P. Garofalo, Meetings with Master Chang San-Feng   



"Opening bell
echoes from the canyon walls —
raindrops on the river.

The sounds of rocks bouncing off rocks;
the shadows of trees traced on trees.

I sit, still.
The canyon river chants,
moving mountains.

                                                       

The sermon spun on the still point:
dropping off eternity, picking up time;
letting go of self, awakened to Mind."
-  Michael P. Garofalo, Above the Fog