Shaped by the landscape
07/08/15 05:07
I know that there is a relationship between my inner landscape and the landscape that surrounds me. I have had the good fortune to have lived my life in beautiful places, surrounded by hills and mountains and abundant water. I have been treated to more beautiful sunrises than most people. And there is so much more beauty that I get from the land.
I was thinking about those experiences because I have lived most of my life with either mountains or hills close at hand. I love the variation of terrain, I enjoy having deer and other animals for neighbors. I am addicted to walking in the woods and paddling on mountain ponds.
When we were called to serve churches in North Dakota I had my doubts about living in such a place. North Dakota as a state is rather devoid of mountains. Although they call some rather disappointing hills the Killdeer Mountains and the Turtle Mountains and a few other features get the title Mount, the truth is that there are no mountains in North Dakota. Where we lived was rolling prairie on the edge of badlands. I had lived in Chicago for four years and I was definitely yearning for a place with a few less people, but I was skeptical.
Chicago’s redeeming feature for me was the lakeshore. There I could literally turn my back on the city and reconnect with the glory of the natural world.
North Dakota, however, was a surprise and a revelation for me. I was immediately drawn to the empty spaces. I would be driving my car and reach the top of a rise and stop to just look around because the vastness of the space would take my breath away. I saw prairie thunderstorms that were unlike anything I had ever before watched. I could watch a hawk circling overhead for a long time as I breathed in the fresh air of the open spaces.
Boise was the driest place we lived. Were it not for the abundant irrigation from the Snake River, the Boise Valley would be desert. I have heard plenty about the beauty of the desert, but wasn’t sure about how it would be to live there. Boise seemed OK because it is where the desert meets the mountains. Drive a half hour north of town and you are in the mountains. Drive a half hour the other direction and you are in the desert.
And now our home in the hills surrounded by pine trees seems like such a haven in this world.
What I am saying is that I have been shaped by the landscapes in which I live.
Yesterday we drove through a landscape that is less familiar to me. Western Washington is high plains desert and it is especially dry this year. Records have been set for the lowest amount of precipitation ever. What wheat is unharvested is shorter and I suspect that the yield is significantly lower than some years. The amazing thing about driving across Western Washington is that right in the middle of this great desert is a mighty river. The Columbia surprises you with the amount of water that is flowing right by the dry and parched hills above. Down in the bottom they grow fruit. We stopped just before Wenatchee and bought plums and nectarines and peaches and apples to much upon. We even bought local peanuts. Who knew that they grew peanuts in Washington?
These people also are shaped by the landscape - especially by the river. Up on the high plains the houses are few and far between. Down alongside the river the homes cluster in clumps and groups and the amount of land per family is much smaller. The amount of labor to tend a small orchard is as much as the amount required to farm thousands of acres of dryland wheat.
We drove on into the western slopes of the Cascades. Tonight we are camped alongside the Wenatchee River just past the point where the Icicle adds its stream. The river is low, but there is plenty of flow. The name icicle is appropriate because the water temperature is about two degrees warmer than solid I think. Wade in and you won’t stay long. But on an 80 degree day after driving through the desert it feels good for a few minutes.
I think of the stories of my life like the streams of water that flow across the land. I grew up alongside a roaring mountain river where we could hear the boulders rolling in the high water seasons. I spend my teenage summers alongside the mighty Missouri as it headed from Montana to the Gulf of Mexico, draining a continent and providing rich soils for farming. I live farther from the creek in the hills, but I miss the sound of running water in the night and each time I camp next to a river I am reminded how much that sound makes me feel at home. I can name the sleeps of this trip by the rivers - Boulder, Blackfoot, Wenatchee - a song of waters that shape the land and reconnect me to the largeness of this universe.
Today we go to where the rivers meet the ocean. At Olympia, where the Puget Sound flows in and out with the tides, we will put our boats into salt water for the first time in more than a year. It probably isn’t normal to haul boats so many miles, but the attractive power of grandchildren is great and will inspire a person to do things that might not normally be done.
I think of my life as a river that runs down to the sea. The thing we call death isn’t as different from life as we might think. Like a river running into the sea we discover that we are the same - and all part of something much bigger than we were able to imagine as we flowed along in our own bed traveling our own unique path.
My inner landscape is continually being shaped by the outer landscape. As the land feeds my spirit, may my spirit discover its connections with the larger bodies of life to which I belong.
I was thinking about those experiences because I have lived most of my life with either mountains or hills close at hand. I love the variation of terrain, I enjoy having deer and other animals for neighbors. I am addicted to walking in the woods and paddling on mountain ponds.
When we were called to serve churches in North Dakota I had my doubts about living in such a place. North Dakota as a state is rather devoid of mountains. Although they call some rather disappointing hills the Killdeer Mountains and the Turtle Mountains and a few other features get the title Mount, the truth is that there are no mountains in North Dakota. Where we lived was rolling prairie on the edge of badlands. I had lived in Chicago for four years and I was definitely yearning for a place with a few less people, but I was skeptical.
Chicago’s redeeming feature for me was the lakeshore. There I could literally turn my back on the city and reconnect with the glory of the natural world.
North Dakota, however, was a surprise and a revelation for me. I was immediately drawn to the empty spaces. I would be driving my car and reach the top of a rise and stop to just look around because the vastness of the space would take my breath away. I saw prairie thunderstorms that were unlike anything I had ever before watched. I could watch a hawk circling overhead for a long time as I breathed in the fresh air of the open spaces.
Boise was the driest place we lived. Were it not for the abundant irrigation from the Snake River, the Boise Valley would be desert. I have heard plenty about the beauty of the desert, but wasn’t sure about how it would be to live there. Boise seemed OK because it is where the desert meets the mountains. Drive a half hour north of town and you are in the mountains. Drive a half hour the other direction and you are in the desert.
And now our home in the hills surrounded by pine trees seems like such a haven in this world.
What I am saying is that I have been shaped by the landscapes in which I live.
Yesterday we drove through a landscape that is less familiar to me. Western Washington is high plains desert and it is especially dry this year. Records have been set for the lowest amount of precipitation ever. What wheat is unharvested is shorter and I suspect that the yield is significantly lower than some years. The amazing thing about driving across Western Washington is that right in the middle of this great desert is a mighty river. The Columbia surprises you with the amount of water that is flowing right by the dry and parched hills above. Down in the bottom they grow fruit. We stopped just before Wenatchee and bought plums and nectarines and peaches and apples to much upon. We even bought local peanuts. Who knew that they grew peanuts in Washington?
These people also are shaped by the landscape - especially by the river. Up on the high plains the houses are few and far between. Down alongside the river the homes cluster in clumps and groups and the amount of land per family is much smaller. The amount of labor to tend a small orchard is as much as the amount required to farm thousands of acres of dryland wheat.
We drove on into the western slopes of the Cascades. Tonight we are camped alongside the Wenatchee River just past the point where the Icicle adds its stream. The river is low, but there is plenty of flow. The name icicle is appropriate because the water temperature is about two degrees warmer than solid I think. Wade in and you won’t stay long. But on an 80 degree day after driving through the desert it feels good for a few minutes.
I think of the stories of my life like the streams of water that flow across the land. I grew up alongside a roaring mountain river where we could hear the boulders rolling in the high water seasons. I spend my teenage summers alongside the mighty Missouri as it headed from Montana to the Gulf of Mexico, draining a continent and providing rich soils for farming. I live farther from the creek in the hills, but I miss the sound of running water in the night and each time I camp next to a river I am reminded how much that sound makes me feel at home. I can name the sleeps of this trip by the rivers - Boulder, Blackfoot, Wenatchee - a song of waters that shape the land and reconnect me to the largeness of this universe.
Today we go to where the rivers meet the ocean. At Olympia, where the Puget Sound flows in and out with the tides, we will put our boats into salt water for the first time in more than a year. It probably isn’t normal to haul boats so many miles, but the attractive power of grandchildren is great and will inspire a person to do things that might not normally be done.
I think of my life as a river that runs down to the sea. The thing we call death isn’t as different from life as we might think. Like a river running into the sea we discover that we are the same - and all part of something much bigger than we were able to imagine as we flowed along in our own bed traveling our own unique path.
My inner landscape is continually being shaped by the outer landscape. As the land feeds my spirit, may my spirit discover its connections with the larger bodies of life to which I belong.