8 October 2007 – Spokane, Washington
Look up at the mountain…
Well, we looked down at the mountains, there from our unnatural high, traveling miles above the Earth in a metal tube filled with people and plans and packets of peanuts. What’s most noticeable to me from the air is the water: the rivers winding brown, the circles of irrigation stretching green, the swimming pools sparkling blue, the snowy peaks gleaming white. The water feels and looks like life to me, and I notice it.
We left Chicago on a day it was to reach 90 degrees. This is October, remember. We left before the Chicago Marathon Meltdown Massacre and Dehydration Ball. We left that swampy soup of humidity and leapt into the sky, a 747 strapped to our backs and a hundred other souls in tow. Not long after, the announcement came that we’d be landing soon in Salt lake City, where it was currently 38 degrees. And another short hop brought us to Spokane, where it was almost as cool, the air sunny and dry. We deplaned into the welcoming care of our Spokane hosts, Matt and Della.
Look up at the mountain. Yes. We are in a part of the world where the mountains insist on being regarded. The mountains Hood, and St. Helens, and Rainer, of course. And there are other mountains in my heart and mind. This tour is a mountain. Something huge to be traversed, an act of will and intention to be accomplished, and yet far beyond my power or ability to control. The future is a mountain, huge and mysterious and sometimes frightening, and always… always… insistent that it be regarded. In the shadows of these mountains, the other issues of daily life become merely foothills. There’s nothing like looking at the collapse of civilization to help you get clear of your priorities.
I have some advice. Go spend a couple of years in film school. Buy a good camera. Some lights. A couple of good microphones and all the cables and wires and bags and stands you need to set everything up. Get a good computer with lots of storage space and some editing software. Get an idea for a documentary about our present predicament. Do a bunch of interviews. Get your hands on loads of archival footage. Spend a couple of years writing and editing. Build a good website and put out a notice that you’ve got a documentary and that you’re open to doing screenings. Get some good reviews so that people will find you. And then, if you’re lucky, you’ll eventually end up in Spokane, and Matt and Della will give you a warm and comfortable bed, and hours of wonderful conversation, some new ideas and some challenging questions, and they will take you on some really fine hikes in and around the city. And if you’re really lucky, they will cook for you, and then you will know that all of that work, all of that effort, all of that time, has been worth it. Better hurry. They may not be in Spokane for much longer!
How great, here at the foot of so many mountains, to find such people. Maybe we won’t have to climb those paths alone…
Thirty five people, give or take one or two, attended the Spokane screening at the Magic Lantern. The space was beautiful and funky, the picture beautiful, the sound wonderful. The audience was warm and appreciative, and afterwards, almost half stayed for a dialogue in the front of the theater. Ran Prieur was there, and it was so good to see him. He looked really great, hale and strong, happy and alive, just as I remembered him from our stay two years ago. He told us of the most recent activities on his land (to my great consternation, I am too busy right now to keep up with his blog!) and it appears that his land has been good for him. I am so glad.
The circle discussion was warm and real, as we spoke of what moved us, and of what we want. We don’t get asked that very much in this culture… what do you really want? They don’t ask that in the public schools. They don’t ask that on the job. They don’t ask that at the polling booths. And so it moves us, to even be asked, and to be given a space in which to begin to form an answer. It moves us, when we realize how much the world we seem to have collectively created is not at all the world we want. And it moves us, as we begin to put our deepest wishes to voice, for we can then feel more fully what we have lost, and what we might, if we can only find our power, and our clarity, and our intention, what we might begin to create. Not through control or domination, but as co-creative forces in a world - in a whirl - of living beings, and living forces.
We want to be free of this nightmare of destruction and hierarchy, I think. We have an entire universe spiraling around us that would support us in that.
Look up at the mountain. It’s there. It demands to be regarded. It will not be moved. But we can align with it. And we can traverse it with humility and connection and an intention to be in relationship with it.
Maybe, just maybe, the mountains will allow us to pass through.
Our deep thanks to Matt and Della, and to the people of Spokane who came to walk the path with us for a time.
On to Portland.
Tim