The Heart of the Matter

                                 

We were all pretty excited to have visitors coming home with us to the camp.  We even had picked up a couple of 6 packs of beer to celebrate.

As we drove up the dirt road and into the higher mountains, we began to see snow all around us.  The road still seemed to be in good shape but before we started up the last steep incline before we got to our area, I jumped out of the car and ran up ahead to make sure the road was passable.  
I was surprised at how deep the snow was.  We manneuvered to a flat place to park.  It was great to have the extra hands to carry our supplies over to the camping site.  I was busily chatting and laughing with Sandy and her beau.  When we came to the top of the trail I was making a  “Ta Daah” entrance. . .the “here it is, ain’t it grand” sweeping gesture with my arm.  

My grand entrance fell as flat as our soggy tent that had totally collapsed under the weight of the heavy, wet, snow.  I was absolutely stunned!  Thankfully  the storage cabinet still was standing strong.  Well, so much for getting right into starting up a party.  We had to clear the snow off the tent, go cut or find some posts to shore up the tent.  Off Don and I went to wade through the deep snow, bow saw and hatchet in hand, to find some suitably sized junipers to cut for tent poles.  Peter stayed back at the camp to “entertain” our guests.  We came back after a while dragging 4 trees behind us.  If you have ever cut green, living trees down you know how heavy even the small ones can be.  We trimmed them up and set the branches aside for a fire.  After much moving of snow from around the fire pit and off of the tent, we trimmed up the poles and raised the tent once again.  In those days tent poles were aluminum and not that sturdy or built for the type of circumstances we had encountered. . .but who would have thought they would fully bend right in two.

You may well imagine that everything, EVERYTHING inside of the tent was soaked. . .sleeping bags, everything, clothes, just everything.  We fashioned a way to hang out the sleeping bags near the now well started fire.  How do you get wet wood to burn?  You first cut dead branches off of standing, growing trees, add to that the amazing flammability of  fresh pine boughs (if you’ve ever seen a forest fire up close, you know the explosiveness of pine pitch), then larger and larger pieces of wet wood can be added slowly to the fringes of the fire and it will burn quite well.  It takes a bit more tending the fire until you build up a good bed of coals, but it is a very reliable way to make a great fire even when everything is wet.  

[If you will imagine that this is the 12′ x 16′ x 6’2″ height at center cabin tent that I showed in Part 2, and that the snow is just below the knee deep. . .you can see that it was fully collapsed under heavy, wet snow! ]

After spending a lot of time taking care of the “have to do’s” we finally settled in to just good conversation and popped a beer or two while we laughed and talked.  We all seemed to have a great time.  Sandy and her friend left before it got dark and said how much they enjoyed their visit.  We had  plenty to deal with as the sun went down.  The sleeping bags didn’t really seem to be all that much dryer, but that was all we had and the darkness brought some mighty cool temperatures.  We were cold wet and tired as we got into our damp beds, sleeping in our big winter coats and multiple pairs of socks. I don’t ever remember ever being so cold.  My sweet dog and seven lovely puppies came and laid on top of my shivering body and I finally managed to fall off to sleep.  So forget a three dog night. . .I had an eight dog night.

The snow didn’t seem to melt much although the sun came out and was glorious for the next weeks.  In fact we were in boots, cut offs and tank tops most of the daylight hours.  It seemed quite a paradox walking around in deeply piled snow, yet the sun’s warmth was too much for heavy clothing.  I had more to learn about snow in the mountains.  The next day I went up to the site that we were clearing to retrieve a couple of tools that we had foolishly left there instead of carting them back and forth.  Walking through deep wet snow is some pretty arduous exercise; our pioneer ancestors were some mighty fit and tenacious folk.  I had a hard time finding the site right off.  Everything looked different covered over by the snow.  I didn’t seem to be able to identify my usual landmarks. After I finally found the tools under the snow, which was a not so easy job, I decided to go back to the camp not following the trail I had already made through the deep snow, but walking down the bottom of the ravine.  For some reason I thought that would be an easier route.  I almost couldn’t find my way back to the camp, which seems almost unbelievable considering the close proximity of the camp site to the ravine.  Learned that lesson well.  Everything looks different when it is covered in snow.

There are so many more stories I could tell of those months in the mountains, and maybe someday I will.  Remember for now that my original purpose of going to the mountains was to meet and fulfill my dream of making a home and a retreat.  Those dreams became very much less important to me than the amazing healing and learning experiences I had while there.  My personal spiritual core was greatly strengthened.  I learned a lot about my ability to overcome difficulties and to feel really confident in doing what needed to be done, whatever that might be.  The connection to the Universe and all the wisdom available there was cemented deeply within me and I knew what I knew about God/Higher Power/All That Is.  My broken heart vanished.  My former disappointments were gone.  I had an amazingly wonderful new outlook on life and my part in it.  New dreams grew to replace the one I started out with.

In late November, we left the mountain.  Don and Peter staid on in Panguitch for several months.  I went back to Salt Lake City.  A friend had written me a letter of distress and plaintively was asking me for help.  It seemed a good time to go offer what help I could. Sad as I was to leave the mountain, it was, in fact, a matter that my conversations with spiritual energies informed me that it was time to get off the mountain and back into interacting with others.  So I usually say that the “Angels” kicked me off the mountain and back into real life.  “You have already done life times of sitting on mountain tops and in monasteries silently contemplating the mysteries of inner peace and one’s connection to a creative power.”  That was an interesting message for one who did not understand or yet have an abiding belief in any concept of other or previous lifetimes.  Interesting indeed.

FOOTNOTE:  A year and a half later, a friend and I took a trip down to the camps site.  We gathered up things that I had not been able to take with me when I left and picked up an amazing collection of soft drink bottles that had been hidden beneath the snows when we took our leave of the mountain. Heading back home, we stopped at the store in Henrieville to cash in the deposit bottles and pick up a few snacks for our long drive back to Salt Lake.  When we were greeted by someone I didn’t know from the previous visits, I asked her what happened to the Post Mistress/store owner.  She said it was her Aunt and that she just ran the Post Office now.  She was pretty surprised at the two or three dozen soft drink bottles and commented something about saving them up for a long time or having a big party.  And how did I know her Aunt, since she herself had never seen me around.  

“No, these were left from the months we spent in the mountains and were under too much snow when we left.”  

“Oh my!  Are you Shirley in the Mountain?”  was her stunned reply. I assured her I was, but was at least equally surprised that she would address me that way.  “Oh, I have heard so much about you and everyone in these parts still talk about you and the guys up there where Cannon used to run his sheep.  Wow!  I can’t believe I finally met you.”  She bubbled on and on and couldn’t seem to ask enough questions or get enough information.

Quite remarkable to still be known and talked about after only 4 1/2 months of being in their midst maybe only 4 or 5 times during that period.  Then, almost 2 years later, they were still talking about the myth of Shirley in the Mountain.  I have no information about what is really contained in the myth, other than some thought Shirley in the Mountain was “One hell of a woman.”  I hope that I was, although not in the way that was meant.

I have enjoyed my diversion from the heavy emotions of the past two weeks of all that Katrina has involved.  I hope it offered some of you a little break from it all too.  Thanks for your indulgence and ongoing encouragement.

Let’s have a cup of coffee together. . .

Hugs to all,
Shirl