Book Club
Skywoman Falling
She fell like a maple seed, pirouetting on an autumn breeze.
I put my hand on my heart, my shoulders relaxed, and took a deep breath. This simple opening sentence to Braiding Sweetgrass invited me in like an old friend or favorite relative. Robin Wall Kimmerer unfolds the origin story like a warm blanket. The woman falls from the sky until she is caught on the wings of geese. They carried her downward until they could no longer hold her above the water that encompassed the earth. Other animals rose to help her: otters, beavers, fish, and a great turtle offered its back to rest on. The others, understanding that she needed land to live on, dove to the bottom of the sea to find land for her. Many tried and failed until a little muskrat gave it a go and after a long while returned with a small handful of mud. The mud grew and grew as the woman gave her thanks for what the animals had done for her. Together they formed what was called Turtle Island.
I can’t help but wonder how the world would be different if we all were told this origin story.
Our book club camping weekend started out much less gracefully. The pirouetting skywoman would have been rudely blown off course if she was heading for the Columbia Gorge on this day. Laura and I stepped into the wind tunnel that would be our home for the next two nights with literally the highest sustaining wind speeds I think I’ve ever felt. We worked together to pitch the tent next to the fence-like structure that may otherwise seem out of place on a non-windy day and made perfect sense on a day like this. It helped. I told Laura the wind would surely die down. It did not. We took refuge in the tent as a few others arrived and even some rain came to keep us on our toes. We were in good company though, and talked books in the tent for awhile.
I wanted to see the shimmering threads that hold it all together. And I wanted to know why we love the world, why the most ordinary scrap of meadow can rock us back on our heels in awe.
The next morning I woke early in the morning. Now that I have a 1-year-old I have apparently (and very reluctantly) become a “morning person” and wake promptly at 5:55am and cannot go back to sleep for the life of me. So I got up and went for a drive up the Dalles Mountain Ranch road to see how the flowers were doing. I found fields of goldenrod and aster. Well, actually it was lupine and balsamroot, but it was the same gold and purple pair that Robin describes with an entire chapter in the book. Science makes these colors attractive to us, and more importantly to bees, so that they will more likely pollinate the flowers. I waded through the tall grass and sat on a rock. I noticed that next to me was a small indentation in the vegetation where the tall grass was laid flat, where another animal took refuge. I contemplated, like Robin, the purpose of beauty and I gave myself space and time. To be grateful. To ponder. To listen to the plants to hear what they had to say.
Beginning with where our feet first touch the earth, we send greetings and thanks to all members of the natural world.
After returning to the group, we headed to the Columbia Hills State Park’s pictograph tour. The wind had calmed down a little bit (thankfully!) and we met more members of our group near some petroglyphs on display. The petroglyphs were carved into the rock by an ancient people about a mile from where we stood in a cave that had been flooded when the Dalles Dam was constructed in 1957. One of many dams of the Columbia River, this is the one that also flooded the famous Celilo Falls, a series of fast-moving cascades through this area of the river. A guide led us to see pictographs, which in contrast to the petroglyphs, are painted onto the rock surface using pigments and dyes created from nearby natural materials. The pictographs vary in age from 300 to 1000 years old and have been preserved in their original locations. These were created by a different group than those that carved the petroglyphs. Our guide told us that the pictographs were most likely painted by young men who went off from the village (located near the river that is also now flooded) up into the hills on vision quests. They would sit in a spot on the rocks for days until they had a vision. They would then draw pictures of their visions which most often came to them as an animal. The animal that appeared to them would give them clues to their strengths. If they saw a skunk, they will be a good parent, if they saw an owl, they would be a good hunter. We saw owls and bear-like faces, sometimes with zigzags emanating from the animal face. The zigs above the animal connected them to the spirit world, and the zags below grounded them to Mother Earth.
The main attraction here, though, is Tsagaglala, or She Who Watches. She was the chief of the nearby village when Coyote came. Coyote asked her what kind of chief she was and she replied that she taught her people to live well and build good houses. Coyote told her that change was coming to the village, some good and some bad. A new people would come and with them bring tools that you can’t even imagine. But they would also bring death and destruction and women would no longer be chiefs. The chief told Coyote that she wished she could watch over her people forever. Coyote, the trickster, then turned her to stone and said, “now you shall stay here forever, watching over your people and the river.” So surely she’s been watching.
Like Coyote predicted, she watched new people, the Europeans, come to the village and with them death and disease. Our guide told us that they don’t know much about the pictographs and petroglyphs simply because almost the entire tribe of people had been killed by disease. Tsagaglala has also watched the construction of the railroad and later the dams that would flood her beloved people’s homes and history. Our guide was there when the dam flattened the falls in 1957. He was just a boy, but he remembers standing next to the tribal elders as they watched and shed tears.
A major theme of the book is gratitude and I could not have been more grateful for the group we had at Columbia Hills. It was our biggest group outing yet and these women (and one brave and wonderful and kind man) made my heart melt with joy. Each and every person in the group was a badass in their own way and inspired the crap out of me. Some came all the way from Bend, Oregon, some woke in the wee hours of the morning to drive hours and hours to get there on time for the pictograph tour. Some are moms, some are not, some in their twenties, others in their fifties and anywhere in between. We came from many different backgrounds and we all got along so well. You could say we were each a unique strand of sweetgrass that weaved into the perfect basket.
While reading the chapter where Robin describes her youngest daughter leaving for college and her cousin leaving eighteen thoughtful gifts to help her transition to her new life without kids in the house, I cried. It was such a beautiful gesture and I could only hope to have such a thoughtful friend when that time comes for me. I know I have like 16 and 1/2 years to go, but when one of our members brought me a small beautifully woven basket she made and said it was for me, I couldn’t help but think of that story as tears welled in my eyes.
Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People. Now our minds are one.
On Saturday evening we wandered over to Horsethief Butte for a sunset hike. The short trail loops up onto the butte through balsamroot and boulders painted in lichen. Tall grass rustled in the wind at a comforting pitch. At the top, the way opens up into what I can only describe as a cathedral. Massive rocks surround a relatively flat area full of flowers. I immediately felt like I was in a very special place. As we investigated more, we found an area of fallen rocks blocked off with a sign. The sign said that these rocks were not to be disturbed. They must have been special in some way. Maybe they were part of an ancient pictograph? I stood in silence and felt the urge to speak only in whispers. Our group split up and half of us climbed up one side and the rest climbed to the other side as the sun spilled it’s glow on us. We waved to our friends on the other side, silhouetted in the last of the day’s sun rays.
The next morning we headed to the Dalles Mountain Ranch for the grand finale of the trip. Part of the Columbia Hills, the Dalles Mountain Ranch is a large swath of land up in the hills above the Columbia River. The ranch dates back to 1866 with several owners until it was sold to the DNR in 1993. The most interesting thing about the park is the number of deciduous trees despite the arid landscape. The trees were actually planted in response to the Timber Culture Act of 1873 which gave homesteaders an extra 160 acres of land if they planted at least 40 acres with trees. The idea was that trees would bring rain to the area. Of course, this didn’t really work and the idea was later abandoned.
The ranch is still home to lots of deciduous trees and countless numbers of wildflowers. Arrowhead balsamroot and lupine dominated the landscape but there was also phlox, prairie star, desert parsley and countless others. We hiked a loop through the park and ooo’d and aww’d at the views. Mt Hood never quite revealed her full self, but once in a while we’d get a little glimpse of her.
At the end of the hike we said our goodbyes and gave each other hugs. I was a little sad that this amazing weekend was coming to an end, but I was also incredibly happy. We were mostly strangers in the beginning of the weekend and now we left as friends. Robin talks a lot about reciprocity in the book, if you take care of the earth, it will take care of you. This weekend, I’ve learned that this also applies when it comes to friendships. When you are willing to get out of your comfort zone and open up to others, wonderful friendships will blossom.
We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put into the universe will always come back.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Book Ends
- Listen to Robin Wall Kimmerer on the podcast On Being: The Intelligence in All Kinds of Life
- Make a simple DIY paper basket to put on your desk to remind you to be grateful
- Watch Robin’s TED Talk: Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest
