Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Showers of Gold


Imminent NEWS:
My 2nd storytelling book,
Wayfaring Traveler, 
Call to Adventure
nearly done!!
 
  It's autumn in the high country, mountain flanks glowing with aspen gold. High winds, rain and snow are headed this way. I went roaring up to higher elevation. The higher you go, the more brilliant the color.

Slender Ponderosa pines and Douglas fir pierce the blue of autumn skies, tall and fragrant. Aspens sprout on the forest floor in dappled light, rising finally into full sun, long smooth trunks and a treetop tuft of shimmering  stained glass gold.

I had reached max-EMF-whoozies, working on Call to Adventure, and needed to put my tusch on the ground and hear cascades of bright water. Hiked up to about 10,000 foot elevation and settled into warm earth by mountain pools and waterfalls.
 
I came in for a landing.
 
A trout stream, I sang to the bold fishies a Schubert Lied, "die Forelle." Only other sound, wind in the trees and the many-tones of falling water.
 
Leaves began swirling down, yellow and orange, floating on the pools, and resting among the astonishing richness just in my little nest by the brook.
 
Within fingertip reach all around me, forest treasures fading to autumn: wild strawberries, yarrow, kinnikinnick (berries already eaten by the bears), wild geranium and Equisetum (horsetail grass.)

By week's end, leaves may be torn from the trees and the wildings buried by snow drifts, but the bright water still flows.