travels, reflections, poems….
By Brooke Baitinger One man’s extensive research into wild horse behavior suggests their presence in the wilderness may help cut down on the size and intensity of wildfires in the western U.S. Roaming wild horses may help cut down on the size and intensity of wildfires out west, according to research from the Wild Horse […]
Wild horses can prevent out-of-control wildfires out west, researcher says. Here’s how — Straight from the Horse’s Heart
By Sharon St Joan
The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston (2017) is not a happy-happy book. In fact it’s rather grim. However, it moves along quickly, and it is profoundly fascinating, with the potential to transform your worldview and your perceptions of the past, present, and future. For a long time there have been many legends about a lost culture, known as the “white city,” in the jungles of Honduras. With the advent of lidar, which is a technology that makes it possible to see through the jungle and to be able to see the outlines of structures that are hidden from view by the thick foliage of plants, it is now possible to view the presence of ancient temples and other buildings long obscured by the jungle.
This doesn’t mean this expedition was easy. Douglas Preston, who took part in the excursion to discover the lost ruins this ancient city, describes a fascinating, but painful, adventure into the thick jungles of Honduras. The old legends turned out to be true. There is indeed a long-lost, absolutely immense, ancient city hidden and previously undiscovered under the cover of the jungles of Honduras.
Putting their lives at risk, the expedition cut their way through impenetrable jungle, plagued by venomous snakes, hordes of insects, horrifying parasites, and intolerable weather to discover enchanting, mysterious, untouched forests and – underneath the jungle – the spell-binding remains of an ancient culture over a truly vast area — along with hundreds of profoundly beautiful artifacts and an unknown ancient writing. This was a civilization older than that of the Maya and as yet completely unknown.
This account is eye-opening from another perspective. With the coming of Europeans to the Americas, it is now generally well understood that the native population suffered profound and irreversible consequences, losing as much as 90 percent of their population in both North and South America. Undeniably, the history of the impact of Europeans on the Americas is a long story of brutality and profound injustice, for which there can be no excuse or justification.
What is perhaps less well understood though is the extent to which the depopulation of native peoples in the Americas may also have been due to the importing of disease itself. Douglas Preston paints a vivid description of the lack of immunity to diseases brought by the Europeans.
That lies in the past. However, he does not stop there – he continues with a jarring description of parasitic disease that is present today and that can only, in fact, be expected to become calamitous in the future, aided by global warming.
This is a book that disturbs our European-centric view of civilization from all points of view. It opens a vista on to a continent filled with a long history that is pretty much as yet unknown to us — especially if we can put — alongside our awareness of this newly found civilization in Honduras — a newly brought to light history of thousands of years of archeological discoveries throughout all of South America (not to mention Asia, as well).
We just cannot continue to sit still, content with our old, minimalist history that is largely focused on Europe — going back to the Romans and Greeks – with Europe having the top billing first, second, and always.
There is so much more to our world that we must now include — especially all the history, still being discovered, of South America.
On top of that discovery, there is more in this book – a rather startling view of the ominous possibilities that may lie in our near future — of horrifying plagues that may await us in a warming world.
If we’re not too afraid of unsettling our worldview, this is a fascinating book! It will introduce us to a vastly different view of history, very real and as yet little imagined. (Tip: If all this is depressing, you might turn to reading about the eternal cycling of the world ages – the yugas.)
This is Picture Canyon in Arizona. The canyon is covered in petroglyphs, that are 800-1300 years old. The oldest petroglyphs are geometric in nature. Later rock art depicts animals, rivers, planets and human figures. This is The Mojave Desert in the southwestern US, and it is where Jim and I went hunting for hidden petroglyphs. […]
Rock Talk~ —
imbued by light, and shadow. Water reflects pastel hues. Faces form in the rocks, and vanish in the shadows. Light is fleeting here, defined by shadow. Cheers to you from ethereal Sedona Arizona~
Red Rock & Sand~ —
“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks” – H.W. Longfellow. Born on February 27, 1807, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a poet, educator, translator, and environmentalist. In a three-part series titled “Longfellow’s Nature Poetry”, the National Park Service explores Longfellow’s connection to the land and how it influenced his writing.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Nature Poetry — Naturalist Weekly
The sage brush nods her head
In deference to the sun —
Quite —
Juniper branches wave,
Exultant.
Tiny, brave
Plants rustle in delight.
Did the flock
Of goats startle at the ringing
Of the bells of dawn?
The bald eagle,
With downbent beak,
The first of the season
To return,
Sails — her white head held
High,
Sky queen,
Jubilant,
The stars all gone.
Ravens call
Sparkling black in the air
At the spare
Skeleton
Of an eon past – or maybe yet to be.
An urn
Cools in the quick-running stream.
While, off the coast below,
The gill
Of the fish, finned,
Shines in the magic of the rolling sea
Waves fall
And gleam,
Snow-
Tipped in the path of the fierce wind dragon
While Meenakshi looks on
From the shore,
Sea-shelled.
Fish-eyed Meenakshi
Who danced long ago in the sea
With blue dolphins —
She came ashore
Then from the wandering sea
By the coconut palms, in the wind-deep roar,
Whose fronds bend and bow.
No.
No one sees the wind now.
No one has ever seen
The wind,
Yet the wind is there,
All around, everywhere
The living spirit who enlivens
The earth, who brings a confidant
Day; Vayu – God of the wind,
Just as the Holy One,
Who is never seen at all
Anywhere,
Nor ever heard to speak,
Except in the echoing thunder,
Yet, with nothing said,
Gives
Breath to all that lives,
Including the tall
Red
Rock –
Ancient pillars standing,
Mountains,
The strong frame of the earth, awake
By the lake
Of wonder,
Of bumblebees and lilies,
Under the moon
And the sun,
And the eagle’s wing,
In the wind,
In the wind
That runs soon
Through the open door
In the rain-blown rock.
***
By Sharon St Joan, November 2021
© Copyright, Sharon St Joan, 2021
If you like this poem, you might also like this website, Forest Voices of India https://forestvoicesofindia.com
No space,
Nor time,
No distance,
No night, nor day,
Nowhere,
Only the bobcat who strays
Across the high slanted
Bridge
Of rock, buried in snow,
Overlooking the deep fog lake
Below.
No dance
In the white air,
Lingering, a single chime
Of the Tibetan bell.
Why
Not take
Time
To stay
A while,
Footsteps of grace,
Glimmering eyes
That do not smile.
The moon calling from far across the haunted ridge,
Enchanted
Spell,
Cast in the window,
Through the wise
Year of fire-glow,
Of softly growing snow.
© Sharon St Joan, 2021
Did you think to thank the evening?
I am the evening,
I have a soul, old and real,
A being – an essence from another age –
The flowering sage,
Spilling gold,
The half-moon watching,
The glimmering petals of time
That bloom
Between the echoes
Of lost places,
The ravens recounting
Tales untold
Of yesteryear,
The wheel
Running on and on,
While the tadpole curls up into sleep.
Did you thank the One
Who made the evening?
Or did you assume that all came together
Just entirely by chance?
A lovely accident
With no intent?
Nothing to see,
An idle dance?
Yet the evening is a petal
On the deepening rose of time
By the haunting cliff, steep,
Blown in the owl-awakened wind,
Gently, as the clouds
Fold up into stars
And the clear sky sings
Her song with crowds
Of hummingbirds that chime,
Recalling the embers
Of lilting Septembers
From far, far away,
Traces of rain remembered,
The wall of China
Winds around the rolling hills,
From lands long ago
In the swirling snow.
© Sharon St Joan, 2021
Written September 14, 2021
Where now is the mist-ringed bell
That tolls over the wandering wave
Of the gray
River?
The moon a sliver
In the sky?
Who can tell?
Where now the branches of the nagalingam tree that sway
And brush along the cool earthen banks,
Home of shy,
Determined snails,
Before the dawn of being,
Long before the chaos
Of disrepair
Grumbled through the dark hall
Of the subterranean cave.
Where now is the brave, ascending song
Of the gold-eyed buffalo burr,
Who clung to the canyon wall,
In the fierce, railing wind,
Her petals beaming in the sun,
The one
Proclaiming victory for the day,
Where now the call
Of the giant whales
Who dive beneath
The cliff rising from
The moving waters of infinity
In the indigo
Deeps
Of joy – whales who play
With their children, ocean games
In the seaweed-flowing mystery
Of their sparkling blue sea –
Where now the curious
Goat who leaps
Among the white patches of winter snow
Along the steep
Hill of the cedarbreak?
Where now the songs
From the ranks
Of all the charming, twisted juniper trees,
Their bark that curls around like smoke,
Whose wisdom
Belongs
To the light,
The moonrise,
And the night,
Who spoke
In the ever-whistling wind,
But then were felled by a cold-axed blow
Of barbarity and lies.
All their songs are fled away
To the far, far mountains of freedom
Where they echo,
Echo,
Gone
To the long
Hills,
Where God always sings
In the wandering dawn,
Waiting for the tumult and the chaos
To have ceased
On the ending day
When flames
That have hissed high
At long last fade,
Scattered away
On the winds,
Lost in the trills
Of birdsong
And the swarm
Of the bumblebee.
Then, in a world that has glided out of the gray mist,
The heart of the wild geese
Will sound once again,
Free,
As the flight
Of the numinous
Rose-winged beauty
Of the dragonflies
Along the lilting, frog-enchanted lake,
Humming.
Hear now the wings,
The presence
Of all the beings,
Released –
Watched over by the bright,
Night-shimmering form
Of Hamsa, the swan who flies
Over the green forest
Of yore,
Reawakened by her
All-knowing essence,
Beginning anew,
In a magic country,
The land of evermore,
Eternal, true
And ever-now,
In the mystical hour of the gray dawn.
© Sharon St Joan, 2021
Tall,
To the sun
And the moon they rise,
Pillars
That hold up the land
Of the stars,
In the early morning
Of time.
Where the chime
Of butterflies
Rings in the mist
Of clouds,
Where the horses of the wind climb
Archaic hills, peace settles,
Free from the shrouds
Of thought bewildered.
When the grinding wheels
Of the rattling cars,
The careening cart,
Of the manic race of beings that never stops
Have stopped, unspinned,
And fallen down
From the lofty wall,
Their memory lies
Quiet,
Dimming,
In the cheerful company
Of ghosts,
In the sooted
Shambles of empires
Cast
Under the snapping heels
Of fate.
Then
The coyotes
And the ever-knowing raven
Will run again
In gladness,
Across the red rock sand.
The wild hills, free now,
As the lilies
Of eternity
Who bow
In the wandering wind
By the bright
And undiscovered
Sea.
After the horns
Of many winters
Have fallen silent,
The husk
Of time
Discarded,
The aspiring rose will lift
Her head again
Among the rocks, resilient,
In the ice-enchanted
Spring.
The wind will sing.
Stones
Will shine, blessed in the twinkling
Emptiness
Of night.
The crow
Hops
In black
Clouds that inhabit
A sky of joy;
Coyotes laugh last
In the dance of the dusk,
And the ancient,
Earlier folk
Walk
To take back
The sacred mountain
Stolen
So long ago,
Now that the age of the unholy
Will be ended and done,
Gone
On the smoke
Of the fleeing mist.
Under a delicate crown
Of forest
Leaves, mice play
Among their catch,
The silver
Trinkets of the dead,
And talk
A while of feats of yore.
Herons glimmer,
One-footed,
On the green, tree-
Shouldered river.
Such an ill wind
That blew
Into the bones
Of the soul
Of men,
And stayed, corroding
The core
Of history,
Such a grim, unseemly game,
Like thorns
Lodged in the heart,
But when the scales fall
Away,
One by one by one,
Then
In the end there are only
The plain, rain-lit,
And the rose that flowers anew,
The innocent petals
Of nevermore,
And the farmer’s boy
Who whistles
In the strawberry patch,
By the lop-sided shack,
Where the corn stalks grow,
His blue
Hat adrift
On his head,
In the town
With no name,
Where the raven rules, with the snow-
Winged geese.
The sun holds the empty bowl,
Blessed be his ashen fires.
Agni, the one
Who returns
All
Back to the beginning.
Set the burning
Lanterns
Out and wait
In peace,
From within the rock and mist
To hear a killdeer call,
To sail away
To a far and luminous shore,
Known so well from long before,
On the flaming ships of dawn.
© Sharon St Joan, 2021