One Year Ago I Danced

I thought I would share with you my own John Muir moment that I recorded in my jounal nearly one year ago:

October 27, 2005

One of those great displays of weather, of such a spirit that our spirits are made to exclaim (in paraphrase of the Gold Bible) 'the God of Nature dances!' I saw the sky turn gray and then darken through my window in Salt Lake City and thus enticed, I was soon out the door and driving north on the Interstate.

Forty minutes later, when I pulled my car into the Nature Conservancy, the sky above was ominous—deeply laden with battleship clouds. I was not a quarter-mile out on the planks when the wind willed itself into a maelstrom, creating erratic currents in the air about me. Soon the clouds were all a-tumble and every drop of rain that fell to earth passed through a multitude of misdirection. It was “surf’s up!” to the hawks and the crows that rode upon the chaotic tides in obvious delight.

But as to human company, I was alone among the dry reeds and with fog closing in about me, I was unable to see more than a quarter-mile off. My soul therefore gave way to exuberance and to folly. I raised my arms as if they too were wings. I dipped and banked and made my own swooshing sounds. I called into the vortex of the storm, “O Lord, you are a majestic God!” I sang with full throat and pretended to conduct the squalls with my walking stick. In my mind, I was upon an English moor and the hound was in the sky. Then the wind cleared a small path across the marshes, and out there in the distance—surrounded by mist—was the pavilion. I was now in Japan and beyond the structure, the haiku of a poet’s pond! But there was no time for the digressions of Zen. Once again the mists renewed their shroud and I was carried away in the Spirit and put back upon the moor.

I was a frenzy myself—somehow the wind had found its way within me, poured its wildness into my veins and my blood was alive with it. I spun with the maelstrom like a dervish, and sang and danced and sent my praises aloft. It was a fullness-of-times out there, a coming together of all my life’s blessings—the dearest moments relived. I realized that throughout my life God has been breathing into my sails, choosing my adventures, plotting a homeward course.

I drove home intoxicated. M—did not know what to make of me when I finally came through the door.