Author Archives: somewhereoutwest

Dinosaur Nation

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There aren’t many places where extinct animals are more visible than living ones, but along Highway 40 in Utah and western Colorado, dinosaurs rule. You see them everywhere as they’re portrayed in paintings and envisioned in sculptures. Although these outrageous creatures died out millions of years ago, they are neither gone nor forgotten. The dinosaur has discovered a fertile habitat in the human imagination.

 

Although you might encounter dozens of prehistoric creatures on a drive between Duchesne, Utah and Steamboat Springs, Colorado, most of them will not resemble the real deal — not even close! There are two main reasons for this: 1) Our scientific understanding of what dinosaurs actually looked like is constantly evolving as we come across new specimens and develop more sophisticated research techniques. 2) Humans, as a species, love to tell stories and fabulous monsters are major characters in most of our primordial mythologies. We love a good monster, especially if they’re scary — but not too scary. Roadside dinosaurs are made to fit the bill. They get your attention, but unless you’re under, say, five-years-old, you’re unlikely to worry that you’ve wandered into Jurassic Park.

This disconnect between what we actually know of dinosaur biology and what we imagine them to be like is the focus of paleontologist Brian Switek’s new book, My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs. After Brian was a guest on Cara Santa Maria’s “Talk Nerdy To Me” video series, she asked viewers, “How long do you think it’ll take before our romantic vision of the dinosaurs catches up with modern science?”

Having traversed our nation’s dinosaur hotbed, I’d say, “Never!” We know what bears look like but has that led to the demise of the Teddy Bear? No! There’s fossils, and there’s fiction. Something as monstrously cool as the Brontosaurus is not going extinct a second time.

(The Brontosaurus (thunder lizard) turned out to be an inadvertent hoax but that hasn’t kept it from becoming the most popular dinosaur, hands down. Read Brian’s book if you want the whole scoop.)

God’s Magpie

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 Between
Your eye and this page
I am standing …

Bump
Into me
More.

~ Hafiz

I’ve heard it said that our eternal life intersects our mortal experience every moment. We’re seldom aware of it but every now and then we’re offered a glimpse of this expanded dimension. It’s possible to come around a bend and … surprise! Your eternal nature greets you — your forever friend. Something like this happened to me when I met Hafiz for the first time.

Hafiz lived in the garden city of Shiraz in ancient Persia. He left his earthly body in 1389 AD but his physical departure hasn’t stopped him from scattering his crazy, funny, spiritually sane ideas over the earth like a continuous meteorite shower for the past six hundred years. Why hadn’t I encountered this luminous outpouring before? I must have been ripening toward an appreciation of Hafiz’s shoot-the-lights-out approach to celebrating the Divine.

Why
Just show you God’s menu?
Hell, we are all
Starving —
Let’s
Eat!

~ Hafiz

Hafiz and I met unexpectedly — of course. He wouldn’t have it any other way. On a summer road trip from Northern Nevada to Colorado Springs, I stopped at a Trappist monastery outside of Old Snowmass in the Colorado Rockies. Saint Benedict’s is both a working ranch and a retreat center. The monastery cultivates hay, contemplative prayer, and silence. They also have a small bookstore which is where my rational mind said it was going. (I’ve always been a fan of Thomas Merton — a Trappist monk — so I figured I’d buy one of his books.) My heart, however, suspected this rationale was  a bunch of hooey. My real reason for visiting was a fascination with the monk’s commitment to keep conversation to a minimum. Writers tend to cherish places where silence has the upper hand.

I followed the gravel road to a cluster of buildings sheltered in a grove of fluttering aspens and gregarious magpies. No one else was around. Walking up the path, I followed signs to the bookstore and opened a heavy door. Peering in, I saw light from a wall of tall windows washing over shelves and tables loaded with books — my heaven.

Thomas Merton made a good showing among the metaphysical titles, but so did Mother Theresa, the Dali Lama, and Rumi. The Catholic monks of St. Benedict’s had eclectic taste. It was a contemplative’s candy store. So many points of view! So many prospective guides! I told my mind to shut up — and my heart to speak up. I was honing in on something …

Next to Rumi lay a mustard yellow paperback with frilly Victorian-style graphics. This? It looked a little stuffy and academic. I was skeptical. 

I almost judged the book by its cover but something compelled me to look inside. After reading a smattering of poems, I fell under Hafiz’s spell. He made me laugh. He made me think. He showed me the hidden world in plain view. Here was my beloved in a future life; a brother from before we were born; a companion I’d always sensed but never known.

I put the money for the book in a small wooden box the monks had left for that purpose and hurried outside. I needed a place to land. A few wooden camp chairs waited beneath the aspens. A magpie alighted on the back of one and then took off. I nestled into that chair. It looked across the high mountain valley toward Mount Sopris. Taking a deep breath, I opened the book and dove in …

 I am
A hole in a flute
That the Christ’s breath moves through —
Listen to this
Music.

 *
Why complain about life
If you are looking for good fish
And have followed some idiot
Into the middle of the copper market?

*

The
Great religions are the
Ships,

 Poets the life
Boats.

 Every sane person I know has jumped
Overboard.

 That is good for business
Isn’t it
Hafiz?

See what I mean? No piety here, but an infectious honesty whose cackling irreverence reveals the sincere reverence of a true pilgrim. That summer afternoon, I wandered in these heady poems for hours as thunderheads billowed above me unnoticed — until it started pouring.

The rain reminded me that I needed to continue my journey but I left that remote valley far richer than when I arrived. I’d spent the better part of a day touring eternity with my new friend Hafiz, the Sufi magpie. What an eye-opener.

Listen: this world is the lunatic’s sphere,
Don’t always agree it’s real,

Even with my feet upon it
And the postman knowing my door

 My address is somewhere else.

 ~ Hafiz

(Some critics claim Daniel Ladinsky’s English translations are more Daniel than Hafiz. For me, it doesn’t matter. I admire the teamwork between the 14th century mystic and the 20th century craftsman. Together, they rock.)

When the Rhubarb Turns

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In aspen groves all over the West, fall color is almost a religious experience. The intensity of the chartreuse, yellow, orange, and red leaves seems surreal — no Photoshop needed. We wait for the turning of the leaves in late September and early October with devoted anticipation.

But maybe I’ve focused too narrowly on the brilliance of autumn. This morning, the last day of June, I discovered this leaf the size of my head blazing away in the garden. Our rhubarb sprouts in April, grows like crazy through spring and early summer, then dies back with the first heat. Fall color comes early for the rhubarb and our patch is going out with a flourish.

Home Improvement

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Our house will never make it on HGTV, but that’s no deterrent. This time of year, I’m driven to home improvement against the odds. During the past few weeks of do-it-yourself drudgery, I’ve discovered a handful of universal truths.

Homeowner Maxims

  • Washing windows in the Great Basin is a Zen practice — appreciate the process because the result will be short-lived.
  • Never buy cheaply made garage doors. Even if you don’t regret it, someone else will.
  • Always, always, always drill a “through-hole” when screwing down decking. If you don’t know what that is, find out before cursing future generations.
  • Paint will not hold your house together, no matter how much is applied. To really hold a house together, you need baling wire and duct tape.

Staff of Life

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I’ll admit, growing vintage wheat varieties is kind of a weird hobby. It started when I came across an old photograph of Mono Basin pioneer Chris Mattly, standing waist-deep in a field of wheat. Surprisingly, this flourishing field grew near the alkaline shores of Mono Lake at an elevation of nearly 7,000 feet. The sage-covered slopes of the Eastern Sierra are hardly your classic wheat belt. The snows lie deep in that country and if you blink twice you’ll miss the growing season. Yet, back in 1922, acres of waving seed heads covered Mattly’s farm. How did he do it?

Mattly’s wheat field started me down a path of agrarian research from which I’ve never recovered. Wheat, being a domesticated grass, will grow just about anywhere. Since it’s easy to propagate new varieties, family farmers like Chris Mattly could breed grain to suit their climates and cuisines. Up until the so-called Green Revolution introduced petroleum-based fertilizers and insecticides in the 1950s, all wheat was grown organically. Successful varieties had to be hardy, adaptable, and disease and pest resistant.

During the Green Revolution, wheat breeders shifted their attention to new varieties that performed like athletes on steroids — yields were off the charts but artificially induced. When interest in growing wheat organically resurfaced decades later, the petroleum-dependent varieties failed. A handful of wheat breeders scrambled to find what remained of the pre-industrial strains. Wheat preservationists worried that valuable genetic resources were becoming extinct. Wheat preservationists? Yep. Even ancient crops have their passionate proponents and I became one of them.

How did I help preserve vintage wheat varieties when I’ve never owned more than a measly third-of-an-acre? I got acquainted with wheat breeders at Washington State University in Pullman. They sent me seeds to test based on my climate and organic methods. They also directed me to USDA seed banks so I could request more varieties to try. Many of these old varieties hadn’t been “grown out” for decades. Seed has to be fairly fresh to remain viable, so by growing, harvesting, storing, and keeping careful records of heirloom varieties we help keep them alive. I grew dozens of little patches in the backyard, checkerboards of bowing, graceful grasses. They have names like Pacific Bluestem, Regenerated Defiance, White Fife, Jumbuck, Quality, Burt, Coulee, and a modern upstart from Utah called Golden Spike.

My husband teases me about how I fuss over those rising stems. We barely grow enough to eat but they are stunning when their whiskered heads form, full and tall. There’s something primal and satisfying about cultivating wheat — the ancient staff of life — right in the backyard. Amazing. I can harvest a tiny remnant of an agricultural legacy stretching back ten thousand years to the Fertile Crescent!

It may not look like much, but if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, we’ll at least have enough wheat to make a dozen pancakes before we’re forced to survive on rangy jackrabbits.

Fiddle Reincarnation

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In my next life, I want to come back as Michael Doucet’s fiddle. What could be better? We’d have the perfect relationship. Laugh together. Cry together. Ça c’est tres bon!

I know it’s a crazy idea but Cajun fiddle music does something to me. My family’s not Louisiana French. I’ve never been east of Cheyenne, Wyoming, (let alone Lafayette,) and I don’t know how to Two-step — yet. But Doucet’s music rearranges my stiff modern psyche into something deliciously malleable. I love surrendering to the ancient conversation between Creative Source and human hands. I’ll do almost anything to follow that musical trajectory.

I used to think the solution was to marry a fiddle player. Immerse myself in the music. But I realized, sooner or later, I’d grow jealous of the fiddle. Why just listen to those melodies? I want to make them.

So let me be the fiddle — poised between the impulse and the note — singing that sweet, soulful song.

 

(Photograph of Michael Doucet courtesy of the Rosebud Agency.)