Lowlands: Who Will Answer the Call? by Sara Wright

I live under a steep craggy mountain that is gushing with the sweetest mineral rich water that pours out of an old spring. On this piece of land feeder brooks stream down the mountain feeding hemlock and cedar before silvery clear water slides into a rushing brook (miraculously) still filled with trout. Sadly, the main artery of my brook comes from another mountain that has been brutally logged, dammed up for someone’s pleasure and is currently running amok. Silt ridden water floods this lowland routinely not only changing the course of the stream now riddled with dying trees, (collapsing trees must have soil to stay upright) but creating unusual vernal pools that are beginning to mature. As a result, this has been the best frog and toad year that I have had since my first magical year spent on this land before all the surrounding areas were chopped into parcels. Once I roamed free up and down this mountain through unbroken forests fields and fens, marshes, seeps, bogs and springs. I have never lost that feeling of belonging to this land not just the area I ‘own’ (oxymoron) but all of her.

 It doesn’t surprise me that in most pre -christian traditions the Original Mother of Us All was and still is a mountain! When the other mountains all around me were first being raped by dirty yellow machines someone remarked to me quite sagely, “the bones of the mountains are still here”. And so they are, and so is She.

I know now that the reason I was called here was to become her apprentice. I have been following this call for almost 40 years, allowing her animals, trees, birds, mushrooms, and roots to teach me what I needed to learn not only on a personal level, but also collectively. So many harsh and painful lessons preceded acceptance, but I needed to learn every single one. We humans have been moving towards an ugly crossroad for a very long time and so few acknowledge that we have arrived. My choice is to stay as aware as I am able, deal with my anguish and celebrate the joy. I will continue to be Mountain Mother’s Daughter until I am returned to her spiral to be rebirthed anew.

Oh, so much has changed, some dreams are dead but joyful moments continue to catapult me into other dimensions. I consider myself fortunate because I can still walk through my little patch of woods every single day on one side of the brook or the other, though the people who taught me about the reality of human evil also have educated me on the necessity of keeping a close eye on the cameras I keep hidden in unlikely places. I am glad to have a relatively small area to patrol.

As I watch the doe and her fawn eating apples on this deliciously cool and fragrant morning, I am also watching a gathering of shadows. The mid -August sun is sitting lower on the horizon streaming filaments of gold through the trees. Lime and chartreuse, slivery maples, a crimson tipped oak leaf all seem to catch my eye at the same time. The emerald mosses that line the book astonish me with their sinewy serpentine beauty.

Not long after dawn I walked through my forest; yesterday found me meandering through yet another lowland sanctuary, this one quite different than mine. I heard both the swamp and song sparrow as I watched butterflies and bees light upon the wild clematis draping her delicate blossoms over the low shrubbery, some seeking the towering pale pink Joe Pye weed to dry damp wings. Monarchs, admirals, viceroys and a swallowtail or two sailed through the greenery some of which has become startling copper crimson and gold. Wild cherries feed the animals. They also lose chlorophyll early providing us with a sharp contrast to dull late summer green. A fawn met me at an unexpected bend hugged by young pines. This land is loved like mine is, and I feel the overgrown meadow’s memory rising all around me – a visceral rooted embrace. How grateful I am for each small oasis.

This burst of cool weather is such a joy after a summer of humidity and almost daily deluges with few breaks in between. It is a time to give thanks and a time to let go.

 The Mountain Mother is calling us to her. I wonder who and how we will answer that call.