The Haunted Forest

That, my friends, is the face of a Slug! There were many of them out and about today, and Lindsey, Sarah, Sue and I many times paused to say hello to them as we hiked our way through the woods of Somewhere East of Roseburg, guided by a fellow named Seth. Pictures are, as usual, at Picasa. Highlights include:

• Manzanita. I didn't know what it was before and only knew the word from the Gary Snyder collection by the same name. It turns out Manzanita is a city! and the trees of it we met were aswarm with bees and flies and lizards.

• Indian mounds. Now, raised an Anthropologian in the east of America, the term "Indian mound" to me conjures up images of burials, Cahokia, and the beginnings of socioeconomic stratification. Here in Douglas County, Oregon, "Indian mounds" refer to piles of rock heaped up by young men (and women?) out on vision quests. These were located at the top of a hill at the end of a half mile trail, dozens of piles of rocks seeming to resist the laws of physics in the way they were stacked. I didn't notice them at first, then there they were; and my companions seemed to have disappeared; and it felt like the rocks were looking at me, and there was a presence there, and it was older than trails and ecotourism and much more potent. It never occurred to me to get out my camera in their presence, or even to speak, and I think to do either would have been terribly disrespectful.

• Waterfalls! Is there anything more to say? Waterfalls are awesome!

***

Here is another thing on my mind. I have been (I think you know) drinking lots and lots of superfood drinks. And my favorite thing about these is that they contain algae. When I think of algae, I picture an endless sea, by turns blue-green and deep red, under a sun as soft and orange as the memory of childhood, but racing swift across the waters in which strange creatures dwell. And think: This is the image of Inside-My-Body! My stomach, my gut, an ecosystem or universe, an oceanic home of a trillion myriad beings, existence physical and metaphorical, home of ancient dreams and urges and intuitions.

My Self, nothing but a haunted forest.

The body as landscape, as universe, animate with the divine magic of mind and thought -- my mind, my thought? -- microorganisms, tiny minds, a billion, a trillion -- a storm passes through a sea of neurons, and somewhere "I" laugh or blush or pine for lost love -- and here consciousness is an illusion, or maybe it's not, and the immaterial components of thought pass as ghosts through the cities of intestinal flora.

Isn't this the ever-inspiring-image? Don't worry, everything is fine, you are nothing but a universe.

I do hope so.