Spirit Place

Posted by Interdisciplinary 6 - The Sierra Nevada

April 10, 2007

An eassy by Joan Griffin

Every summer for the last dozen years, I have spent great lengths of time camping and hiking and picture-taking in Tuolumne Meadows, sometimes with family or friends, but most often by myself. It’s my favorite place on Earth, my centering place, my spiritual place, my energizing place.

One of my favorite spots to dawdle is literally right off the pavement, right alongside Tioga Road, about halfway between the campground and the entrance gate at Tioga Pass. It’s a small pond, often as smooth as glass, that reflects the trees that surround it, the boulders along its shore, and in the evening, the fire-colored, Alpine glow-tinged peak of Mount Dana, in its mirrored surface. I love to pause there of an evening and looking eastward, watch the color in the sky change from bright blue to a paler and paler shade. I know behind me the summer crowds are gathering in the Meadows to watch the sunset to the west, but I prefer the solitude of watching the eastern sky’s version of dusk. As the sky turns from blue to nearly pearl gray, the last rays of the setting sun, itself completely out of sight back down the hill, turn the already ruddy face of Mount Dana into a golden fire. Better even than watching the sky, is watching as Mount Dana’s color explodes upside-down on the pond’s otherwise silent surface.

Often, I have set up tripod and camera, in an attempt to capture the beautiful sight, the varying moods, the changing colors. Patiently, I wait, watch, and focus, as the drama unfolds. The photos are always pretty, but never do they reproduce the scene. How could they? The actual scene is a three-dimensional, 360-degree, ever-changing, surround-sound view. The photo is a two-dimensional, postcard-sized wisp of the original. But every year I try again and again; maybe one inspired day I will capture the spirits that call to me from the pond and the rocks, from the mountain and the trees.

One evening a few years ago, I met an old man there. He, too, had come for the unveiling of Dana’s evening mood. He stood with me near the pond’s roadside edge, silently taking in the show. After a bit, he sat down to rest on a fallen log, and told me his story. He told me he had come to this pond every year for over forty years, always on the last day of his annual stay in Tuolumne, to say farewell to the mountains for another year. And always he had walked around the perimeter of the pond, through the forest on the far edge; it was his yearly ritual and he savored the tranquil minutes it took him to circumambulate the water.

He lamented that time had finally taken its toll, and this year he dared not walk the ritual walk. His legs were too infirm, his balance too undependable. He had to content himself with just sitting and resting as he watched the evening’s colors unfold on the water. I offered to walk with him, to let him use my hiking poles for balance, but he wouldn’t allow himself to take my offer. So we watched together for a while, and then he walked to his car and drove away.

On another evening, even more recently, I was once again attempting to photograph the spirits of that special place, when I had another visitor who shared my love of that spot. I was completely and thoroughly engrossed in preparing my equipment. I had set up tripod and camera already, and was trying out new lenses and filters. I would put on a lens and looking through it, change setting after setting, preparing in advance for the fleeting moments of grand color that were yet to come. I wanted to have a plan that I could implement quickly. I wanted the perfect arrangement of lens, filter, settings, and camera placement. This time I intended to get the photo that had eluded me for so many years.

Looking through the lens at upside-down Dana, I felt, rather than heard, something behind me. I turned to look and, emerging from the dense trees into the clearing near the pond, was a bear, a beautiful, cinnamon-colored bear. About 100 feet from me, and well aware of my presence, the bear moved slowly and casually forward. Transfixed by its unexpected appearance, by its amazing beauty, I stood and watched as it moved. We made eye contact, watching one another carefully and respectfully, but with curiosity, as well.

As the bear moved down the slope from the edge of the trees, it passed in front of the slanting rays of the sun, beams of which streamed between the tall, black silhouetted trees, and backlit him, turning the edges of his fur the same fiery gold that Mount Dana, now behind me, was undoubtedly wearing at that moment. It was as though the bear were made of glowing molten gold. And still it moved forward, rounding a huge fallen log, and still I stood beside my forgotten camera and watched, transfixed.

The bear began to claw at the underside of the ancient fallen tree, then lay on its back, shimmied its way into a gap under the log, and feasted on what ever grubs and bugs it had dislodged. After several minutes, it made its way to the pond’s edge, took a long drink of the clear water, and returned to the log to repeat the process. Finally, after what had to have been fifteen or twenty minutes, the bear ambled slowly off in the direction from which it had come.

All during the time we were together in that special place, the bear made it clear that it was completely aware of my presence, watching me as I watched it. I was never frightened, though I was certainly keenly aware, watchful, and cautious, and I never felt threatened by the bear’s looks or actions. I barely moved, entranced. The only picture I managed to take of the bear was dark and completely out of focus, taken as it was, directly into the sun’s rays toward a darkening forest. But it doesn’t matter; the scene is indelibly printed in my mind.

I have always loved that roadside vantage point on a quiet evening, but now I feel as though its spirit includes not only the spirits of the pond, rocks, and mountains, but also those of the bear and the old man, as well as my own. It has become for me a spiritual spot where wild meets tame. Just calling it to mind, brings the spot’s unique vibrational energy to my present awareness.