Bedroll. The word means so much more to those of us that spend long periods in the wilds. A bedroll is our bed, our sanctuary, and our place of healing. It is our shelter, within our shelter. My bedroll that I've devised is Fire Proof, Water Proof, and Cold Proof; only resistant truly, as nothing is "proof" not even granite (ask the tides who's winning that one).
My bedroll consists of three components, a sleeping bag, a waterproof bivy, and a wool bivy. My wool blanket I've specifically designed to be rigged into a bivy while still retaining its ability to be a simple blanket. The sleeping bag and waterproof bivy keep me warm and dry while the wool bivy provides additional warmth and the all important fire resistance to the equation; allowing me to lay near my fire vastly improving my state of sleep, and increasing the temperature range my bedroll can function in.
...A bedroll with these attributes is quite potent, a warm and dry repose goes a long way in the cold and wet seasons of the year, while just the light and comfy blanket provides the means for a restful sleep in the scorching season.
The tired Grey Squirrel whispered, "Were do you suppose you learned to build a woodland home?"
The Clouds swirled violently overhead, "Did you not first stretch your imagination on my canvas?"
The solitary Red Vixen blankly stared, "Who else revealed the importance of footfalls to you?"
The cracking Thunder exclaimed, "Forget not! None but I! The invisible tyrant! Had you trembling in ignorant terror!"
The lonely Trumpeter Swan cooed, "Where else did you learn to cherish your soul-mate?"
The broken Roosevelt Elk sighed, "Who else taught you majesty?"
The sorrowful Grizzly Bear growled, "Who else reminded you of your true place among us?"
The unkept Golden Eagle glared, "Was it not I who taught you merciful hunting?"
The mournful Bottlenose Dolphin reminded, "Who else humbled your assumed superior brain size?"
The tattered Mountain Lion interjected, "Where else did you witness a more perfect predater?"
The lone Grey Wolf asked, "Did you not learn to honor family from my prime example?"
The invincible Lightning flashed, "How quickly you forgot who gave you your two mightiest triumphs! You kept warm by borrowing the essence of the unfathomable Sun himself! ..And lets not forget who flowed in your beloved metal wires."
The unmeasurably potent Water came forward, shifting from caring
curves to spikes of fury. "Unthinkable! You have made me Vile! Putrid! Poison! I the
Granter of Life itself! For none live without me, yet you care not! Insolence! Arrogance! IGNORANCE!"
All lost their voices in the long ensuing silence. Finally the last Great Horned Owl gazed at them all, steadied herself, and spake solemn and resolutely;
"The smartest. The most powerful. The most ingenious. You entertained all of these notions, yet learned them all and more from us. You think you’re alone in your divine providence, but your nothing without the surrounding life that allows you to live. You starve without the animals and plants to eat, die of thirst without clean rivers to drink from, suffocate without breathable air, and succumb to exposure without rocks, soil and plants providing the necessary solace from harsh elements.
There appeared to be two lines to your kind, those who remembered the gifts of the past and revered the wild mentors that gave them, and those of absolute self-absorption believing all knowledge came solely from yourself. Although one line was respectable, the other was but a lost fledging, desperately needing help back to its home. Incredibly, the majority of them were nothing without their precious artificially manufactured trinkets. Consider, without them there were more above than below you, on what you termed the food chain.
Have you finally witnessed the abhorrent price for those wasteful items you needlessly manufactured? You reduced beautiful mountains teeming with life to sorrowful rubble, extracted their metal veins and bejeweled secrets within. You silenced untold scores of trees from singing their windswept leaves' songs, viciously ripping them from their ancient home. You knew this exposed the land to the unmerciful sun and elements, leaving every creature and plant homeless and orphaned in the torn asunder ghostland, afraid for themselves and their families; yet you did all this without regard to winter's close approach. Your cruelty is unmatched.
All shared the atrocious crimes they witnessed, imprisoned plants, never allowed freedom and true life before eaten, their internal blueprints rewritten to such a degree, they were unrecognizable from their wild cousins. Pervasive toxic chemicals belched into the air and hideously dumped in rivers without care or thought, tainting everything in contact. Discarded trash leached poison for untold buried years, diabolical plastics killed for uncountable generations, your terrible explosives harmed all who dwell within land, air or sea.
You were utterly ceaseless in your abomination's!"
The animals each nodding as the simple truth cut through the clear, cold night.
Resigned and forlorn, the Great Owl looked to the lone survivor of humankind, and continued.
"One wonders if you managed to soil the celestial heaven's with your unnatural materials. We prayed for untold generations you would come to your senses and wake from your selfish suicidal nightmare. When you released your deadly radiation, forever scarring and insidiously poisoning the land, there was an audible gasp from the sacred earth herself; our prayers stopped that day and forever-more, for you were Hell bent and Demonic in your ways.
Some of us have heard stories we were once in love in the dim past, but its clear your majority mutated into evil spirits when your tribe split into its two branches. All life watched your murderous insanity, knowing only upon the moment of earth's death or your extinction, would you rise from your madness and finally witness what you’ve wracked.
We are the last there is, the last of our kind, of all kind. No more mating in bliss rearing our children to play in the streamside meadows, no more herds roving on frozen tundra's dancing with the beautiful aurora, long gone are the schools swimming deep into the sweeping currents winding around this once immaculate earth, no more soaring on the graceful breezes over the enchanted woodlands underneath. All is gone.
Only we remain witness to the end you’ve brought to us all, every beautiful plant, every noble creature, every gorgeous mineral, every sacred fossil, even the pure clouds have been poisoned. You've finally seen that which we all have, for countless generations.
This is the end of us all, but there's still hope for the future; for it is said in our oldest tale the earth's creatures were once as tall as the towering Sequoia were, wielding horns as wide as the Blue Whale was long, dwarfing all before and since. They were the pinnacles of all earth's tribes.
Alas, they have been gone so long only the rocks remember them now, but what does survive is one of their beliefs passed down for countless aeons. We do not know if it is indeed truth, but those ancient masters believed, hidden deep inside us all live small secret animals; smaller than any grain or seeds, smaller than even powdery pollen was. They believed they were here before all others, the very first animals, and in times of peril they council the true course.
So you see there is hope yet, they will start the grand cycle anew."
The last human finally broke his watery gaze from the Great Horned Owl, locking eyes with each and every pair afore him, forging a bond of love, compassion, understanding, respect, and regret.
Just then he seemed to relax internally and be at peace, "Yes" he whispered, "I do believe I hear their council."
The Life Granter provides the blood of all, the life of all. It courses and swells, it gracefully flows, it fiercely hardens into crystals...a guarded spectacle of divine beauty and form. While some manifestations are heavy and lumbering; others disappear on a whim like smoke into the very air we breathe. Every instant, she transcends her corporeal shell, knowing all rely on her precious gift in various ways and degrees as gas, solid, and liquid. For without water nothing survives, all is rent inactive, the stasis of material death, water is literally material life.
We are water life forms, carrying it as liquid and gas in our every fiber throughout our life that it grants us. As is the case for our plant cousin's in this strange realm, and our brother's and sister's the noble animals, who hold onto the precious knowledge of the real way of living on this majestic water life form our mother earth.
The great and powerful earth relies on water to live like the rest of us, her explosions of molten rock, her ghostly valleys, secluded gullies, hidden chasm's, echoing caves, and living atmosphere, would not be.. only a dead shell, lifeless, cold and barren knowing only pure desolation. In turn, the earth is a gracious guest, sheltering this entity known by this current civilization's language as water, so she may frolic and play creating her incredible dancing droplets in the wind, at once pelting and soft, serene and frightening, racing down the earth's various rifts creating lush beauty with every grain. She stockpiles her frozen reserves to bask in the stunning and coveted auroras, shared with but a rare few.
The greater part of mankind have lost their reverence and love for this omnipresent provider of life, while collectively slumbering in a nightmare the dominant culture fell into 12,000 yrs ago...yet all is not lost, a portion hath awoken, awestruck with unspeakable appreciation for the Life Granter's Supreme Gift.
You feel it creeping at night, slow and methodical; ever-present and ever-growing. You know it in the early morn. You see it in the glowing orbs on the black stained nights. The sun losing the battle day by day, her chill frost visage spreads to the fields and glens as he slumbers. Her shrill counter-shadow illuminates that which is beneath her, bathing all in a cold, sterile, whispering promise..
"I am ever-close,
You cannot be saved,
Nothing will impede my approach,
Hear my breath,
Feel my kiss,
Know my building torment,
All who are weak shall shrivel and die,
I shall strip others of their prideful colored cloaks,
All will be smothered by my icy embrace"
Thus all recede to their precious hearths, and gather up the victims of winter's past to keep warm and protected from her deathly touch. Acorns, Blueberries, Pinenuts, Deer Jerky, Raspberries, Walnuts, Blackberries, Strawberries, Wintergreenberries, Chestnuts, Dewberries, Partridgeberries and so much more will be desperately prepared, frantically saved, for the bleak lifeless days of winter's unhinged magnitude.
Some cannot withstand her incantations and fall into a deep slumber, praying the overrun sun will gather his courage and push her back to her frigid realm. Some leave their homes far behind in search of the edge to her might, living on the battlefield where Winter's Stark White clashes Summer's Molten Orange.
..What will be your response to her whispering promise?
When the early seasonal rains arrive, there's a rare window of opportunity in the woods, for those souls who rejoice in all its moods. The steady patter on the short new growth, the smell of Winter's death, the beautiful mix of greens and browns, the enchanted forest stirring from her long winter's sleep.
The thorough cleansing has begun, Wintergreen steadfast through winter begins to grow yet again, the Partridgeberry creeps along the debris floor, Moss swells up with its soft beauty; subtle motion is taking over the realm.
The wanderer of such a landscape is routinely rewarded with witnessing the quick grace of Deer, or the silent crouched shuffle of Turkey. Streams and rivers are loud and clean, shedding their Winter's stock.
Yes indeed, this is a special time amongst the transitions; a time of Water, serene sound, green carpets, soft footing, and pure love.
