​Through a Window

Dusk in the Andes
En route to our lodging
after a full day 
full of stunning views 
at Machupicchu
that make your heart soar
and ground your soul.
Our train rolls through
this mountain valley
tracing an ancient path
beside the Urubamba River, 
tall shoulders of steep cliffs 
hugging either side.

The cars rocking gently to and fro
soft Peruvian music mingles 
with soft conversations. 
The unfocused mind 
pulled by a glance
out the window, 
spies a rusty steel bridge
painted white long ago,
that calmly spans the 
rumbling rushing waters. 
Old lamps on the trestles 
cast their golden glow quietly
in the misty haze of the evening.

A father on the far side, looks on 
lovingly as his young daughter
in a white pressed dress with lace, 
skips lightly as a thistle seed
in the breeze, 
across the solid iron,
her rhythmic steps 
in perfect pace 
with our swaying cars.
We careen toward and then
beyond the bridge, 
enveloped within the surreal, 
strangely comforting dynamics. 
Then padre e hija fade; so too 
the bridge, the river, and the cliffs
all swallowed by darkness
as we flow forward
into the night.

This morning the mountains nearby are wearing a shawl of mist, and we are preparing to head back to Cusco then Lima then home. Although it is with some sadness to depart, I feel so fortunate to have made this trip and to be leaving new friends here, who I am eager to see on my return. 


Yesterday I met Eduardo, a shaman of Inca lineage and heritage. His visit offered us an opportunity share in a Coca leaf ceremonial reading at our lodge. The group aspect was fascinating as he honored Pachamama at the start and closing. Community is very important to these traditions, as is honoring the earth and the natural elements. He lives within a community the traditional manner without electricity and modern conveniences (By choice—NGO have offered), at an altitude of near 16,000 feet! 


We are comfortably nestled in a valley here at about 9,000 feet. The mountain ranges command the landscape and such river valleys with small plains dot the geography and mark locations where most people have settled. Watching the clouds float by in the blue skies yesterday, we could literally see them being divided by the mountains as they passed overhead. It is easy to see how the powers of the natural elements would evolve into mythologies of the region. Such symbolism is not childish; for certain there’s a deep appreciation and understanding of how these ecosystems work together and each component is interwoven, from which our more “scientifically driven” culture could learn.


We took turns privately engaging with him, receiving a general reading or invited to ask specific questions we might have. It was very interesting. I asked guidance about my career and personal path, as well as personal relationships. I was a bit surprised by the responses and it will be interesting to see how my life plays forward. We  shared a lunch with our unpretentious guests, and learned about their families and children. Prompted by a great question from one in our group, even gained insight into our shared mischievous childhoods. Juan Carlos told a tale of how he had once collected lizards in his pockets as a boy and tried to hide this fact from his mother on returning into his home. Eduardo confided he had tied together then shoelaces of some intoxicated adults who had been celebrating and fallen asleep. Following the ceremonies each enjoyed partaking in an offer of chocolate and some tequila from some in our group. Through and through these are down to earth people who laugh, live, and love with all their hearts. 


At the closing of the ceremony Eduardo and his assistant Juan Carlos pulled out a few dozen small tokens, symbolic and actual, that acted as representative offerings. Intermixed with this, one by one we each presented coca leaves we had chosen earlier. He carefully consciously blessed these and each addition of his offerings with words, breath, chants/prayers and intention and steadily built a small beautiful sculptural assemblage. We all received a blessing separately and a cleansing of “bad energies” — who doesn’t need that? — and then a final communal send off. 


I was wonderful to meet them and participate. As a “take away” we were advised to rise joyful that we were alive, share that joy with others and the earth, and do everything with a conscious and sincere heart. Of course this meshed perfectly with the path I have been following for the last several years. Eduardo was most delighted to accept my offering of a golden shafted feather from my hat from a Flicker, a native Virginian bird, and add it to his own chapeau. I’m honored and happy to have a new “brother” in the Andes. 

​Small Fries

Kerplunky splashes as fish bodies flop back into the river after chasing an air-borne fly are among the unique sounds one gets to hear when quietly tubing. Occasionally I spy a few fish underwater, but mostly they see my ecliptic shadow and move away. I realized today I’ve never gotten a good photo of them. This murky image isn’t a great one, you have to kind of peer into it: the little slim bodies, the rocks in the river bed beneath them, the bendy reflection of the trees on the back at the top. But I like the way the forms of these squiggly little guys speeding within the currents seem to have the same “form” as the reflections of light on the water, suggesting the interconnections of it all. Similarly, the image offers a small sense of the abundance of small fry and the cycles of life, and why the herons I’ve come to know often come to dine in these parts.

We’re so fortunate for the work of so many folks (local, regional, state and federal) over the last couple of decades who have essentially restored the Roanoke River (and thousands of others across America) to its wonderfully clean state today. Most days it’s clear enough to see the bottom three or four feet down — in depths beyond that the reflections and shadows at a particular time of day and amount (or lack) of sunlight limits seeing it. Only after rains, in the natural process of sediment being redistributed and stirred up, does the river get cloudy. 

It’s been so heartening that almost every year at some point along the Greenway (which borders this river) I’ve seen an osprey. Like the bald eagle, (which others have seen on this river and in this city!) they feed mostly on fish. Heartening because if the fish are carrying contaminants or poisons within their flesh, these birds, as top-level predators, will accumulate them more than any other animals. It’s precisely what drove the bald eagles into severe decline in the continental 48 states when I was a kid. And it’s only because we’ve begun paying attention to our role within ecosystems, and stopped indiscriminate polluting of our precious fresh water systems, that they‘ be rebounded so I well. 

So of course it’s also infuriating and mind-boggling that we have elected people in position as of state and federal oower eager to loosen so many important safeguards on our water, land and air.  Which will return the life in our lakes and rivers and oceans back to the precipices, just as other issues like agricultural fertilizer runoff and fracking and pipelines are putting new strains on their healthy existence. It’s a strange, sad denial of the fact that we are integrally linked to the health of our precious freshwater resources. 

I post often about the many critters I’ve seen, last evening I saw two deer and two playful groundhogs. But also on this 90º October day (with two more hotter ones expected!) I encountered several people—all of whom I chose NOT to photograph out of respect for their privacy. (The fish didn’t get a choice.) 

As I was putting into the water, three folks were setting up to fish on the bank: a grandmother (who wanted to know how cold the water was—it wasn’t), a man in his thirties who carried a chair for the elder, and a young girl I presume was his daughter. In some ways it’s irrelevant, but in others I think significant, that the woman and man were Caucasian, and the playful young girl had brown skin—just like the river’s health steadily improving, I take this as a sign our societal health has improved in the last several decades. I wished them luck with their fishing. 

As I passed under the bridge, a familiar fellow with long brown hair, a heavy beard, and a calm presence was writing in what appeared to be a journal as he sat cross-legged on the sandy bank. We’ve come across each other several times ear this spot, and we bowed “namaste” when our eyes met as has become our custom.

Around a couple of bends, I drifted near a young teen up to his waste in the water, with a sweet mutt dog swimming at his side, both happily cooling off. Barley dog-paddled up to me and we said hello. In response to my How are you doing? his partner said: “Gotta be doin’ good on a day like this, bein’ right here!” I agreed whole-heartedly. Just a bit further along an older fellow, another fisherman with his dog were packing up and heading back toward the Greenway. 

As I approached the second set of gentle falls, a beautiful young woman in a vivid yet soft cobalt blue garment, with a large black & white head-wrap was standing shin-deep along the rocky edge. The site of her poised, unforced statuesque posture, the colors of her figure against the dry green and brown grasses and olive waters was stunning. Guessing by her clothing, hairstyle, rich skin color and features, it seemed very likely she was an immigrant. I wanted so much to ask where she was from, what she was pondering; was it a potent recollection of her homeland, or was she simply enjoying the cooling waters and not thinking about anything?...but she seemed so content and immersed within her space in that place, that I chose not to interrupt her reverie. 

She smiled ever so lightly as I passed. It was a just wonderful to cross her path. She could well have been the archetypal river maiden of any river in any part of the world at any time in history. Floating onward, allowing my tube to spin freely after bumping some rocks, the clouds and treetops swirled overhead, and for a few moments I felt like I too was just a teeny small fry, merged into a place, beyond time.