West Virginia 1996
Coming from Columbus, Ohio, I used to travel back and forth to my parents’ home in Tennessee by taking Route 68 off of I 79 in Pennsylvania. Route 68, a major thruway in West Virginia, bumbles through hills and valleys, out of place in the sweeping charm of fields and forests that still appear untouched by the outside world. Unless there was snow, I always wound my way across this landscape lulled into deep reflection by this cultivated, yet primitive vista. Snaking up and down the remote landscape on the way back from my parent’s home, I would stop at a state park and spend the night at a wilderness cottage, before going the rest of the way home. Confident in my routine, I was deep in thought and missed the exit to the park I often visited. However at the next exit, there was another park with cottages so I pulled in. I drove slowly down a bumpy dirt road, the last remaining evidence of the harsh winter.
I saw a doe standing just out of the trees in front of me. I slowed down to look at her waiting for her to bound away back into her own kingdom, but she didn’t move. She was small up close. We met each other’s eyes. Her pearled brown orbs drew me into them. Carefully I rolled down the window. As I did, she walked intentionally toward me. While startled at such a move, I did not cease to hold her gaze with my own. She got to my window. Her head was much larger up close, the skull a slightly larger version than mine with an additional extension on the front. I raised my chin a bit so I could stay with her eyes. As I did, she bent forward, putting her head through the window and rested her nose on my nose. I froze somewhere between shock and awe. My eyes where set in place with hers, guided along this pathway of cartilage directly into the seat of her soul. Her nose was so soft and her scent was musky and fresh. I didn’t move. I don’t know how long we stayed like that. It felt like forever. The muscles in my shoulders and chest were aching from holding so still. Here I was on a dirt road in a state park nose to nose with a deer. I kept wondering what would happen if someone drove by. It was early in the day and it was a Sunday so the chances were good. Yet, the dirt road was empty and the forest around us was busy with birds chirping. The day was so gentle. Even the wind carried a hushed sound in the trees. When she removed her nose, I flinched, but she was not disturbed by it. She looked me over carefully and then turned and walked away, fading into the woods.
I looked immediately at the clock. I had turned off the highway at 12:35pm and the clock read 1:10. I had at least been nose to nose for twenty minutes. I couldn’t even think. I set off driving down the road looking for a cottage to rent. I could hardly wait to get out paper and pencil and write this all down.
I had gone a very short distance when I heard the roar of a waterfall. I pulled the car over, locked up and started down the path toward the sound. There had been no mention of a waterfall on the marker to the park. The walk was short and down hill. Clearly constructed for visitors, a walkway zigzagged the waterway toward the falls. The tumbling white water poured out of jagged rocks. No one was there, but me. Suddenly I felt so sleepy, I couldn’t stand it. I dropped to my knees and slide onto the wooden planks of the walkway. I was in a corner of the walkway and thought I would simply lie down for a minute and rest. As I fell asleep, the waterfall carved its consciousness into the lining of my brain. I was an open vessel aware of velvet contours of sound bringing melodies of life that human beings did not know about into the repertoire of my psyche.
I slept for hours. People had to step over me to get to the waterfalls. I woke up late in the afternoon. People were picnicking on the wooden tables built into landings on the walkway. No one seemed to even notice I was there. I wondered if they thought I was drunk. Heavy drinking was a popular pastime in West Virginia. The waterfall sounds were not so intense now. What had sounded like a full orchestra, now sounded like a quartet of similar instruments. I pulled myself upright and to reinforce any theories the park visitors might have been speculating on, I reeled. I was so dizzy and on the edge of a very unpleasant vertigo. I stabilized myself and walked prudently past families who suddenly stared openly at me, and past teenagers, in the heat of hormones, who still didn’t notice me at all.
I booked a cabin and immediately upon entering it, sat down to write this extraordinary experience with the deer and the waterfall. Words began to flow. I watched as the words became the page and the page added another page. The words and the pages were in rhythm with the click, click, click of my fingers on the PDA. The thick oak table was the foundation that held the click, click, click of the words and pages coming together. The words formed in the air and came down into my fingers. I observed all this with a profound realization that this is what it is like when there are no barriers to the full experience of how life works through everything. The words and the pages went on and on. Time stood still just as it did with the deer and the waterfall. I was in forever and forever was wonderful.
My life had been very stressful for several years. I had been tired. I could only stay awake for short periods of time before needing to sleep. There was a strain between me and the activities of life. I couldn’t figure out how people survived such franticness.
Now here I am in 2010, this is one of many incidents that happened to me over the years that began to break open my mind. The work we teach came to me from these encounters...the knowing that there was more...there was a world that we could be connected to that was so vast so meaningful.... so connected.
Writing this is after another moment when people say to me they do not understand what I am saying. What are people listening to? And yet in the work we do, people have more freedom, more grace, and more comprehension of their existence...trust their actions completely and have the stamina for what the rest of the world would call risk....
No wonder I prefer having my nose on the nose of a deer a lot of the time.
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