Dreaming of Trees

In a little over a month, if all goes according to plan, my husband and I will be taking a road trip up to the redwood forest in honor of our first anniversary!!

 

Combine my growing craving for green and forests with a general fascination with redwoods (especially fired up since reading The Wild Trees by Richard Preston), and you have a very excited panther.  We're going to be camping for several nights in the northernmost national redwoods park in California.  I've been totally geeking out by researching everything I can, about the redwood trees themselves, the parks, hikes, you name it.

 

We're also going to be spending a day and night at the Joshua Tree National Park, a place I've always wanted to visit but never have, in spite of its much closer proximity.  I love joshua trees, they are adorable and quirky. 

 

Things we've talked about seeing on the way include The Lucky Mojo Curio shop in Forestville, and jaunting up to the Oregon mystery vortex, perhaps stopping at a winery or two.  I'm trying to sedate my inner planner from going to crazy though. Must leave room for spontaneity. 

 

By the way, if you assumed my favorite tree was a redwood or a joshua tree, you'd be wrong.  It's a boojum tree.  Which looks like a tree that got stuck in a vortex, incidentally. 

 

And of course, the best part is that I get to experience this whole trip with the one person I can never get enough of.  I'm even just excited at the prospect of the hours of driving in the car together. 

So this is the stuff I've been daydreaming (and sometimes nightdreaming) about and no doubt will be for the next month.  I feel like whatever I can imagine is guaranteed to be trumped by the experience itself.  I've been pondering things like, what are the nymph spirits there like?  What sort of faces of Dionysos might I see in such a forest?  What sort of mushrooms might we find?  Ha!  Can't wait!

We have a camping trip next week as well, to a favorite spot along the Mogollon Rim.  It's funny how much I've turned into a camping person.  I didn't used to be!  But now I find I get a soul-craving for it if I've been away from nature too long.

To Dionysos

My god,

I hope you know

that I could never not be devoted to you.

Though I know I've seen only a fraction,

walked little of this labyrinth,

and still question my intuition,

you are the grand hologram,

the lightning strike that cannot be unseen

even when I didn't know I had the eyes for it.

If you never spoke a word to me,

never stroked my skin to gooseflesh

or caught me as I danced recklessly in your name,

it is all only to remember the truth,

(which is eternal)

that you are in my blood, my tears, my breath,

my love and longing,

for this life (Life!)

filling me to the brim.

And even when i pass away this body

whose limbs have swayed and lept, knelt and walked,

wrought and ached, for you.

Still, you will be there.

I know and I remember.

Faraway Lightning

This song makes me think of Dionysos...