I stopped, and bowed to the owl, thanking it for coming to visit me again. I opened my awareness to pure consciousness, wanting to sense the field of the owl and listen for anything it might be wanting to tell me. After a few moments, I heard a sound behind me. I turned to look, and the second owl was there, on a branch about the height of my head, only about six feet away. What a gift, to have the owls trust me and come so close!

When I turned back to look at the first owl, it was gone, but suddenly it swooped over my head again. I remembered stories about great grey owls that I’ve heard from friends recently, and recalled that they can be aggressive, even knocking peoples’ hats off their head. It occurred to me that maybe the owl was telling me to hit the road, that I was too close to the nest or something. I said this to the owls, that I would continue on my way, and turned to continue running up the path. Next thing I knew, one of the owls had struck me very forcefully on the top of my head. Ouch! What a shock! It was a forceful blow, quite amazing considering these owls only weigh about four pounds.

Okay, okay, I get the message, I’m leaving! I thought. I continued to run up the path, and one of the owls swooped very close to my head again, though it didn’t strike me this time. It continued swooping in loops alongside me a few more times, until I came to the same bend in the road as the previous night. There the two owls perched, and watched as I left their territory. I paused to say goodbye, voicing the fact that I didn’t much like being struck that way, but still appreciated their presence.

As I continued up the next bit of trail, the full impact of what had happened sunk in. I began to cry as I ran. My head hurt, but what hurt more was my heart. I had been so open to the presence of the birds, feeling like it was a gift. I thought I was special, and that the encounter was proof that I have some kind of special connection with nature. I have longed for closeness with wild creatures, and the night before it had seemed this was what was happening. And also it had seemed a clear answer to a question I was holding. In previous times, when people were closer to the land, the land and her creatures were ensouled with meaning, and such encounters had significance. I had sought this significance myself, but in feeling physically hurt, it seemed all of this was wiped away. I was just a fool on a run, blundering through an owl’s territory, unwelcome. All of this wounded my pride, my identity, shook up my view of reality.

Suddenly I had more sympathy for people who feel frightened of nature. Perhaps this is what was most upsetting about the encounter (and also the gift, to understand how others feel). I have always felt nature is a friendly place, or at worst neutral. But it’s a place I have felt safe, and have trusted. This encounter shook that trust. I don’t know yet the full impact on me.

Suddenly, as I neared the bend, a great grey owl flew over my head! It wasn’t totally silent, otherwise I wouldn’t have heard it… It came to rest on a branch overhead, and I stopped to say hello and thank it for its presence. It was dusk, so I couldn’t see details clearly, but the owl seemed to be grey, rounded head (no visible ear tufts like the great horned owl), with lighter feathers at the bottom of the tail. The owl looked at me for a long time, and after a while it made a sound like FFFFFsh. and then I heard another sound behind me. I looked, but couldn’t see what had made the sound. Then I realized there was a second great grey owl behind me!

I hung out with them both for about 10 minutes. They flew around a bit, coming closer to me to get a better look! Silent, puffy flight, but noise hopping from a branch to a lower branch, and once or twice noise opening their wings. One time I looked at one and the other one flew away without me hearing a thing. But they seemed interested in me, flew to nearer branches, both looked at me. They also both flew at each other and dislocated the roosting one from a branch. It was such a wonderful gift!

For reasons which I can’t reveal here, it was obvious that nature was providing a very clear answer to the question about the chefs. Joe and Wahl absolutely must come and do the cooking next time! Grey owl said so! And I was thrilled both to have this magical encounter, and to have what I thought was a very clear answer to a question, for a change!

I dreamt I was in a forest, in a ravine with a wood log overhead that bridged the lower place. Suddenly a stream of animals started running by overhead—wild animals, like mountain goat, rabbit, maybe fox or coyote, deer… I didn’t see them all clearly, but felt it was a gift to see them so close. I wanted them to stay with me longer. (Remember the video I described in the post entitled Mixed media and more sex for the New Year? It had a very similar stream of animals, running from a forest fire. Amazing!)

Then I realized the animals must all be running from something, and the only thing it could be was a mountain lion. Then I saw the mountain lion. It was walking around coolly and calmly, and it was stalking me!

Now the mountain lion and I were in a more open space, by the ocean, near where the forest was. It was still forested, with some trees on a peninsula. The mountain lion was after me, but suddenly I was the mountain lion and it had changed into a man and I was taking huge bites out of his legs and chest. I sank my teeth in and the flesh bled—deep and big bites, but I didn’t bite all the way through or tear the flesh. It felt really good to sink my teeth in and bite like this. Wow!

When I woke and reflected on the dream, I remembered a dream I had back in 2007 when I first started working specifically with anger with a naturopath (after a short relationship ended because my anger scared the man I was involved with). In the earlier dream, I had gone to a doctor in a hospital for some healing, and she pulled a limp cougar out of a garbage can. She was going to use some of its life energy to heal me, but I knew it was a crime to keep the cougar half-dead and use its energy this way. (For more about this dream, see the blog entry Cougars: Spirit Guides on the Vision Fast.)

Now the mountain lion of my psyche is very robust, alive, and powerful. All are afraid of it, and it is me. I wonder if this is connected to the balls I claimed on the medicine walk, stepping into my masculine energy, power, and ability to look after myself. I am no longer stalked—I am the stalker. Bear in mind that this is not literal! But what I take from the dream is that like the cougar, I have stepped into my true nature more fully. It is in the cougar’s nature to bite its prey. And in the dream it was in its full power—no longer vampirized as a source of life energy.

I do feel the currents of this shift in my daily life. I feel a more consistent sense of having all the resources I need within me, accessible to me, available when needed. Together with this is a sense of completeness, so there are more elements of my nature available than just the strength or power—there is also love, compassion, contactfulness. The challenge, as always, is how to bring these gifts to my people. How to embody the qualities of my true nature as I act in the world.

In addition, my current task is still to keep working with the anger that arises from time to time. To know that it is not the deepest truth about who I am. To know that acting from an angry place will scare others and make them want to run from me, like the animals fleeing from the cougar in the dream. To temper the power and strength with compassion for others. I have finally come to see, somewhat reluctantly, that speaking or acting from the angry place is just not constructive. There are more skillful means available to me. I will keep you posted about how well I learn to wield them! I am still learning the difference between assertive and aggressive.

I start a new technical writing contract on Monday, and I pray that I handle any opportunities for learning that may arise with skill and grace.

I’m answering you as a blog entry rather than a comment, so I can include photos. I’ve puzzled over the pictures you sent me of marks on a tree, as well as the details about measurements and known wildlife in your area. I also consulted with an expert woodswoman.

The width of the marks you found is within the range possible for cougars (3.5 to 4.8 inches) or bear (3.75 to 5.5 inches). Cougars would likely only show four claw marks together, as their fifth claw, like a domestic cat, is located separately and further back from the four front claws. Bears can show five claws, but, especially in the case of black bears, the fifth one is usually faint.

However, the real deciding factor was the regularity of the marks (as in the photo to the left). I believe that a wild animal would not make such regular marks (12 sets, separate from each other), and the lines would not be so even and parallel. Also, I think the animal would not scratch upwards, as were the marks shown in one of your photos (shown above).

I’m including a photo of bear marks, which shows that the path of the mark is less regular, and has only four claw marks. The curved lines are more typical of the natural arm movement of a bear.

The second photo is of cougar marks, and you can see the lines are very thin, and there is a lot of overlap as the cougar scratched repeatedly in the same spot.

So the conclusion I have reached is that the marks on the main tree you found were made by humans. The expert woodswoman I consulted thought some of the marks might have been made using an axe. However, the other marks you found on a different tree were less regular and could have been made by a cougar or bear. Thanks very much for writing and sharing this puzzle with me and the other readers on this blog!

It must have been a repeat of what my friend Munro saw near here earlier in the summer, because I could hear and see some of the cubs scrabbling up a tree. The mama bear made a lot of huffing noises, telling me to clear out! I watched for a few more seconds, then got the bait from the barn. I peeked out the barn window, trying to see the bears up the hill, but I could only see trees. When I went back outside into the clearing where I’d first seen the bears, I could still hear mama bear huffing at me. So I retreated back to the house. I could even hear her huffing from the back deck outside my bedroom while I was doing my post-run yoga, and now and then the sound of a cub climbing around in the tree as dusk came down the hill.

It was such a wonderful surprise, and I’ve been looking forward to writing and sharing it with you, dear blog readers. The next day I went over there and I found a lot of disturbed earth under the tree I think the cubs went up. I’d seen one climb up to the very top of a tall fir (maybe 60 feet tall?). I couldn’t see any scratch marks, probably because there were so many branches that they could use for climbing. But I did find a big pile of bear poo in front of the barn, as well as the several piles I’d seen before on the road! So this solved the mystery of the big poo and the little poo. Clearly there was a big mama bear and some little baby bears pooping on my road!

As I’ve mentioned before, bears are associated with the west part of the wheel, and a sign of the fall. The fall equinox is next Tuesday, so this visit might be a precursor to the coming of fall. But it was also the 9th anniversary of the death of my father, and I think that he might have sent these bears as a treat for me. I just completed the final installation of my cell phone power booster the day before, and received four wonderful phone calls this day too. What a magical day. A lot of love and support from the universe, from family, friends, bears, and hot guys! Thanks, Dad. May your spirit be at peace.

Okay, you’re probably thinking I’ve totally flipped out, if you didn’t already think this after some of my previous entries about mouse turds, including “The mystery of the dead animal in my living room,” and the moving song “Blue turd on my window sill.”

But the fact is, being close to nature means being close to the full cycle of natural processes, which mostly involve birth, eating, eliminating, reproduction, and death. And when you spend time in nature, the signs of the elimination process are all around. Yesterday, when I was out for a run at Monkey Valley, I came across some magnificent signs of bear elimination. Call me crazy if you want, but I love finding bear scat. I found two piles, and one was a lot larger than the other, which might indicate that two bears of different sizes have been in the vicinity. Or maybe it was the same bear, having a big poop and then a little poop after. I noticed that both piles had undigested rose hips in them, which indicates the furry creature has been attracted to the bright red seed pods, which seem remarkably red and vibrant this year.

But what does this have to do with you, and specifically, with you pooping in the woods? One of the questions people who have never been on a vision fast ask is how to handle this basic biological function. Obviously, when you’re out in the wild on your solo, there won’t be a flush toilet, and not even an outhouse. This means you have the wonderful opportunity to experience what your ancestors did. Poop in the woods! Or in the desert, as the case may be…

We like to practice no-trace camping as part of our honouring of the land during the vision fast. This means packing out your TP, and covering the signs of any biological waste you might be leaving behind. So dig a shallow hole, and when you’re finished your elimination process, cover the hole with leaves and dirt. If there are rocks in the area where you are fasting, you can put a rock over the little pile to mark it, so that you know not to dig in that same spot again.

There is an ancient familiarity about squatting outside to perform this everyday function. The position is actually more comfortable for our body than a toilet, though if you’re out of shape it can be a strain on the quadriceps at first. Women out on a fast will get a lot more practice with this than men, learning to squat and pee too, without peeing on clothing or shoes. That’s a practice you will have a chance to master during your fasting time, especially if you drink the recommended amount of water!

A final note about biological processes for women out on a fast. It often happens that women’s cycles shift when out in nature, and your moon time might come while you are on your fast. We recommend bringing the supplies you’ll need in case this does happen. Pack the used supplies out with you, along with your TP. If you’re in bear country, you might want to keep your used supplies in a plastic bag some distance from your sleeping place, and use water and a bandanna or disposable wipes to keep clean. Or moss, if you’re in the woods.

Having your moon time while on a fast can deepen your connection with the sacred in nature, and help you feel part of the natural cycles of nature. Perhaps you will be inspired to create a ceremony to honour your moon time, bleeding directly onto the earth or making an offering of your blood in a ceremonial way.

Being out on the land during the vision fast, attending to our natural biological processes in ways that are more like the way our ancestors did, connects us to the 120,000+ life times of the human race, and helps us know that we are not alone. While our single life is finite, we are connected to a powerful, enduring life force through our human and pre-human gene pool. This is something that pooping in the woods can teach us.

What happened was my mom, sister, and I were at the ranch for the first time since winter, celebrating my mom’s birthday. I noticed some droppings near the house that looked like horse apples. Round, dry droppings, all around the outhouse and near the steps to my back deck. So we tracked the droppings, following them south down the valley. There were lots of droppings, making it seem that a small herd spent the winter here.

Finally, near the south end of the valley we came upon the herd. It was cows. What, cows again!? The poor things had gotten locked in when I left Monkey Valley in December. They had managed to survive the winter by eating dried grass under trees, where the snow didn’t fall. Unlike horses, cows don’t know how to paw at the snow to get to the grass underneath. So it was very lucky that there wasn’t too much snow this winter, and the cows could find some grass to eat. And it was the dryness of their diet that made their droppings look like horse apples instead of cow pies. Yum, apple pie, anyone?

I called the Douglas Lake ranch, and my cowboy friend Steve came out with another cowboy the next day. They were rigged up on horseback, and they herded the four cows out the gate and up to a small pen they had erected on Dillard Road, where they gave the cows some hay. Once they were fed, they loaded three of the cows into a trailer. One cow, which my mom thought was the leader of the small herd, collapsed after she was fed, as if now that she’d led the herd to safety, she couldn’t take another step. It was fascinating to watch the cowboys use their horses and ropes to drag the last cow into the trailer. Even though all the cows were skinny from their sparse winter diet, that’s still a lot of weight!

I later learned from Steve that the downed cow gave birth within the next few days, and another cow did too. How lucky that they were rescued just in time! How lucky that my mom and sister and I went to Monkey Valley for my mom’s birthday!

Moose in the meadow

Last Saturday morning I was sitting on the porch having tea and brekkie, looking out over the creek now and then but mostly reading a good mystery novel. I heard some splashing sounds to my left, and looked up. Lo and behold, a young male moose emerged from the willows by the creek. He had fuzzy antlers, with about two prongs on each. What a wonderful surprise!

I watched him for about 10 minutes, as he meandered, chomping on willows, and slowly made his way to the other side of the valley. Now that’s a breakfast show! I had recently commented to a friend that the valley is perfect for moose, with a lot of water and willows, and I was surprised I didn’t see them more often. Now here one was!

Deer and chipmunks entertain more often

The next day a deer was browsing through the meadow while I ate my breakfast on the porch. Nice! And then Donald and I were entertained by a little chipmunk eating flowers for breakfast, tail twitching, at the other end of the porch.

Power booster woes

The day after that was a Monday, and I needed to go to Kamloops yet again, for some more cable. I was still troubleshooting the power booster for the cell phone, working out the glitches. It turned out last time the connector in one end of the cable that connected to the indoor dome antenna got gibbled, and the copper wire wasn’t meeting the part where it is supposed to pass the signal into the power booster. It took a trip to Kamloops to figure this one out, and get a new connecter put on. Then I realized the connector on the cable from the roof antenna was also gibbled, and not meeting with the power antenna. I stripped the wire and inserted the bare copper into the power booster, just to see if it would work. This is when I finally discovered that the distance from the inside antenna to the outside antenna wasn’t long enough. Previously, the lights on the power booster always showed green (even when they weren’t getting a signal, which is not how it is supposed to work according to the manual). Now that I had both antennas firmly connected to the power booster, both lights were red. This meant another trip to Kamloops to get a longer length of cable.

I tried three places in Merritt, but none of them carry this type of cable. So on Monday, I went to Kamloops (for about the fifth or sixth time, at a four hour round trip each time). I got 30 feet of RG58 cable. The kind people at Walco Radio put new connectors on, and also gave me some connectors for the cable from the outside antenna. Steve even showed me how to put the connector on, step by step, and sold me a tool to use to do it. I have learned more than I would have though possible from this odyssey into power booster installation. Most people just take it home, plug the ends together, and it works! Those poor saps never get to learn a thing…

Lightning and thunder and forest fires, oh my!

So anyway, I drove home Monday, arriving home in a rain storm at about 7:30 PM. As I was driving down the last hill before my house I noticed puffs of white on the hillside across the creek. Streaming smoke was coming out of the forest. I’d seen a few flashes of lightning as I was driving home, and figured one must have struck here and started a fire. Yikes!

My first thought was to grab Donald and my laptop and get out of there. But even before that, I stopped right there on the road and called 911 to report the fire. They gave me the number to call, but I couldn’t get through. The message said there were high call volumes due to the large number of forest fires, and to call back later.

So I called my sister Kim to let her know I might be in imminent danger, drove to the house, and got Donald and the laptop, all the while checking on the fire. It didn’t seem to be getting bigger but it wasn’t getting smaller either. It was between 500 and 1000 metres from the house, at the north end of the valley, and if it spread it would cut off the road access to the house, trapping me there. So I figured I’d better spend the night in a motel in Merritt, just to be on the safe side. I decided I had a bit of time, since the fire wasn’t moving towards the house. So I went through the house, gathering up more stuff that I would want if the house burned to the ground. My camping gear. Some family photos. My favourite knife from Cutco, which my sister Kirsten sold me years ago. My grandma’s silverware. And yes, the power booster and all its related parts. If the house burned down I was going to get my money back!

So about an hour later Donald and I left Monkey Valley. As we drove past the fire in the darkness I saw flames amidst the trees, which I had been unable to see earlier. I stopped at the Kentucky-Alleyne campground to let the attendant there know about the fire. Once I got out to Highway 5A I was able to get through to the forest fire line (*5555) and reported the fire. A little while later someone from the Merritt fire fighting department called me back, and said he would send a crew out first thing in the morning.

The next morning at about 8:30 he called me at the motel and said they’d sent out a helicopter with two guys and some firefighting equipment. Another two guys drove in by truck. They were using a bucket to get water from a nearby lake (via the chopper) and would probably finish by noon. So it was safe to go home.

I got home that afternoon, and another storm was underway, sending down buckets of water, with lots of thunder and lightning. Donald and I sat on the porch under cover, enjoying the storm. And once the rain stopped, I ate dinner on the porch and watched another two helicopters haul buckets of water south of Monkey Valley, near Missezula Lake. They went back and forth for about an hour, fighting another fire nearby. What a dinner show!

Two days later, after another storm, I drove out of Monkey Valley to return to Vancouver. And what did I see but another forest fire on the hill south of Missezula Lake! Another call to *5555. Whew! I wonder what will happen next time at Monkey Valley!

Bizarre cat ladders

P.S. I just have to mention a blog I came across, devoted entirely to cat ladders! According to a related interview in the LA Weekly Art Blog, the Germans, Swiss, and Swedish folks are the most crazy about freedom for cats via architectural deformation in the form of bizarre cat ladders.

I felt awe and pleasure at this rare contact with Madame Moose, and continued on my run up the hill happily, keeping a lookout in case I saw her again. Sure enough, when I got up near the top gate I saw her up by the gate, and she saw me again too. I backed off a little, so she wouldn’t feel trapped or threatened, and then I thought I would take advantage of this opportunity to ask her a question.

“Should I sell Monkey Valley?” I asked her. I was feeling very discouraged about the amount of time I’d been spending on tending to the ranch this summer, and feeling burdened by it.

She said, “Don’t sell this land. Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Or as my brother-in-law Geoff Price told me, “Don’t sweat the petty stuff, don’t pet the sweaty stuff”!

Then she hopped the fence in a single stride. This seemed to confirm what she had said to me. To take the small stuff in stride.

A note to the poster who claimed to see a dead moose caught in the barbed wire fence on my south fence line: Not! The fence has been there thirty-plus years, and the moose and deer all know where it is. As I saw with my own eyes, these magnificent ungulates take such things in their stride.

I have not been so equanimous, and decided to probe the universe’s plans for me by putting Monkey Valley on the market, in spite of the moose’s advice (or, if you prefer, my own inner guidance as prompted by the moose encounter). I am feeling the call to have more freedom in my life, and keeping two homes has been feeling like a burden. Much as I love the quiet and privacy of Monkey Valley, I feel a stronger pull to the city, and it is a strain to keep both going. So I’m going to see what happens. If the place sells before snow flies, I will take that as a sure sign it is time to move on to new pastures. If it doesn’t sell, I’ll keep Monkey Valley and make a new plan.

In either case, I will continue to offer vision fasts. Either at Monkey Valley, or on the land near Monkey Valley.

Last week I spoke to Heidi Walsh at the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve, and asked her what was going on with the trail. She immediately allayed my fears that it would be opened to public vehicles. The reason the trail had been widened so much in some places, including cutting down trees, was that the bridge replacement project requires it temporarily (no comfort to the felled trees, I’m sure). The 50-foot sections of bridge they will be trucking in necessitate that the road be widened in some of the turns. But afterwards they will be rehabilitating the road as much as possible, planting at the road sides to make it narrower again. She acknowledged that the current state of the road was a bit over the top! (That is, a wide, white gravelled, ugly expanse where there used to be a quaint mountain trail.) I was really glad to learn that the planners of this project were sensitive to the aesthetics of the trail and would try to return it to its previous state. Plus very relieved that a bunch of cars would not be coming to pollute the crystal mountain air with exhaust fumes!

Heidi also told me that they were going to cut down three more trees, but the trees contained nests so they were waiting until the nesting season was over. Wow, that’s great! That they are waiting, I mean. And aware, and concerned about the wild life. I also found out that these trees are small deciduous trees, not the two majestic pines that I visit at the Homestead trailhead. Whew!

I am so glad I made that phone call. My worries and concerns about something that wasn’t actually going to happen (the destruction of a wild, peaceful place that I treasure) motivated me to make the call. And what I learned was that the Metro Vancouver planning folks are aware of the impact of their actions on the wilderness, and take care to minimize the effects, even to the extent of waiting until the young birds have fledged!

This makes me feel more hopeful about the future of our planet, and appreciative of my hometown of Vancouver. After all, this is the city that spawned Greenpeace, the David Suzuki Foundation, and Adbusters! My initial response of sadness, anxiety, and a desire to protect the bears led to a positive discovery about reality, people, and my city.

Good News for a Change, by David Suzuki and Holly Dressel, gives many inspiring stories of ways people care for our planet. If you would like to experience another positive outcome from a distressing situation, check out this hilarious video on You Tube:

Dave Carroll’s United Breaks Guitars