The Green Tortoise Part Vl

Travelers break into groups venturing off onto dangerously thin, snow-covered trails. These mountains hold a sad memory for me and I break free from my hiking group to find a warm, private spot on the rocky mountain for prayer and mediation.

Icy streams flow randomly down the mountains. Natural waterfalls form as pure glacier waters crash over boulders. Wild flowers vibrantly bloom excited that summer has arrived. Fresh prints in the soft mud show where hungry mountain goats, mule deer, marmots, coyotes, mountain lions, pronghorn antelope and big horned sheep snack on new growth single-leaf pinyon, Utah juniper, wild flowers. The air smells clean from the wild white sage native to the area. Black flies are persistent and abundant in these mountains. I find myself rhythmically slapping myself on the face, the back, an arm, a leg.

I take a moment and say a Native American prayer to the land.

Grandmother, Grandfather, Great Mystery, Spirit, Creation, I invite you to my prayer. To the four directions, to the east of new beginnings, the south of passion and creation, the west for peaceful endings, the north of strong foundation, and to the three unseen directions; above where Spirit lives, below on this sacred planet and within my being please join me in my prayer.

Oh Great Mysterious, I am a humble child of earth in gratitude of witnessing this beauty. May the mountain be kind to the foolish humans who mindlessly trample the beautiful flowers. Thank you for the black flies to remind me of staying here and now, in this moment of prayer, may my old cells provide nourishment for they are a part of these hills.

Oh Spirit, forgive my companions as they race up your sacred mountain disturbing the beauty you have provided. Please keep the coyotes and big horned sheep hidden so they do not foolishly approach. They are blind to the beauty that we are surrounded in and do not know the power of this sacred land. Forgive them.

Grandmother, thank you for this time and this place and this moment to share the beauty of this land. It is vast and I too have forgotten the power of this planet. Thank you for the reminder. May my actions be honest, truthful and for the highest good of all peoples, everywhere. Amen. Ashey. Namaste.

In silence I breathe in deeply and feel the land through my feet vibrating alive with the power of new growth, life, vitality. I am honored.

It is near the anniversary of the death of a beautiful little girl who went for a hike in these mountains with her father, lost her footing and fell hundreds of feet to her death. Her name was Kayla and her father was an experienced hiker who had taken his eight year old out into this wilderness many, many times.

It was a warm day and the three mile hike to Liberty Lake is slow going as loose rocks cause insecure footing for just about anybody. Anyone can slide on this trail and her father didn't see her slipping until it was too late. Today she'd be nearly seventeen years old, driving her father's old blue Chevy truck, chasing off boys for she was a natural beauty. I thank her spirit for being with me in the mountains. I feel her presence there on that boulder under the scorching sun and cry for the lost youth. How could the father have known that on that lovely Saturday afternoon he would be leading his beautiful daughter to her death? It is a question that stays with him for years. Today he still looks for answers alone, in bottomless bottles of bourbon.

The Ruby Mountains are not a big tourist attraction like Yosemite or Yellowstone. The people of Elko County like it that way too. They are outdoors men who appreciate the tourists stopping off of I-80 to spend a few hours in their casinos and fill their tanks, visit their shops and maybe have a bite to eat before heading right on out of town. They need the money the tourists provide. Cowboys come to Elko every month or so to freshen provisions, visit a brothel and eat platefuls of Basque food family-style at one of the three Basque restaurants. Over a hundred years ago, the Basque people left Spain at war with France in search of peace. Sheep herding and rumors of gold led them to this area and they have been here ever since.

I sat in silence in the warm sunshine placing my feet into cold mountain streams to cool off every so often. Each time I do so, I give another silent prayer of thanks for the cold water, the warm sun, the beautiful day. After a few hours I head down the mountain and out of the sun into a beautiful shady spot near a big, icy, growing stream that feeds the Humboldt River. I am thankful that eleven year old in our group fell earlier in the morning so the family would not hike these rugged paths. Just as I finish a silent prayer of gratitude, Donna (the girls' mother), her mother Val, and the two girls join me in my peaceful spot. I started painting the landscape in my watercolor journal I invite them to join me. As the children run to the stream to explore, I notice that Mackenzie has bled through her bandages. I over-heard that one of our fellow passengers Judy, an Australian woman in her mid-sixties, is a nurse and perhaps she can help with Mackenzie's injuries.

Donna leaves Val with the children to see if Judy is back from hiking and returns with the big red first-aid toolbox, packed with condoms, and Judy who has her own travel first-aid kit. Judy is an upbeat explorer who's life passion is to travel. She now works part-time and travels four to six months a year. After our Green Tortoise excursion she is headed deep into Central America for a sixty day rustic tour of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica.

"Naturally, I've been there before," she says candidly as we chat later on the bus. "I've been on every continent and visited nearly every country three times already. Now that I'm older I'm revisiting the places I really love, but there isn't that much time to do everything I want to do!" Judy books her travels three years in advance and working on her holiday for the year 2011.

Mackenzie is strong while Judy picks loose rocks out of her open wounds and makes a temporary bandage to stop the bleeding. "I think we had a store-stop coming up," Donna says. "And there I'll pick-up new bandages and make a donation to this worthless first-aid kit!"

"Well, it is an emergency when you don't have a condom." Val says. We nod in agreement. When Judy is finished with her project, Donna hands Mackenzie the candy bag she brought (which would circulate the bus many, many times) and tells her she can have as much as she wants...Melia too. The children select carefully and play with each other quietly as we sit in the beautiful spot by the stream.

To be continued...

So much love,
All the way from over here...
Linda