Blessed Rain

Hemlock Hole, April 2010

All summer, the water level in Sideling Hill Creek has been creeping down.  This is in accordance with the creek's annual cycle, which starts with the spring floods and ends with the winter freeze.  This year started out like the others I have seen at Four Quarters Farm:  in April, frigid water rushed past us as we rebuilt the steps to Hemlock Hole, deep enough that canoeists could navigate the rapids.

By July, the water level had dropped significantly:  you have seen my photographs of the dry creek bed as I took advantage of the lack of water to explore the geology of the Land.  The flow of the creek was reduced to a trickle, rendering Hemlock Hole a foul, stagnant pool; by the middle of September even a swim in Stoneledge Hole left me smelling like a pond.  

Emily's Photo of the Dry Creek Bed
24 September 2010

You know you're really connected to a place when you welcome the news of a huge rain storm by rushing out to your campsite a day early so that you can be there to witness it.  I had enjoyed exploring the areas of the creek that had previously been unaccessible, but the Land ached for the renewal that could only be brought by rain.  

The rain started a little later than predicted, which provided me with the time I needed to install the wood stove into our new tent, bring in wood, batten down the hatches, and enjoy dinner at the Farmhouse.  While the first droplets struck the tent, I fired up the wood stove, lit my lanterns, and settled in for the duration.  

I spent Thursday in my tent, dry, warm and happily painting.  Periodically my curiosity would get the better of me and I would venture out to see how the creek was faring--and get really, really wet.

The transformation was gradual.  At first the creek looked mostly unchanged; then a trickle of water began to flow in the area we had tried to clear back in July.  But Friday morning I walked out to Hemlock Hole and heard a sound I had not heard since the Spring:  running water.

Running water!  I sat on the bench above the water and closed my eyes.  I had not realized how I had missed that sound, how its absence had left a void in my summertime experience.  

The Same Portion of the Creek
as Above,  1 October 2010

It gave me hope.

The Same Portion of Hemlock Hole
from the April Photo
 30 September 2010
No Canoes Here

Hope is important to me in the autumn, a time of year that I anticipate with both dread and eagerness.  While I love its clear, crisp days and cooler nights, the beautiful leaves, the smell of apples and the sight of fields dotted with pumpkins, I have not looked forward to winter since I was in grade school.  Snow is pretty, but I do not like shoveling or driving in it.  I'm not a fan of walking the dogs in 90 degree heat, but I'll take that over walking them in 34 degree slush.  (Incidentally, the dogs don't care!)  Long about February, my husband starts desperately looking for someplace warm and sunny to take me before I implode.  By late March I am watching the long range forecasts, and the moment I see a promising stretch of weather, I am on the road to Four Quarters to set up my campsite, and when I arrive out there I will hear the rushing water of the creek speaking to me of the spring floods.

Same View as Above
1 October 2010

And here I was, in early October, hearing those waters speaking to me of renewal from the drought and reminding me that the cycle is endless.  The creek will be there waiting for me when I return in the spring.  

Though the steps you saw us building at the top of the page probably won't be...as Orren gruffly says, "The creek is the creek."

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Imagining Being in the Woods while Sitting in a Hotel

Before launching into this first blog, I shall set the stage for you:

It is just after 8AM on the Wednesday after Labor Day.  I am sitting with my English Springer Spaniels on the carpeted floor of my living room in the coal region of Pennsylvania with ABC news playing.  My sixteen year old daughter is at the dining room table experiencing the miracles of modern schooling in her virtual algebra class with the PA Cyber Charter School.  The windows are open, admitting a fine breeze whose coolness belies the 90 and 100 degree weather we endured last week out at Four Quarters Farm.  I just got home yesterday:  I am thinking about the daunting task of unloading my van and cleaning out my storage shed so that there is room for my vending equipment; I feel fit; I look tanned; I have a broken toe and a spectacular case of poison ivy.

Thus endeth my working vacation.

  I was raised loving the outdoors.   I am convinced that my late father was an incarnation of the Green Man:  through him I overcame my childish squeamishness about dirt, worms, stinging caterpillars, swamps, mud, bugs and snakes.  Seeing Saturn or Jupiter and its Galilean moons became much more important than being eaten alive by mosquitos or coming inside half-frozen because the universe was huge and endlessly fascinating, and my little problems could be solved with Bactine or Mom's hot chocolate.  I learned that tramping through the dirt was a much more desirable activity than tramping through the malls that were becoming so popular during my youth, and that there was more value in finding interesting rocks than in finding a great sale at the department store.  Dad was a birder:  he was always looking up.  Having been collecting rocks and minerals since I was 4, I was always looking down, and in areas where there were no rocks there were always other treasures like wildflowers and fungi.  I just had to keep my eyes open.

Most people dread thinking about their teenage years:  I think of mine as idyllic.  I was outside much of the time, reading, drawing, writing, dreaming.  I read Tolkien and imagined that the nearby woods were occupied by Elves and Hobbits and wizards.

After high school I moved to Philadelphia so that I could attend the University of Pennsylvania.  I loved the city, but was always glad to go home to what at the time were the far western Philly suburbs and sit on the porch at night and see the stars.  But over time I became disillusioned with my old haunts as new people moved in and the woods where we found the Pink Lady's Slipper orchids and stinging Saddleback Slug succumbed to the unfortunate tide of McMansions that swept over the landscape beginning in the mid-1980s.  Woodland Dad and I had explored became PRIVATE PROPERTY with manicured lawns and driveways.  I was no longer home.

I figured it was time to "grow up".

I spent the following years in places that were, at least in terms of development--if not population-- entirely too civilized.  I became cosmopolitan:  my burgeoning art business took me to science fiction conventions in hotels in various cities, and there I drew portraits of people as Klingons gazing out at the stars, and wizards in magical woodlands.  In my Fantasy Portraits I drew people and their visions of nebulas or galaxies or mountains or trees or sweeping plains, but we sat in hotel air, getting hotel cough, eating hotel food and sleeping in hotel beds.

In late 2005 my sister Hollie finally succeeded in getting me to accompany her to Four Quarters Farm www.4qf.org ostensibly to help her close out her campsite.  I had, I felt, endured at least a year of her tales of the wonders of this place (ordinarily if someone says I "have" to see or do or try something I do exactly the opposite--must be that Badger thing) so I agreed to go out with her.

The day dawned cool and crystal clear as we drove south on I-81.  I love traveling early in the day, and we listened to our favorite music and sang along as the miles rolled by.  By the time we reached Hagerstown, Maryland, the day had become warm:  we had to shed several of our carefully-planned layers of clothing.

View From the Labyrinth

Four Quarters lies off of I-68 (conveniently, it happens, at exit 68).  To reach the farm, we traversed a number of country roads over hill and dale, and by the time we reached the dirt and gravel driveway I was absolutely certain that I would never--even with GPS-- find the place again (I later learned that GPS in fact does NOT get you all the way there).  As we drove up to the farmhouse, I began to understand Hollie's attraction to the place:  I experienced that overwhelming feeling that I had finally arrived home, which only increased as we passed the labyrinth, stone circle, vendors' meadow, kitchen and picnic tables, and entered the campground proper.  By the time we reached Hollie's campsite, I was hooked.

The Mother Stone

Perhaps in a future blog I will discuss the happenings of that weekend, the people I met and the things we did, but that's not really the thrust of this story.  Suddenly I was Outside again, in the deep woods, in a place that was decidedly wild, where the stars were not dimmed by street lights and members lived in tents rather than McMansions--although some of the campsite setups were decidedly palatial!

I became a promoting member of Four Quarters; I got myself an EZ Up; I became an Outdoor Vendor.  In the intervening years my business has undergone a remarkable transformation:  instead of being mostly done in hotels it is now mostly conducted outdoors.  The number of portraits I have done has dwindled and I often call them Spiritual Path Portraits now.  I have instead a series of paintings that cover many spiritual subjects http://badgersoph.deviantart.com.  I have been rained on, subjected to wild wind, and been sent diving for cover in thunderstorms.   I have had relationships come and go.  I have camped in brutal heat and teeth-chattering cold.  I have walked the creek bed and seen the Great Blue Heron; I have paddled around in the swimming hole and done battle with the Nibbly Fish and yellow jackets; I have picked out the songs of the owls late at night and loved every moment of it.

I have put down roots in this place.

Panoramic view of the Stone Circle at Four Quarters Farm

The Author
Photo by Pete Muench

Labor Day weekend is reserved for Stones Rising, a festival in which the community (i.e., those who show up; you don't have to be a member to participate) gathers to pull and raise megaliths in a tradition that will eventually produce a circle of standing stones.  My visceral description of this activity goes  something like this:  "It is the coolest damned thing you will ever do!  Even when you don't like working in groups you will find yourself working in one way or another!  I would rather cut off a limb than miss this event!"  More specifically, people at Four Quarters have, over the years, succeeded in pulling and erecting over 40 stones, some tilting the scale at over 14,000 pounds.  The entire event is centered on community, but before you balk at attending the definition of "community" here is fluid, and includes all who show up.  Newcomers are treated as much like family as five-year members like myself or those who have been there since the beginning.  And there you are, pulling or drumming or cooking or bringing water to the workers or witnessing or (like me) directing traffic--you find your focus shift from the noisy outside world to the core of who you are.   This is, as the cliche goes, "what it's all about."

On my way home from Four Quarters yesterday, I talked to my very good friend Beth, who with my other very good friend Beth had gone to Dragon Con in Atlanta.   She described to me the guest panels, the autographs, the photo ops with guests, the myriad people and activities, the shopping, the food, the fun...and I was really happy that she had had such a good time.  I don't look down on the convention scene, but I also realized that I was grateful to have spent the same time period in the woods helping to pull and raise two megaliths, taking part in ceremony, swimming in the swimming hole, socializing at the Coffee Dragon's, or just sitting out in front of my booth at night listening to the drum circle, looking up at the stars and talking with anyone who happened by over a bottle of mead.

Last weekend, a friend remarked to me that she knew people who tried to attune their spirituality while sitting in hotel rooms imagining being in the woods.  As I wrote this blog I realized that, for a long time, I too--along with many of my customers--had been doing the same thing.  I sat in hotels drawing the woods and mountains and starfields of which my customers dreamed.  I sat in my studio, drawing the forest.

Now things are different:  I walk the woods, and when I am not there, I carry them in my heart.

There is Treasure Everywhere

Sideling Hill Creek, downstream from Hemlock Hole

We spend a lot of time looking out, up, or straight ahead.  When we're driving we (hopefully) look at the road and the other vehicles around us; we look up at the clouds to see if it's going to rain; we look out at the landscape, at mountains or lakes or vast sweeping plains, perhaps searching for a landmark, perhaps simply enjoying the view.

Without a doubt, looking up is what makes folks who are geologically inclined among the worst drivers on the road,  providing stiff competition for the people who send and receive text messages while driving.  Example:  Me:  "Look at that road cut!"  My daughter:  "LOOK AT THE ROAD!!!"

I can see it now:  the straight-laced state trooper peers at me through his mirrored dark glasses.  "Ma'am, can I see your license and registration?  No, you weren't going over the limit, but high-speed stratigraphy has been outlawed in this state.  You'll appreciate that outcrop better if you're standing still."

As I mentioned in my previous blog,  my passion for rockhounding led me to look down, which led in turn to my appreciation for fungi and wildflowers.  My habit of looking down is also, relatively speaking, safer for myself and those around me:  I tend to not step on bees or other interesting insects and, despite what you may think, I manage to avoid MOST of the poison ivy that adorns the woods of south-central Pennsylvania.

Mist on Hemlock Hole
 Late August
2009

Sideling Hill Creek http://www.sidelinghillwatershed.org/wprofile.html runs through Four Quarters Farm.  www.4qf.org   Like much of the landscape at Four Quarters, the creek is wildly beautiful, running past high cliffs formed from steeply tilted beds of "old red" Upper Devonian Catskill Formation sandstones.

Tourists!
Boaters at Hemlock Hole
 During Reconstruction of the Steps
in April 2010

In the spring, the currents are brisk (spring floods in Sideling Hill Creek are legendary).  For most of the season, campers cool off in the sublimely clear waters of two major swimming holes and a number of smaller pools, but about the middle of August the water level starts to drop, limiting the number of places that one can (or would want to) swim.  This year the water level began dropping markedly in July; by mid-August long stretches of the creek bed became so dry as to be able to serve as a path.

Looking Downstream
 from the Hemlock Hole.
Taken from the Middle
of Sideling Hill Creek
 in August 2010

Previously I had only walked the creek via a trail running from the camp to the farmhouse.  I began a series of explorations, either alone or accompanied by anyone who was inclined to tag along, including photographers, longtime members, and even newcomers.

According to John Harper, who wrote the chapter on the Devonian in The Geology of Pennsylvania, Sideling Hill Creek and its predecessor streams have been cutting through Sideling Hill and associated landforms for about 290 million years. To put this into perspective, the events that raised the Appalachian Mountains occurred about 300 million years ago--a mere 10 million years before.  That sounds like a lot but in the context of the 4.5 billion year history of our planet, it's not.  Really.  In fact, it means that the creek was probably already there when the continent-continent collision that produced the southern Appalachians took place, and that the water started cutting into the rock pretty much as soon as the rock started rising.  Note:  the first appearance of Homo sapiens sapiens is a by comparison only 195,000 years ago.  Sideling Hill Creek is REALLY old.  Okay, not as old as the Susquehanna, but pretty damned old.

Undercut Sedimentary Bed, Sideling Hill Creek
August 2009

Walking downstream the cliffs, layered in pinkish brick red and pale green, rise high to your left.  Certain beds seem to attract moss and lichen; others do not.  Some beds are shot through with quartz veins; others have evidence of fossils.  The stream's meandering power is strongly evident as well:  less resistant beds have been cut deep back into the hillside, and you may find flood debris lodged in tree branches 7 feet off the ground.

Last summer I became fascinated by how Sideling Hill Creek seemed to cross cut some of the rock beds; this summer I was able to make more detailed observations of the bedrock that ordinarily lies underwater.  Some of this rock is very dark, seems much more resistant to erosion than other layers of the formation, and is pocked with craters, of which a number have worn straight through to become holes.  In the picture below you will observe (especially at the left) the layers of rock plunging into the ground.  I am still working out in my head how the creek came to be cutting across these beds instead of following them.

Panoramic View of Quartz Arenite Beds in Sideling Hill Creek
August 2010

These stones had already gotten my attention:  holed stones are considered sacred in many spiritual traditions, and over the years I have amassed quite a collection from a number of locations.  In my time at Four Quarters I had collected a number of these rocks further upstream, but had puzzled over their origin:  the rock was very hard and well-integrated like a quartzite, but quartzite was not a part of this sedimentary sequence.  I posited that the parent rock had originally been a beach or lagoon bottom, and the holes belonged to ancient burrowing creatures, but how this worked into a quartzite I didn't know.

During our conversation John Harper filled the gap for me, identifying this rock as quartz arenite, an extremely well cemented sandstone, and the fossil worm holes as Skolithos.   Not to worry:  knowing their name does not in any way diminish my fascination with them.

 Remember, when you're looking down, rocks are not the only thing you'll see:

Red-spotted Purple
Limenitis arthemis astyanax

This past week was the Week of the Voguing Butterflies.  Everytime I turned  around there was a butterfly in front of me, wings outspread as if to say, "I'm ready for my close up!"

Red Admiral Butterfly

Unsurprisingly there is also a fair amount of debris from floods on the numerous islands in the middle of the creek bed.  I found cobbles deposited in layers, their size a testament to the fury with which Sideling Hill Creek has flooded in the past.  I ran across the remains of campsites that had been carried off, either in the spring floods, during a hurricane or summertime flash flood.

And that is--I think--how Ganesh came to me.

Sometimes, when the weather is especially fine, I like to go on walkabout before I head out from the Farm,  to take pictures and--wait for it--look for rocks.  On this particular occasion, armed with camera, tripod, and walking stick I set off down the path past the Fox Altar.  I found a worn trail down to the creek bed, and spent the next hour wandering idly taking pictures of places I could not have reached earlier this spring.

I was about to turn back when something oddly un-rocklike caught my eye.  Before me lay an oxidized metal plaque:   an elephant-headed god superimposed on the symbol for the sacred sound OM.  I don't follow the Hindu gods, but I know one when I see one, and this was Ganesh, who is god of good fortune, of teachers and learning.  It is from his trunk that the OM emanates.

I could not believe my eyes.

The Ganesh Plaque
Above the Arch
Altar of Things Found

Reaction has been universal:  finding Ganesh in this fashion is considered to be extremely good luck.  I took him home and cleaned him up, then brought him back to hang over the altar at the entrance to my campsite.

SO...

I hiked the creek bed trying to find understanding,

find rocks,

take pictures,

and got the spiritual pot of gold.



There is treasure everywhere.