ENTS,
To my mind, the southern Appalachians
are one of the great
natural-scenic areas of our planet. There are so many splendid
places
that prioritizations are futile. Just pick a spot and go there.
Visitors
will find a multitude of reasons to return.
The following is an excerpt from the
Jani Book series, a two set
volume, still in draft form, that I have been writing in honor
of my
deceased wife Jani who died in December 2003. One section of the
book
deals with our travels and a sub-section covers the southern
Appalachians. The following excerpt is about a trip into
Linville Gorge
in the North Carolina Blue Ridge.
The Hotel in the Forest:
I once took Jani and an artist lady from
nearby Asheville on a trek
into the depths of the wild and scenic Linville Gorge. The
objective was
an off trail jaunt to show Jani and our friend a place of great
magic, a
spot on a small stream that lies hidden in a dense stand of
rhododendron. I chose the spot as one that I thought would evoke
our
friend’s imagination to explore the mystical side of old
growth
forests.
Our artist friend was a slightly built woman
in her mid-forties who
explained to us that she combined her artistic talents with her
passion
for trees in creative ways that blended Native American and
Celtic
leanings. She specifically wanted to visit some centuries old
trees that
she had read about in an article that I had written for the
Katuah
Journal, an environmental publication with a mix of apocalyptic
and
upbeat messages along with precise prescriptions for holistic
living.
Our trail in Linville started at the National
Park Service parking
lot and for a short distance wound its way through a dry upland
forest
of mixed hardwoods and conifers. The first stretch of the trail
gave
little hint of the luxuriance that lies deep within the gorge.
After
passing small, stunted trees with abundant fire scares, we began
our
descent into a wetter world. The trees were noticeably larger.
They
thrust their long trunks upward through a thick mist that is
common in
the mornings throughout the southern Mountains. The mist
imparted a
feeling of mysteriousness to the woodlands. It is a feeling that
often
accompanies fog or cloud-enshrouded forests.
We had not descended far into the gorge, when
I signaled to the
others that it was time to leave the safety of the trail and
follow a
small stream that crossed our path from a cove on the left. Our
artist
friend look both surprised and delighted as we bent low and
snaked our
way into what must have first appeared as an impenetrable tangle
of
rhododendron. Jani showed no surprise at all at my sudden plunge
into
the heath,. She had been down that trail with me many times
before and
often told friends that “Bob has never met a trail that he
liked.”
Once inside the green, the customary sounds
from the trail corridor
were quickly scattered. The lose of trail sounds happens so
quickly that
the change can be startling. Where does the cacophony of human
sounds
go? For me, deflection and absorption by leaves, stems, and mist
is a
gift directly from the forest gods. Looking at Jani and our
friend, good
riddance was my response as I chose to comfort them, but that
was not
needed as a new world opened up for all of us, one with a
luxuriance
that brought back memories of the jungles of Taiwan and the
Philippines,
especially of Jani’s and my two years on that tropical island
paradise
of Taiwan.
The going was slow as we twisted our bodies
over, under, and around
the entanglement of rhododendron. Southern mountaineers call
them laurel
hells. At the time, I suspect that our friend might have been
wondering
what she had committed herself to do, but soon we reached a
little spot
on the stream, the spot I was aiming for where a surprise
awaited Jani
and our friend. A large centuries-old black gum with alligator
bark
abruptly appeared from the mist. It captured the attention of
both
women. In our minds, we had surely entered the abode of hobbits,
fairies, and woodland elves. As I observed Jani and our friend
gazing at
the black gum, it was clear to me that I needed to silence my
urge to
lecture and let the spot work its magic.
Once the chatter of surface consciousness is hushed, in such
places,
one’s deeper imagination takes over and fantasizing becomes
the natural
process of a healthy mind. One imagines oneself in a woodland
filled
with magic far beyond the ordinary world left behind. For us, it
was as
though the rhododendron was a camouflaged curtain through which
we had
passed into a place where the creative side of our beings was
suddenly
released. Here the bonds of the materialistic world imbued with
its own
self-importance and determined to dominate the affairs of
mortals held
no sway. We had entered the world of imagination, of dreams.
We sat at the foot of the old black gum. I
estimated that it had seen
no fewer than half a millennia’s worth of annual cycles. Aware
of the
time, I arose and announced that there was more to see. We
continued. A
short distance from the gnarly blackgum, almost invisible in the
tangle
of heath, a huge, centuries-old tuliptree reared its shaggy
crown fully
130 feet above the dense entanglement below. We made our way
almost to
its base before the ladies saw it. Our artist friend squealed
with
delight. The great poplar looked wise, the forest’s voice of
experience.
Its hulking form was proof positive of how completely a curtain
of
rhododendron can conceal even the largest of objects. One’s
reaction to
suddenly stumbling upon such a great tree can be utter
amazement. Where
had it been hiding? But in such tangles of the resident heath
shrubs
that are more tree than shrub like, one’s horizon lies little
beyond an
outstretched arm.
On
encircling the tree, which was fully 16 feet around, we quickly
discovered that it had a hollow side, home to many small mammals
including interior forest bats, to countless insects. High
above, this
old monarch of the cove played host to numerous, vocal avian
friends.
Neo-tropical migratory songbirds sat on its huge extended limbs
and
announced the boundaries of their territories. We could see
ferns and
mosses and even saplings growing in the forks of its branches
fully 90
feet above the forest floor. The old tuliptree was literally a
hotel in
the forest, a place of rest for those passing through, and a
permanent
abode for many a local critter. I don’t know how old the tree
was –
perhaps three centuries, but old enough. It was a forest elder,
an Ent.
On circling the great tree, all three of our
imaginations went into
high gear. Our artist friend admitted to being carried away with
visual
imagery of Merlin-like beings. I watched her scan and rescan the
tree
from roots to crown with first an intense look, a fixation,
followed by
a softness. She was allowing the myriad of forms and shapes to
register
in her subconscious, to drink in the elixir that only an
old-growth
forest provides. One day the impressions she was forming from
this brief
encounter would combine force, and channeled by her artistic
predilections, burst forth in splashing color on canvas. Others,
leisurely strolling by her creations in tame settings would look
and
maybe be drawn into the painting’s labyrinth of emotional
pathways of
which they had little awareness, and in a distant way, feed the
river of
thought that would wind its way back to that hidden spot in the
rhododendrons, reinforcing some psychic pathway that forms part
of the
connections shared by all living things. In her creation, our
artist
friend would have fulfilled her mission of transformation.
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