The mission of H.O.P.E. is to turn the prow of our entropyship, the Earth, back upstream so that Earth's evolving consciousness may explore the headwaters of the Universe for billions of years to come. The work of H.O.P.E. is to make visible the larger relationships we live within - relationships that inspire visions of wonder and works of hope.

I delayed this issue a few weeks, hoping I would be able to announce that the California State Board of Education granted us a charter to operate Chrysalis as a charter school. They did so on May 9. Chrysalis will be, in part, a place to research how to educate children using the natural systems right around one as a major teacher. I could write for pages about what a great idea I think Chrysalis is and what an exciting possibility it represents - but the more important issue is "does it work?" It will take several months before we know whether Chrysalis is working like we hoped so I prefer waiting until Chrysalis is a functioning reality before I describe it in more detail.

Chrysalis has dominated our lives the last few months so I haven't spent much time on "Cairns". I was intending to write about the next scientific revolution being the emergence from ecology of morality as a scientific reality. But not this issue. So instead I am sharing with you a story I've written that I've always thought of as Shifting for high schoolers. It is a story I love and some other people like too but other people don't. I have been unsuccessful in finding a publisher for it so I am open to the idea that something is wrong with it (though I can't see it). Therefore I would welcome editorial suggestions from any of you on how to make it into a better story. On the other hand, if you like it and have contact with someone in the publishing industry, you are welcome to show it to them for consideration.

    Sometimes my life path has led me through places so enshrouded in landmark-obscuring fog that I can lose my way. At such times, I remember the hike that began with keeping a promise to myself.
All through my summer as a naturalist at Denali National Park, I had planned on taking the Alaska Ferry back south at the end of the season. When I inquired of park visitors who had taken the ferry, those who had sailed during good weather reported spectacular beauty. But most people had sailed during the cloudy, rainy weather typical for this region. They had a damp feeling about a trip that had lasted longer than the novelty.
    I prided myself on being free from a car that forced its owner to sail according to the car's reservation. Foot passengers had the freedom of getting on and off whenever they wanted. Therefore I made a promise to myself that I would not get on the ferry until the weather was clear.
    Such future resolves are easy to make. I derived much self-satisfied pleasure throughout the summer knowing that I would sail when the weather was clear. And so it was when I arrived in Haines the day before the ferry would arrive. After a summer in the Alaskan interior where the trees grow only twenty feet tall, I crossed over a pass and descended into a magnificent coastal rain forest of towering trees. I sat beside a river that ran clear, whose surface rippled with hundreds of salmon swimming upstream just a few inches below the surface. Salmon predators surrounded me. Just offshore, where the river flowed into the sea, bobbing seals blockaded the entrance to the river. Mergansers patrolled up and down the river for fish. Bald eagles flew overhead. Gulls feasted on spent salmon that had drifted into the shallows.
    Later, I walked up the road along the river and came upon a miles long lake resting within an enormous U-shaped valley. Mountains rising three and four thousand feet framed the lake. The air was as calm as the smooth lake. The only motion was an occasional bald eagle soaring over the lake. A slight mist caused the distant shore to recede into enchantment. I felt that if I were to canoe across that lake, I would land in some Alaskan version of Camelot.
    That night, in a campground beside the lake, I went to sleep delighted at how easy it was going to be to keep my promise.

    I woke to cloudy skies. The next ferry would not come for another two days. Two cloudy...possibly rainy...days stuck in a campground. And at the end of two soggy days, it might still be cloudy for more days or weeks.
    I decided to modify my vow. After all, the clouds were only high, thin clouds. The world was shaded but I could still see the mountain peaks. I began packing to catch the ferry at two.
    But the clouds lowered and thickened until there could be no bending of the vow. Either I kept my promise and gave up an unknown portion of my life to sit around in gloomy weather, waiting for the sky to clear, or else I got on the ferry and headed home.
    Making bold promises is so easy. But keeping a promise often comes down to something unpleasant like sitting around in a soggy campground. Making resolutions is a lot easier (and more fun) than keeping them.
    A person can't keep every idle fantasy. One has to sort out those promises that are important from those that are fluff. And this ferry one was surely one of the fluffier promises that didnít really matter...not really. Getting on the ferry was so clearly the logical thing to do that I would never have to apologize for it or explain it to others. The only difference in my life would be getting off the ferry and getting on with my life two days earlier. The only things missing would be two or more days in a soggy campground.
    And yet I knew my heart was keeping track of whether my promises led to anything. This promise was more well considered than the usual fantasies and it was founded on something important to my self-image: the foot-passenger-like freedom to make unconventional choices. Something inside would be wounded if I didn't keep this promise. Not keeping promises bleeds willpower, diminishes oneís ability to set direction, goals and purpose. I was approaching an age when my questing in search of a purpose could easily coast into wandering out of habit.
    But any wound would only be inside, invisible to anyone else. The promise hadnít been made to anyone else. And to put my life on hold and just sit around in the rain for two days because of a silly promise...
    ... Or maybe I could hike up.... Now that would be an adventure. Yesterday I had seen posted on the campground bulletin board a contour map of the area. The map had shown a round lake, surrounded by cliffs, thousands of feet above on the opposite ridge. A round lake way up there could only be a cirque lake. A vision of a beautiful, cliff-embraced lake led my eyes up the mountain. Where the map indicated the lake, I saw a beautiful cascading waterfall. From below, of course, I could not see the lake but I could see the space above the waterfall where the mountainside curved inward as if to cradle something.  It was the sort of space that caught the imagination,  that inspired fantasies of camping up there in some future time.
    But now...what if I hiked up there instead of sitting around down Ire in this campground?  Seeing that lake might be worth the two-day delay. I walked over to the bulletin board and spent a long time studying the map, the mountains, and the ferry schedule. No trail ascended the steep, thickly vegetated slopes to that lake. It would be a hard hike. I wished the clouds would lift at least enough to rationalize getting on board.
    I examined the steep slope, stretching a line between my starting point and that cirque lake and forming a strong image of the angle of that ascent. I studied the details of the slope, developing a sense of how many hours the hike would take. I watched the clouds lower, wondering if the hike could be completed before it started raining. Should I get on the ferry, stay in the campground or try for that lake?  I waffled back and forth. The clouds lowered as ferry departure drew nearer. Already, it was midday. Soon there would not be enough time left in the day to make it to the lake. Suddenly I knew I was going to go for it and the sooner the better. I shouldered my pack, hiked to the lower end of the lake, crossed a footbridge over the river, left the path, and entered the wild.
    At first I was beneath the tall trees of the river floodplain. It felt good to be embarking on a path very much less traveled by. I didn't mind, even enjoyed the challenge of climbing over or detouring around massive fallen trunks. Within a few hundred yards, the slope steepened and the ascent began.
 No trail guided me; I was hiking completely cross-country. My only map was that visual memory of a line angling up across the slope to the lake. I concentrated on ascending the slope at that angle, feeling with my body both the angle of climb and the exertion associated with hiking at that steep but sustainable angle. If I could just maintain that angle, it should lead me within sight of the lake.
    Because this was a glacial U-shaped valley, the slope became steeper as I climbed. The hike grew harder. Large trees gave way to smaller trees and brush. Maintaining my angle required concentration as navigating through the brush turned me from side to side. It began to sprinkle. "Great," I grinned, "rain makes this more of an epic."  I was warm from climbing, feeling strong, and pleased about keeping my promise.
    Intermittent sprinkles grew into sustained drizzle. Though drizzle does not feel wet, it wets all the leaves and branches. As I pushed through the bushes, my clothes became drenched, weighing me down. The stiffness of wet pants worked against my climbing muscles.
    Occasionally I would stop for some bites of high-energy food and a sip of water, but I couldn't rest for long because my soaking wet body would start to shiver. I knew the signs of hypothermia. I knew this situation could kill me. According to the books, I should stop and get out of the rain. But I couldn't spend the night on this steep brushy slope. I suppose I could set up the tent the best I could within these bushes and crawl inside with my sleeping bag but the inside of such a brush-contorted tent would become soaking wet during the night and I could never sleep on a slope this steep. The most logical thing was to turn around and quickly drop back to the valley bottom. But my sense of how far the lake still was told me it was within reach of my energy reserves.
    Head-high brush kept me from seeing the surrounding land and the lowering clouds prevented me from seeing the mountains above. I kept climbing.  At higher elevations, the brush did not grow as high. It was easier to push through. But now I was entering the clouds. My world expanded or contracted, lightened or darkened with each thinning or thickening of the clouds. Climbing within the featureless gray of the cloud felt like a dream. But I had my angle; I needed no landmark. I kept climbing for another hour through the clouds until my body's sense of distance told me I should be near the lake by now.
    Was I off-course?  If my angle had not been steep enough, I would eventually come to the stream waterfalling from the lake somewhere above. Then I could just follow the cascade up to the lake. It would be a steep scramble but there was no way I could cross that stream without realizing it. I stopped to listen for the sound of a cascading stream. No sound other than the rain.
    Had my angle been too steep? That was the real danger. Perhaps the reason I hadn't reached the lake was that, within the cloud, I had already passed it. I had no baseline to catch me if my angle was too steep. Perhaps I was on the slopes above the lake!  If so, every step was carrying me farther from the lake, carrying me into greater danger of steeper, more exposed slopes.
    Perhaps I should start angling down across the slope. But if I started dropping down and I wasn't high enough, I would have to regain all the elevation I had already climbed.
    Was I below the lake or above it?  I leaned forward as I peered through the gloom in desperate hope of seeing anything that could show me where the lake was. But a steep slope within a cloud was all that could be dimly seen. Wind and rain were all that could be heard. My world was closing in, growing darker. The growing darkness was not from a thickening of the clouds. The unseen sun was sinking. I felt a desperate feeling to do something different, to dash ahead before all light faded so I could find a landmark or any place level enough to camp on. Was this how panic arises -- not as a hot flash but as a growing cold desperation? Was this the mental confusion caused by hypothermia?
    I stayed with my angle because I did not know what else to do. Concentrating on that angle calmed the panic. On I climbed. Rain fell heavily now. The fading light shrank my world to a few feet of fog. My only guide remaining was the exertion associated with climbing at that angle. And then that became impossible. The slope changed in a disorienting way. I stumbled about but no matter which direction I stepped, I could not feel the proper angle. Where was the slope? Where was I?
    I stood within the downpour, stuck, peering into the gloom, straining to see anything at all. As I stood there I heard, amidst the rain and wind, a strange sound. Waves?  I walked toward the sound and felt myself walking down a gentle slope. How strange that felt after the hours of climbing!  I followed the sound hopefully. In a hundred feet I stopped. There, a few inches from my feet (at the limit of my sight), I saw small waves lapping against a stony shore.
    The lake!  I was going to live!  I had made it!  In fact, I had navigated to it perfectly. Fresh energy surged within. This place was too rocky so I turned to the left and followed the shoreline until it became a narrow ridge lined with bushes. On my right was the lapping level water of the cirque lake; to the left was the cloud-filled void -- thousands of feet of cloud-filled darkness down to the great lake on the valley bottom. I happily scurried along the ridge through the darkness, wind, and rain. I came to the outlet, a narrow stream cascading over a rocky edge. Waterfalls could be heard down there in the clouds. I easily boulder-hopped across the stream. A few yards farther and I found the perfect campsite beside the lake.
    Low, wind-gnarled trees on the ridge shielded a small expanse of level, grassy ground from the direct brunt of the wind. "What a place. I made it. I made it. I'm going to survive!", my spirit sang while my mind focused my soaked body on the task of pitching the tent. I knew I only had a few minutes after stopping before I would begin shivering with cold. No time to lose. Swift precision was essential.
    Out came the tent bag. In the damp pack was a plastic garbage bag containing my sleeping bag and a change of clothes. Hopefully they were dry but in the midst of the storm was not the place to check. Tent first. Up it went. Under the shelter of the rain fly went my pack, top opening pointed toward the door. My body wanted to crawl right in but not yet. First double check each stake and tighten tent lines so that the tent can withstand any gust. Make sure the rainfly extends out beyond the tent in every direction so that a sustained storm won't gradually seep into the tent and turn the tent floor into a puddle. Take a few extra minutes now to adjust the tent perfectly so I wonít have to re-emerge into a raging storm and grope around in the middle of the night to fix some mistake. Done!
    Crouched in front of the tent door, I pulled out my sleeping pad and tossed it to the back of the tent. The sleeping bag went directly from the garbage bag to the back of the tent ("Bone dry... Yes!") followed by a dry change of clothes. Soggy boots came off and were laid outside under the rainfly. Finally I crawled into the tent. The moment I entered the tent, the wind was left outside and the air felt twenty degrees warmer. I felt safe and snug and now it was going to keep getting better and better. My wet clothes came off and were piled on my pack outside. With a spare T-shirt I toweled myself off and dried my hair as best I could. Now into dry long johns.
    All of this was done easily in the dark. Like a blind man, I knew the small world of my backpack and tent perfectly by touch. I began giggling and singing. So delighted with life. Now that I had dry clothes on, I laid out my mattress and sleeping bag, crawled on in, zipped up the bag...and felt warmth accumulating around my tired, cold body. And then -- a chocolate bar!  Followed by dinner with the night rain pounding on the tent fly around me. I felt around for any leaks within the tent. None. Snug.
    My soul sang like a child playing happily all alone. My body spontaneously wiggled in delight because it felt so good to stretch the tired muscles. Every now and then the sense of where I really was overwhelmed me -- completely on my own (no one knew I was even in this part of Alaska), nestled beside a lake high on a trailless mountain wrapped in swirling storm clouds. With profound satisfaction, I fell asleep to the sound of heavy rain and gentle waves.

    I surfaced occasionally during the night to the sound of heavier and heavier rain. Some times I felt around the tent, checking for leaks. Most times I simply smiled and drifted back to sleep.
    I woke again and I could see. Day had come. Heavy rain still beat against the tent. If I had not reached the lake, I would probably be dead by now. But here I was. I opened the tent door but could see only a few feet through the storm clouds. Oh well, I wasnít going anywhere today anyway. I contentedly snuggled back into my bag and dozed off again.
    And so went the day. Snoozes, stretches, snacks, and more snoozes. My body was recovering from the hard hike, delighting in every stretch, growing stronger with every nap. Tomorrow afternoon the next ferry would leave. Would I be on it or would the weather keep me up here another couple of days?  Day faded into night. Heavy rains returned. My tent remained securely dry. I slept.

    My consciousness rose from deep sleep to the sound of -- nothing. The sound of rain I had heard for one and a half days had ceased. I opened my eyes to a tent glowing in bright light. I stretched my arms over my head, opened the tent door, and gazed up into blue sky. Incredibly clear, rain-cleaned cloudless blue sky. I lay back and basked in delight.
    When I realized that I would now finally be able to see the cirque lake, I scrambled out of the tent. Standing barefoot on soggy, green ground, I turned toward the lake and WHAM -- pure white mountains. During the night, the rain had turned to snow. The snowline lay only twenty feet above my tent. Thirteen storm-freshened waterfalls plunged down the snow-covered headwalls into the lake. I walked up onto the ridge of gnarled trees; a cold strong wind hit me -- the kind of cold wind from the polar regions that clears the air and mind. Everything had crystal clarity to it. The big lake far below. Beyond it, other mountains with snowlines cutting cleanly across them at the same elevation as the snowline just above me.
    I had awakened into a world of dramatic beauty, the kind that inspires bold deeds. I hurriedly dressed (for the sun would soon be melting the snow), stuffed breakfast and canteen into my coat pocket, and started up the slope into adventure. My lake and tent receded below as I climbed the snowy slope through the bracing wind. I reached the ridge and followed it toward the summit. As I walked up along the ridgeline, I gazed down either side upon dramatically jagged scenery. The fresh snow transformed the scene to one I never expected to see alone. This is what climbing at 15,000 feet would look like and yet I was walking around in my tennis shoes!  I reached the summit. With breathtaking wind in my face and the sun behind me illuminating all before me, I ate breakfast. Slowly, peacefully I chewed as I gazed through the incredibly clear air at the intensely glaciated mountain wilderness stretching to the north horizon.
    Today on this fresh snow on the mountains, see forever day, I was going to ride the ferry!  Down the slope through the snow I danced to my tent. Already the snowline had ascended several hundred feet above my camp. As I dried my gear in the warm sunlight, packed, and ate lunch, bald eagles rose past me. Hundreds of eagles stuffed from the salmon migration must have decided to take this glorious day off to go ridge soaring up the steep slopes. When I looked down into the valley, I could see their gleaming white heads and tails a thousand feet below. I watched as the strong wind lifted them from the valley floor, up the slope and passing me, sometimes only a few feet away. With broad set wings, they rose on up the mountains to the summits and view above.
    I always turned around to say good-by to campsites but unlike most others, this one I knew I would never see again. Maybe someday I would camp in the valley below and look up toward the waterfall pouring from this lake but I would never stand up here again. "Soar well, eagles. Farewell, lovely place. Thank you for a hike that will shine throughout my life."  I turned. I crossed the lake's outlet stream (the stepping stones were smaller and farther apart today) and started down.
    I boarded the ferry that afternoon. The ferry cruised past mountains sparkling with fresh snow and waterfalls filled with storm runoff. Air of intense clarity allowed the beauty to pass unfiltered into the eyes. And the joy of keeping my invisible promise opened my spirit wider to that beauty.

    But something more happened as a result of keeping that promise. What I once might have called a two-day delay became something life-changing. Because of keeping my promise, I arrived in Juneau just hours before another ferry departed on a once-a-year, university-sponsored field trip to Glacier Bay. Just $40 for an all-day cruise with professors teaching. The freedom of the foot passenger allowed me to catch that cruise, see the icy Fairweather Mountains towering 3 miles above the sea, and finally enter Glacier Bay.
    Two hundred years ago, a massive glacier filled all of Glacier Bay. Since then, that glacier has receded back into its tributary glaciers, exposing a sixty-mile length of bay flanked by granite ridges. Near the entrance of Glacier Bay, the land is green with forests. But as one sails up the bay, the forests disappear. The land has not been uncovered long enough for forests to grow. The farther up the bay one sails, the more recently the land has been uncovered. There has been no time for life to cover the surface with the colors of moss, flowers, or spruce needles.
    For hours the ferry sailed past gray bedrock. No trees. Without the familiar scale of life, it was hard to know the size of this strange landscape where everything has been rounded and smoothed by glaciers. Were the mounds of bedrock just hills or were they mountains many thousands of feet high?  The gigantic scale of Glacier Bay was so disorienting and the air so clear that when I was certain we were within a mile of Grand Portage Glacier, they were still fifteen miles away.
    Except for the blue sky above and the dark water beneath, everything was gray like the mountains of the lifeless Moon. Seeing such an enormous bulk of naked bedrock, untouched, unsoftened by life made me realize how successfully life has colonized and covered the surface of our planet. Bedrock is everywhere, a few feet beneath us and yet rarely do we see it. Glacier Bay planted deeply an image of what the Earth looked like before life.

    I did not know it at the time but that image was a seed. Over the years, it has sprouted and been nourished by other hikes. I began climbing high above timberline to study what happens as mats of moss cover glaciated granite. The moss slows down the water and spreads it over the slope. Rock grains washing down the slope are trapped in the moss to help form soil. Flowers grow in this soil, attracting insects high onto slopes which were once bare stone. Life shifts balances, allowing soil, water and nutrients to accumulate where once they flowed away. Life creates the conditions for more life.
    We are part of life; we are part of this power. This understanding grew into work that has satisfied my search for what I can be doing with my life. Just as salmon bring the gift of nutrients from the fertile sea to the forest, so I can do the work of bringing gifts upstream. Just as mosses and grasses cover the bedrock and absorb the rain so that the rain can nourish life rather than simply run off, so I can help keep precious gifts (such as trust and accumulating wisdom) from flowing away. Just as trees on windy ridges create refuges for life in their lee, so I can stand against the winds of despair to create lees of hope in which fragile seeds can grow.
    Itís been twenty-four years since I made that hike and kept that promise. I have consciously made deeper promises since then. I have promised to do the work described above. I have exchanged marriage vows with my wife. Keeping these promises has led to many other beautiful moments, moments as beautiful as bald eagles soaring up snow-covered ridges. The work often feels as delightful as playing with my daughters. My promises have led me into the inspiring company of others who have made similar promises.
    But since this is a true story, I must also share that there are times when keeping my promises has led to exhausting work and times of disorientation. The responsibility of raising my children well is greater work than any climb. Paying the bills can be to the spirit what soaking wet clothes can be to the body. This work goes on for billions of years; there is no end. I feel weary and disoriented sometimes. "How did I end up so far from the main trails of my culture?  Where am I?"  In the landmark-erasing fog that can sometimes surround life, an upward angle marked by the steady exertion of life-nourishing work is the only orientation I have. At such times, I remember the hike that began with a promise and that was sustained by an upward angle -- and that memory nourishes the faith to keep climbing.
 

© 1996, Paul Krafel, P.O. Box 609, Cottonwood, CA 96022-0609
Permission is granted to copy and distribute (for free) this material as long as you attach this copyright notice and my addresses so that a future reader can track down the source.

Back to Cairns of H.O.P.E. page