Preface

This book was born in the spring of 1997. I was sitting by the Mimbres River in the Gila National Forest of New Mexico, frustrated with the direction my writing was, or wasn't taking. I’d experienced some surprising initial success composing articles for magazines, but had grown increasingly dissatisfied by the limitations of the form and market. The box seemed too small, but my thoughts about this -- practical, rational, and what to do -- kept twisting themselves into the same predictable knot. I decided to voice my frustrations to something outside my reasoning mind.

I picked up my journal, held the pen with my right hand and spoke out loud while jotting my words on paper: "What's the problem around my writing?" I then transferred the pen to my left hand in the hopes an answer would come from an unknown and unfamiliar place.

Immediately the words, "Your father," were scrawled across the page.

This was curious, and very interesting. I took the pen back into my dominant hand and wrote again, asking for details, elaboration, more… then let the left side respond.

Over the next hour I received a feast of information about my inner world and the resistance that expressed itself in my writing. I heard how my father had wanted to live his unlived dreams through me, pushing me to achieve so that he would then feel important. My response had been to reject the value and realization of success. Outwardly I had done this by quitting every career I’d had just when I became really good at it.

My father also represented the critic. He had humiliated me, blamed me for his heart attack, telling me I was “a rotten son.” To write the way I wanted meant sharing my innermost thoughts and passions with the world, making myself vulnerable. Subconsciously my father, in the reincarnated form of editors and the reading audience, was waiting ‘out there’ to ridicule and tear me apart. The dialogue with the left side was fascinating. It provided a rich loam of information and a window into the currents seething below the surface of a man wanting to write. But ultimately, it didn't offer a solution. Finally, I took the pen back in my right hand and scratched out the words, "Great, but what do I do about it?"

The answer from the left was quick, direct, and to the point: "Write to the river!"

From that point I began. Often when leading vision quests, workshops, or wilderness programs I would rise early, make myself a cup of coffee, and -- with pencil and a pad of paper in my hand -- head down to the shore. I sat by the Gila, Chama, Mimbres, and Pecos River in New Mexico; Somerset Lake in Vermont, the Caribbean Sea in Mexico. There, again and again, I would face the blank page and begin, "Dear River,....

Often the letters began with gratitude, with thanks for the beautiful vistas before me, for the eyes, ears, and senses with which I saw, touched, and listened to this magical and wondrous earth. Sometimes I’d simply start by reporting, describing the landscape with all the miracles and interconnected mystery being played out before and about me. This in itself opened my eyes and heart to the wonder of life, those myriad marvels of existence that continually support and feed us -- most often below the threshold of our attention. My sensibilities were starting to expand.

But something else was also happening. I was speaking to nature as a friend, admirer, and lover. I was developing and deepening an "I-Thou" relationship, which, as Joseph Campbell often remarked, is very different than an "I-it" relationship. My human arrogance and self-importance began to shrink, and as it did, the enchantment, importance, and magnificence of what was all around me grew.

The earth, and the grand forces of air, fire, and water became my friends, teachers, and allies. They taught me over and over about interconnection, interdependence, and co-creation, and they introduced me to a story far-larger than the one I knew. The mountains funneled the rivers; the rivers smoothed and sculpted the stone. Soil eroded, washed out to sea, and dropped on ocean bottoms, there to be pressed into sedimentary rock and eventually raised into mountains again. Snows fell on the summits and melted. The streams rushed down the hillsides, meandered through valleys, and emptied into the sea to evaporate and be carried to the peaks and pinnacles once more. Thousands of grand cycles revealed themselves, overlapping and weaving into a tapestry that made up this moment... Reality was far deeper than it appeared.

As my relationship with the natural world grew, the boundaries between "it" and “I” often blurred, and it was difficult to tell who was speaking to whom. Like partners who’ve learned to dance together very well, it can feel like no one or both are leading. And so it was with writing. At times it was evident the letters were being written from the river rather than to it. I had merely opened a portal, and placed by the shore, allowed the landscape to find its voice through me.

Many of the selections in this collection explore who we are and how we perceive, questioning the nature of the line we draw between 'self' and 'world' and the assumptions that help construct the universe we experience. Any inquiry that ranges over and probes the nature of reality must face an obvious dilemma: Reality is not fact, and the world is not something separate and solid, something one stands outside of and observes. We are in it.

Therefore, there’s an overlap between the process and content of the Letters. Their awareness and sensibility cannot be separate or disconnected from the realities they inhabit, for they speak not only of, but from within those worlds. They were written “at the shore," and their foundation is a shifting bank of gravel and sand at the edge of solid ground and a far-more fluid reality.

In the field of modern physics the results of an experiment are influenced by the observer. The same is true of nature, and our nature. The world we encounter is related to the focus and attention of the perceiver. We see our world the way we are, not the way it is.

In these essays I have stared into the face of nature. As I looked deeply into her eyes I became more aware of my own reflection and the gaze of someone else looking back. I was at the boundary of a membrane, the fringe of inner and outer, the border of self and other. I stood before a window to the soul. At times my head would spin, those eyes drawing me in or out, their bottomless pools making me dizzy. Eventually I fell into or through them, losing and finding myself in the process.

Close by, on the other side of the looking glass, the vanished Garden awaits. It is there if we want it. Healing, joy, and a return to wonder and innocence are possible. But we must let go of some old and deep-rooted routines and habits to get there. We must reach out beyond ourselves and step off the shore; we must open our eyes, senses, and hearts and be willing to dream again to be touched by Grace.

Grace… amazing grace. I was lost, but now I'm found; I was blind but now I see. I'd like to share with you a vision, a brief glimpse of what I found.