Shapes in a Pine Fire

 

    This January night, the woods feel especially ancient, as we sat in the old well where the Earth couldn't handle her own weight and slipped and fell, leaving behind a heart-sized hole. In the middle of the well is a ring of rocks that's played host to hundreds of fires. On it's sacrificial altar are Christmas trees collected from around town, a pagan tradition from a Christian holiday that our rag-tag band of vagrants managed to pilfer. Twenty-eight of them to be exact. 

    Pines burn slowly, at first. Fire eats away at the needles, angrily pukes up gray and green smoke. Fire is always hungry through. Ask any of the people here, in these nearby Central Pennsylvania towns. People whose towns were build upon the digging of black bones, dark as night, from these mountains to satisfy fire's unsatiable hunger. It didn't work. These hills were bled dry in the attempt, and the fire lords, the coal kings who cared little for wild space, moved down the mountain and across the ocean, leaving these towns to dry up like honeysuckle on a summer windowsill. 

    Our fire roars on, and after it's needle-filled appetizer begins to eat away at the branches. The gnawing and cracking of bones continues. Flames shoot up in crosses, pillars, trees. 

    Throughout the night, beer flows, people talk and dance, and the fire roars on. This time of year, all of our trees bleed a lot. The blood released feeds everything from insects to pancakes to fire. Earlier today, I had cut my hand while trying to jump over a log jam. I patched up the cut with sap, letting my blood mix in with forest blood. 

    Eventually, like all things, it burns out. 

(photo cred: Ethan Feldman)

(photo cred: Matt Liechty)

What's in a Trout Stream?

    "Trout don't live in ugly places." That's a phrase I've heard from many a tweed-wearing fly fisherman who has stumbled through The Elysian Fields of the mountains of the American West, caught cutthroat from alpine lakes or brook trout from mountain streams wide enough to jump across. All of them were caught on dry flies, of course. But I've pulled stocker rainbows out from holes with shopping carts on the bottom, seen trout rise to discarded plastic foam, and caught wild browns next to playgrounds littered with used needles. 

    The beauty, in these latter cases, come from the trout themselves. In my home state of Pennsylvania, trout, especially wild brookies and browns, are revered as river shamans. To us, a stream is simply any trickle of water; a trout stream jumps off the lawbooks and into the mind as a little liquified slice of Eden that fell from the mountains a long, long, time ago. All conservation conversations surrounding water in my state can't get anywhere without trout. PA loves to boast about how we have more miles of "trout streams" than any other state, excluding The North Star State. In this state trout streams can earn grades, for God's sake! 

    As arbitrary as these designations may ultimately be, they create a sort of reverence for the consumptive users of the water, even if the consumption in question lasts as long as it takes to pop a barbless hook out of a confused wild brown's gaping maw. Not only that, but to receive the award of "designated trout stream," a creek must be at a certain temperature, certain cleanliness, an environment that also benefits millions of aquatic micro-organisms and the surrounding ecosystem that depends on it. 

    Trout streams are the fish. Trout streams are the plants and aquatic animals that call them home. But most importantly, trout streams are the water, the life-giving daughter of the Ocean and Sun that finds it's way all over the Earth. Even that creek flowing next to the playground littered with used needles still finds a way to thrive. It still stands and raises its fist in defiance, staying clear and clean and cold no matter what we throw at it. 

    We get lots of mid-winter rains in Pennsylvania. Typically, these smaller limestone creeks panic, bloat, and for a few days after these storms, flow high and brown. However, after this time period they slowly start to settle down and the brown flows into green. When a limestoner flows green, the fishing is usually fantastic, as the predatorial lateral line of the trout gives them an advantage over anything they might consider food. 

    This Saturday in February was also one of the first warm days in what felt like ages, the end of a momentary respite of winter's icy grip. It won't last long. We're scheduled for another snowstorm in a few days. 

    On this day, I chose to leave the fly rod at home, instead opting for my ultralight spinning rod, 4lb monofilament, and a handful of inline spinners. It felt dirty. I'm not quite sure why; I don't consider throwing spinners or jerkbaits or worms to be any less "pure" than dry fly fishing. Either way, I managed to catch some fish, pulling out a few wild browns with an old school CP Swing and a Blue Fox I found in a tree a while back. They were beautiful browns too, with the signature orange halos that mark a stream-born fish. 

    We still have a few weeks until true spring arrives. However, everywhere, there were signs. I'm glad that pesky groundhog gave us a ray of hope. 

    

Slouching Towards Amman

 

    Have you ever tried to dry scrub a pair of boots? 

    It's a terrible task, scraping a rag over the mud-caked rubber and cloth while the rag gets Sisiphusianly dirtied and your boots look the same. However, when you add a little bit of water, it's a piece of cake. Water is the ultimate binder and unbinder for all things alive. It can do everything from binding 74% of your body together (100% if we round up) to unbinding the mud off of your caving boots and sin out of your body. 

    When I was a kid, I spent a decent amount of time in churches. It was underneath the stained glass halls and the watchful eye of the Virgin Mary where we learned about a man from 2000 years ago named John. Unlike me, John was a holy man. On the other hand, like me, John was also a river rat. Except his river was called The Jordan, not the Delaware. Both sustained through their lifebloods a city called Philadelphia, whose residents lived, laughed, and died along its banks. 

    John was also a fisherman, except his quarry were things called souls, not bass or trout or catfish. He was once a fisherman after fish like me, except he gave up that lifestyle long ago. John was done with hopping around secret spots. He would announce his honey-hole on the Jordan like a Facebook Fisherman of yesterday and let the souls flock up the river to him like a school of springtime shad up my Delaware, where he would use water's magical properties to the fullest extent, binding and unbinding souls like the washing of mud off of my boots. 

    Sometimes, I wish I was one of them. I left the church when I was 15, wishing, hoping that I'm wrong. I've been seeing God a lot more lately, be it the God of Abraham or God of Rivers, although they're likely one and the same. Maybe it doesn't matter which one. 

The Cave

 

I never saw total darkness until I was eighteen. 

My entire childhood, when the sky shed her baby blue sundress and billowing sunset fabrics of pinks and oranges and lavenders, and donned the midnight cloak at put the world that dared look upon her to sleep, I was always anchored by the silhouette of waving fingers in front of my face. 

That all changed the first time I entered a cave and obeyed the command, "lights off." 

A beautiful panic set in, a magical anxiety when my eyes were opened but shut and desperately grasped at whatever photons managed to survive beneath the harsh and unforgiving environment for light beneath the Earth. 

You feel dizzy, extremely dizzy, like you would not be alive and there if it wasn't for silt beneath the fingernails and the sound of blood pumping in the veins beneath the congealed batter of Earth and mud.