Returning

  There are special places in most of our lives. Returning is like going back to a source. It is that way for us in Big Sur.

            It's been a couple of years since we've been able to hike into a redwood forest where the hook of California was set in our heart over 50 years ago.

            Pacific storms, years of closure of the magical Highway 1, and fire damage  kept us from a camp and hiking trail that has marked the turns of our life. 

            In our early years there were the camping trips, the great joy of friendship around the campfire and exploring the wilderness. Our first trips were to a private reserve before it became a state park. It was a cosmos away from the pressures of a newsroom and deadlines and urban life.

            As our family grew, our daughters grew up hiking into the forest on our visits. Each visit would add a layer of memory of their growth, friends and California dreaming.

            Once we became Californians, we were here, often. Our home is an enchanting hour away. But we've not been back  for a while and we were more than eager to return.

              The road and the hiking spot are open again and it was time for a "homecoming," to the place that launched the dream of "someday" living on the California Central Coast.

 

                A stretch of Highway 1 is closed and there is heavy work underway, so we had the highway to ourself. Ditto our return to deep in the California Redwood forest.

                The mystical trees carry burn scars, a couple including an old giant were felled by the fire. New trees propagated. New bridges built.

            It was sweet to hear that soul refreshing mountain stream on its way to the Pacific.

            I call the trees mystical not only for their age and rarity, but for their ability to sustain fire, and protect the core as seen above. The outer hairy bark is darkly charred, but the wood just beneath that was not.

            The heat and flame engaged the taller canopy, killing its ability to feed on mist, rain and take in sun. It died from the intensity of the firestorm. The others in the grove survived as flames did not reach the height that killed the old sentry, now returning to the earth and to the mycelia.

        One wonders how many storms and fires these kilns have survived since the 1870's. The Rockland Lime and Lumber company extracted limestone chunks from a quarry in the mountains, used redwood timber to fire the kilns to about 1,700 degrees to create quicklime.

            After a couple of days to cool the product was loaded into barrels and transported down the mountain through a canyon on a pulley system or by wagon to the beach where it was loaded on ships and sent north where it was used to build in San Francisco.

        It's troubling to ponder how many trees were destroyed in the process. The quotation from John Muir on the bench below refers to them as "kings...spires in the sky..towering serene through the long centuries, preaching God's forestry fresh from heaven."  Amen!

        The rugged Big Sur coast, mountains and forests are famed for their beauty and the legendary characters and unique life that emanated from here. Keeping the historic highway open is a constant challenge. It made the heart feel good to return. Lana and I are always grateful our pal Jim Cahill introduced us to the magic a half-century ago.  

See you down the trail.

LIVING IN HENRY MILLER'S PARADISE and WHY ISIS CAN'T BE BEATEN

IT IS LIKE HENRY MILLER SAID

   There's a line in a commercial that says "California cows are contented cows." Why not, huh?

    Our "Heinz 57" Joy finds endless contentment in the garden.
    Author Henry Miller, who lived just a few miles north of our home said "I am constantly reminded that I am living in a virtual paradise."
     Amen to that!

   Spring's color wheel is at work on the coast,

  and on the hills and slopes.

WHY ISIS CAN'T BE BEATEN
Because they should be destroyed

    ISIS, a threat to the world, is a particularly challenging problem for Christians.

      Graeme Wood's What Isis Really Wants, in the March The Atlantic is an excellent examination of the menace and peril they pose and underscores why Christians are particularly challenged.  I've read and watched as much as I can, from a variety of sources and suggest Wood's article, even if you think you know all you need to about Isis.

      Followers of Jesus know that he taught to love your enemies, to forgive them, to pray for them. He admonished one of his closest followers who struck out at an enemy. He said to love your enemy is tantamount to pouring coals on their head. Nations do not live for salvation or redemption and their objectives are survival and not perfection or transcendence.

      One can advocate for a loving response and argue that  a measure beyond human justice will bear out the rightness. Some will disagree, but that is only coincidental. In a hard world of cultural and religious diversity, populated by a pastiche of beliefs, analysis, intellect and skepticism, a purely Christ like principle will not rise to the muscle of national strategic policy. This is a fully human dilemma, the kind of vile business that has been set before us in the former garden. And ISIS is a death cult, working to achieve its own religiously inspired belief they are agents of the Apocalypse.

      By civilized standards they are barbarians, ruthless with no respect for life, convinced of their "holy" mission and certain only they are right. They are a perversion of humanity, have twisted decency and justice and live as an evil strain.

      By idealized measure Christians should love them. Not to do so opens a calculus that becomes an entirely intimate equation and is for no human discussion. For those inclined it is a matter for regions of heart and soul and an accountability.  

      In this challenge, from this evil, in this time, in the practical realm of saving life, preventing destruction, stopping a lunatic movement, and destroying evil, ISIS should be eradicated. Their complete and total demise is the work of humanity, faithful or faithless, observant or atheist, contrite, convicted or contemptuous. All of us can then live with consequence, each according to our own. That is more than ISIS would ever permit.

     See you down the trail.

      

CHINA SMOG-PACIFIC BREEZE-YOUR CHOICE

WAKE UP TIME

    Published in the UK's Daily Mail, these photos are simply  frightening.  That the Beijing sky is so fouled is apocalyptic, then to see the seeming acceptance?! The sunrise is posted electronically, because the smog makes it impossible to see.

I'LL TAKE PACIFIC A BREEZE, PLEASE

    A recent drive through Big Sur, after seeing the Beijing photos, gave me an extra appreciation for clean air and sky and for the US EPA.

    Say what you will about American bureaucracy, but at least we are unwilling to accept what the Chinese must endure.

     Cheers to those who are guardians of clean air and water.

   See you down the trail.

BOUGHS AND FLOWS

LOOKING AT BIG SUR

    A change of perspective, with nature's help at Lime Kiln State Park, Big Sur California.

   A southern edge of Big Sur from Lucia on Highway 1.

 See you down the trail.