Seekers on the Range

Pursuit of higher learning marks the journey into adulthood. For many families this journey includes college. When young people leave home to matriculate, parents also come to a crossroads. What does a maturing Gen X couple do when the particles of our nuclear nest are split apart?

Road trip. Jen and I embarked on a car-camping expedition through the American west. For a month we travelled the byways of Oregon, Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wyoming.

Our first evening we tented by a mountain lake outside La Grande, Oregon. Near sunset we followed a dirt footpath to a spot where muddy wooden boards crossed a lakeside marsh. We held hands on the makeshift bridge and watched the sky’s shifting colors over the water. I flashed on memories of family trips, when magic surrounded simple excursions with our daughters. People often use the word “pretend” to describe the enchantments of children. Yet those realities prepare us to tend our heart-fires, and keep the wonder burning as we grow up.

A carload of high-spirited teens suddenly charged onto the scene and began unloading gear at an adjacent campsite. Thankfully their gusto was coupled with respect for other visitors, so they didn’t flood the place with noise. We linked this courtesy with standards set by the campground host, a kind woman from Wallowa County who arrived at the spot several years ago. These folks were all good drivers of local culture.

In gratitude we gave them special cedar gleaned from trees growing on an old volcano, part of a bundle going to a Lakota elder in South Dakota. Western red cedar is used in indigenous ceremonies throughout America, yet it doesn’t grow outside the Northwest. We gathered it with a friend who recently returned from Wounded Knee, where he was sanctioned to serve as an intercessor in the Sundance ceremony. He asked us to carry the evergreen to a descendent of Crazy Horse who advises him. Burning sage he prayed for our journey and tied a small piece of red cloth to the aerial of our car.

So we routed our trip through Indian Country, visiting as many reservations and heritage sites as possible. This was a good way to connect with America’s soul and move us deeper into our lives. We left portions of that cedar with a Standing Rock family who protects waterways from fossil fuel moguls, with an Oglala woman who educates visitors at Bear Butte, with a Rosebud man who tells stories at Devils Tower, with a Leech Lake woman who gave us directions to a grove of old-growth pines, and with White Earth angels who work to restore indigenous ownership of tribal land.

Travelling off the Interstates we celebrated the tapestry of rural scenery and lovable towns (most ranging in population from 20 to 2000). We rarely listened to the radio, read the papers, or logged into social media. We weren’t avoiding the news; our senses were tuned to a broader wavelength.

Instead we listened to elk bugling all night in the backcountry of Yellowstone, imagining their breath in the freezing air. We got lost and found in a quiet prairie where we prayed for the return of thick fertile loam and thundering herds of bison. We watched a relative of those herds pee for three solid minutes and another one ford a river in powerful slow-motion surges, her nostrils barely above water. On a cold night near Devils Tower we were glad to find a room because local motels were full of UFO geeks, lured there by boosters who’re still cashing in on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The next day we woke before dawn to circle the massive trunk of igneous rock that many people consider sacred, and some link to stories about star beings. We sweated to the top of Bear Butte (also sacred) and later plunged into an alluring lake next to Black Elk Peak (all the earth is sacred).

We ate dumpling soup, white-bread sandwiches, and soft-serve ice cream at a dilapidated diner with four wizened Dakotan women who told tales about modern pioneers. We descended into the badlands from the rim of Roosevelt National Park and felt the evening fall as smooth as velvet. We hiked over hardened lava and crunchy cinder cones to see the sun rise like a ball of fire over Craters of the Moon National Monument.

We delivered gear to our daughters in the Twin Cities and dumpster-dived for furnishings to fill their new lodgings. We visited historic farmsteads in northern Minnesota and became even greater fans of Finnish resourcefulness. We canoed to a petroglyph in the Boundary Waters, enjoyed fried walleye and took a sauna. Next to a lake teeming with wildlife we watched Ojibwe folks launch a canoe to harvest wild rice.

One dark night in Idaho we ambled into a charming redneck bar full of vociferous dudes dressed in camo. Sound and motion stopped as we entered, except for two big canines that came up to sniff us. We petted the animals, and then the whole place erupted in peals of laughter when Jen announced that we’d just driven the back-way through the Sawtooth Mountains in a Prius. It took us three hours to cover 35 miles on a narrow rutted road comprised of 4 to 8 inch gravel. At one point we figured we would get stuck in the snowy middle of nowhere (also sacred). The pub grub that night tasted like a gourmet feast.

These are just a few surface images of lovebirds moving through big sky country. Yet we weren’t merely sightseers on a second honeymoon. We were seeking something meaningful to refill our empty nest, something more potent than anything hatched by the consumer economy. We wanted to crack through the crust of everyday transactions, tap into the cultural magma of our continent.

Along the way we encountered many markers lauding another tourist couple whose names are branded on America’s consciousness. Lewis and Clark were dispatched by colonial rulers to expand a commercial empire. The westward-ho duo surveyed a strategic swath of this land and her native inhabitants, gathering intelligence and preparing a route for conquest.

Skirting sprawl along old frontier trails we wondered what America would be like if settlement had been accompanied by respectful cultural exchange rather than exploitation and genocide. Can we learn from mistakes and turn around? The consequences are becoming dire. Many times during our trip we had to change course due to large wildfires and spreading seas of smoke, phenomena that are increasing in frequency. The west is beset by a massive imbalance that stems from our abuse of natural resources. Retrieving indigenous wisdom is essential for survival.

In Indian Country we’ve often heard the expression “go in beauty,” or sometimes “walk the red road.” Praying for guidance, we made an altar on our dashboard. With each experience we added leaves, stones, feathers, and other gifts from nature, including the desiccated body of a dragonfly. These served as reminders that how we connect with what’s outside our cars is the true gauge of a good ride.

We experienced that truth at a hot spring one morning, on the same day we met the camo dudes. If not for directions from kindred spirits we would have missed the hidden treasure gurgling next to an unmarked pull-out on a dusty traffic corridor. Scouting among the weeds Jen spotted a narrow path leading 30 yards off the road to a trashed patch of paradise. We filled several big bags with aluminum cans, bottles, six-pack rings, snack wrappers, fast-food containers, and unmentionable items of personal hygiene. It was both gratifying and ironic to collect gobs of cigarette butts and then sprinkle the area with ceremonial tobacco.

After cleaning up we burned sage, then soaked alone in geothermal bliss as motorists sped by. In gratitude I sang a song I learned a few years ago while gathering cedar for a salmon celebration in Oregon. Leaning back into the heated water I heard the tonal vibrations thrum against my submerged eardrums. The sound became part of a roadside baptism.

I sang that same song to a Lakota elder, earlier in our trip, when we visited Wounded Knee and passed along the cedar bundle. When I finished he responded in a way that astonished me. “I’ve travelled in that country,” he said with a smile. “This is a medicine picking song.”

In that moment my soul took a deep breath. I envisioned a boy, maybe 12 years of age, alone in the forest collecting evergreen for a village ceremony. The trees taught him the right way to gather cedar, and they also gave him a special song. Later he shared the song with fellow villagers who affirmed his experience and helped him weave it into the web of local knowledge.

Such deep connections with place are rare today, for we’ve cut ourselves off from creation. The resulting wounds are profound, yet society seldom recognizes the gifts that contribute to our healing. Few of us respect the higher learning that grows outside our colonized economy. We’re too obsessed with cashing in on nature to hear her songs.

Yet spirit still moves around. Someone in their fifties can carry a tune for several seasons, grateful to have received it from the forest. Maybe they don’t sing it to many people, figuring most would dismiss it as childish. But then they go on an important journey, and after driving 1,400 miles they meet an elder who understands.

Our new Lakota friend told us he and his people are working to regenerate cultural ways and means that have been trampled amidst the modern rubble. So should we all. Every human being benefits from the quest for wisdom. Lost meaning can be found.

Culture is the car parked in front of our minds, the rig we use to explore worldviews and navigate life’s passages. Today’s model mostly operates on news pumped out by institutional authorities. But America runs smooth on older fuel, if and where we can find it. Searching together, we children of all ages can learn the way home.