In my previous blog, "
Walking, walking, walking,"
I wrote about the numerous hikes that Cyndy and I have taken in beautiful places across the southern and western United States since leaving Michigan on April 7. The purpose of those excursions was to go a distance and gain endurance.
But in the past few days in northern California, we've taken walks of a different nature.
The first were strolls along cliffs and bluffs of the northern California coast, looking down on foam-crested surf that rolled in to either caress or thunder against rock formations of various sizes, dimensions, and textures.
We saw shorebirds and songbirds, sea lions and harbor otters, and types of vegetation too numerous to classify.
In many places, our path through meadow grasses and wild flowers was not clearly marked but simply a narrow cleave where others -- human or animal -- appeared to have recently trod.
The vegetation portrayed a multitude of colors, shapes, and sizes -- sometimes ankle high and sometimes head deep. In those latter areas, the beautiful, sensuous aromas were right at our nose tips and we felt luxuriant heat radiating from the plants and touching our bodies on all sides.
We still walked about four miles on each of three days, but we did so slowly, drinking in the beauty. Often, we stopped and stood in awe and awareness, admiring and appreciating all that we beheld.
Of particular interest were the intricate tifani rock patterns that had been carved by wind and waves over the centuries. The indigenous people would harvest salt from the ocean water that dried and crusted in the tifani's small bowl-like pools. (I could not find a decent photo of the tifani online, so I posted one of mine in the adjacent sidebar.)
Over 700 caves there were formed by lava that flowed from Medicine Lake Volcano, a few miles to the north, that erupted numerous times 30,000 to 40,000 years ago.
This volcano is a "shield volcano." Unlike "composite" or "cinder cone" volcanoes that have a conical shape caused by explosive eruptions (think of Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Shasta, and Mt. Rainier), a shield volcano spews lava gently through numerous surface vents -- 520 of them at Medicine Lake.
As the lava flowed, the molten rock on top hardened, creating a surface crust. Below that crust, the lava continued to flow, often melting even deeper rock as it moved along.
Where the hot lava drained out, it left a pipe-like caves, known as "lava tubes." Some of these tubes have multiple levels that indicate multiple flows over centuries of time.
After leaving the caves, the cooling lava formed vast deposits of obsidian, pumice, and basalt with numerous fissures that reminded us of coral. Viewing this rocky landscape gave the impression of forbidding beauty.
It was through these lava tubes that we walked, enjoying a caving experience unlike any other. We were not on a guided tour but entered each cave on our own -- as did others.
We carried our own flashlights, shone the beams on walls where we chose, and sometimes turned them off to experience solitude and quietude in total darkness.
Lava Beds National Monument is also the site of the
Modoc War, an unfortunate chapter of US history.
For 10,000 years, a tribe of Native Americans known as the Modoc lived among the lava beds, hunting and moving about with the rhythms of nature ... until the 1860s when white settlers moved in and claimed the land as theirs.
The US government forced the Modoc to move north onto the Klamath Indian Reservation in Oregon. But that arrangement failed due to broken government promises, resentment, and distrust.
About 60 Modoc, led by a young chief named Kientpoos (named Captain Jack by the white settlers), returned to their original ancestral land.
This move precipitated the
Modoc War, which began on November 29, 1872. And here the ruggedness of the lava beds came into play.
Cyndy and I walked a half-mile interpretive loop trail through an area marked as Captain Jack's Stronghold.
The lava rock formations there made for perfect ramparts for firing rifles, natural trenches for moving about unseen, and shallow caves for lodging.
From here, 60 Modoc, including women and children, fought 600 US soldiers. An interpretive guidebook states the account of an Army colonel: "The Modoc were scarcely exposed. ... One of our men was wounded twice during the day, but he did not see an Indian at all."
The Modoc War lasted five months, with the siege ending when the Modoc became cut off from their water supply and were confronted by winter temperatures in this high desert.
An interpretive sign in the Lava Beds visitors center puts a rather benign "spin" on this governmental land-grab and the fate of the Modoc. It reads: "With the Modoc removed to reservations, the government began opening up the Modoc homeland to pioneering farmers and ranchers."
I find those words to be disgustingly "nice." People were "removed" from their land as though they were a commodity or objects. Then the government graciously "began opening" their homeland to the white invaders.
And that leads us to
choosing a different path in modern times.
Cyndy and I are staying with her cousin who owns a cattle ranch about 50 miles to the west of Lava Beds.
She has told us about current US government land grabs to mine uranium and redirect water to the principle urban areas to the south.
And this relates to
Marianne Williamson, author and activist, whose wisdom of love and healing I have admired for decades.
Marianne is one of the many candidates for the Democratic Party's nomination for US president. She will be among the debaters on national television this week.
The debates will air from 9:00 to 11:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time on Wednesday and Thursday (tonight and tomorrow night) on NBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo. Marianne will be on the dais on Thursday.
I hope we will be camped at a place with sufficient internet connection to watch the livestream. And I hope you will tune in too.
Much is at stake in this country.
I believe we need to move away from injustices to people like the Modoc of the 1870s and the disenfranchised and threatened Americans of today.
That's why I like Marianne Williamson: she favors a national apology to people who have been wronged by our government past and present, and she speaks out against modern-day problems, such as government collusion and corporate aristocracy, that are the result of pronounced greed and hate.
Below is one of her recent messages in which she writes with spunk, "I want to help usher in an era when the well-being of people, and not the short-term profits of huge multi-national corporations, determine the direction of our public policies."
Dear Robert,
Today I was at the Reid Chapel in Columbia, South Carolina, and it was their Women's Day service. The prayer theme was, "Dear God, please make me a dangerous woman." HA. I think that one was already granted to me!
And the congregation also prayed, "May no weapon formed against her stand."
Both of those prayers meant a lot to me this week.
Apparently, you're not supposed to complain that Big Pharma has too cozy a relationship with our governmental agencies
like The Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, allowing for drugs to be rushed to market too soon with too little government oversight and too little consumer input.
I discussed this on MSNBC with Velshi & Ruhle
.
When you do, you're refusing to toe the line, to go along, to acquiesce to what has become in our country a veiled corporate aristocracy.
Make no mistake about it, my friends. The aristocratic trend will continue until and unless we the people stand up for ourselves, reclaiming the revolutionary spirit of 1776 and saying "Hell No!" to tyranny of any kind - economic or otherwise.
It's not that I want to go to Washington and fight for you, because I don't. I want to go to Washington and co-create with you. I want to help usher in an era when the well-being of people, and not the short-term profits of huge multi-national corporations, determine the direction of our public policies.
I suppose we should see the fact that they're after me - calling me woo woo, even dangerous! - as a sign that we're getting through to someone.
It feels like the "First they ignore you..." phase might be over.
It's not time for this campaign to back down. It's time for this campaign to get moving!
With gratitude and love,
Marianne
