Re-Creation
The Story of a
Mountain
Long, long ago a high and majestic mountain was created. She stood tall like a royal princess above
the surrounding hills and looked south and north to two brother mountains. Upon her slopes grew soaring pines, forever
green, that sang with the wind. At her feet nestled a sacred lake; from her,
streams and rivers flowed to unknown destinations. Flowers and birds and beasts grew and
flourished in her shadow. Many came to
honor the princess mountain. The earliest
people fished in her streams and lakes and hunted in her forests. They floated down the rivers in their canoes
to trade with other peoples. They named
her Fire Mountain because she often smoked and spit fire. They created stories
about her formation and energy.
As the years passed, more people came. They explored her slopes. They climbed to her peak and skied across her
trails. They pitched tents at her feet,
fished her waters and hunted her hills. They
built camps and lodges and homes around the sacred lake. Young men and women made annual treks to the
mountain to have fun at the camps.
Families returned generation after generation--grandfathers, fathers,
sons; grandmothers, mothers, daughters--passing on the stories one to another,
the secrets and lore of the hunt, the fishing, the wilderness. They came to recreate at the foot of the
gracious peak; to rejuvenate from the business of their lives in other places;
to re-create themselves in the beauty of creation. They, too, honored her.
One day, all of this came to a crashing halt. Fire Mountain blew up. She exploded in a great conflagration and
spewed her smoke and ash high into the sky and all across the landscape. It seemed the princess had spoken her rage to
her brother mountains to the north and to the south in one ultimate eruption. When she quieted down, she was no longer so
tall and majestic. Her peak was
gone. Her whole side was gone. She was
bare.
The mystical lake disappeared. The forest was laid bare, the trees
horizontal skeletons from the blast. Ash
covered the flowers and bushes and all the land for miles and miles. Gone the lodges, gone the camps, gone the
homes for recreation. Where were the
fish and the frogs that swam her waters?
What happened to the elk and deer that roamed her meadows and grazing land? What about the birds that sang in her trees
and soared on the vernal of her slopes?
Death and destruction all around.
No living thing visible. Like the
aftermath of an atomic bomb, the scene was total devastation. All was gone.
Silence ruled the land. The
mountain still stood but no longer so tall, a great gulp in her side, still
steaming and spitting at times but in a hushed voice.
It seemed there would be no more annual treks to the foot of
the great mountain. No more telling of
how it was when grandmother was a girl, grandpa a boy. No more teaching in this place of how to
sight the gun, or cast the perfect fly or follow the trail through the
trees. All of this seemed to have come
to an end.
But then, amazingly, ever so slowly, a surprising thing
started to happen. A green shoot pushed up next to the skeleton tree. A flower bloomed. A seed from a pine cone,
burst open in the heat, began to sprout. From under the ash, the lake perkled
through. A raccoon foraged among the
fallen logs. Eagle soared on the vernals. Birds chirped from the skeletal
branches. Ectoplasms began to generate
and create oxygen in the mystical lake and the fish and frogs returned to
swim. Deer and elk appeared in the
meadows. A new lake was formed, bright
and sparkling. The rivers ran
clean. Life was returning and
growing. Slowly the people returned as
well, not to build lodges and houses this time but to once again camp and hike
and ski along Fire Mountain’s trails; to fish and hunt. Now, telling the story of the great explosion
intermixes with the memories of how it used to be, building new memories, one
generation once again telling the next.
The mountain and her environment have regenerated, not exactly
as before, but in a new way. Re-creation
is happening, old into new, with renewed energy and life and purpose. Like the phoenix rising from the ashes, the
sacred cycle of life continues. And, as
if she knew that this was the way of things, the princess mountain continues to
stand proud and majestic as she has always done, her face changed and renewed, surveying
her land and all who come.
A
story of Mt. St. Helens, and for all times of natural devastation, to bring
hope that regeneration and recreation will happen in the great cycle of life.
All rights reserved; Mildred P. Ericson; 10/31/12
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