Environmental Stewardship Commission (MEESC)

I grew up on flat sandy loam. They called it the Saginaw Valley. It was definitely lake or river bottom. Granular silt-like sand covers the valley. I'm not sure where you would leave the valley. It extended in all directions for miles, but eventually you could climb up out of it and find yourself in soft sandy-based rolling hills. There are pockets of clay in Michigan placed within the general contours of sand. Most of our lakes were sand bottom with long stretches of sandy beach. Along Lake Michigan and Huron the beaches grew large enough to be called dunes. In our trips back to Michigan we would follow the south shore of Lake Superior and much of it too is sand. Like a homecoming greeting I would hang on to seeing and feeling the sand and the Lakes.

I have been known to stop the car on the highway and just leave it to walk out into Lake Michigan's north shore. The state of euphoria of being with my sandy beginnings was in control and plans and schedules were put aside. Kathy is no stranger to this either. She grew up on the rich fertile Wisconsin black soil, of rolling hills and marvelous farm valleys, but she also grew up along the Lake Michigan and her sandy beach. Milwaukee was nice that way: a person could grow up bi-geographical. It was a good thing too, because I would guess that it was the glue of her Milwaukee beaches on Lake Michigan that help bind the two of us in life.

As much as sand seems to be a domesticated grounding, it's hard to walk on and hill climbing is almost impossible; sleeping on it is miserable; it always shifts underneath to form lumps in the worst places, and lastly it doesn't take much of a wind to blow it into your scrambled eggs. While these things do not in themselves make sand wild, they do suggest that sandy beaches and lake bottoms could be a mask of something capable of grounding wilderness.

Around here I know of a few places that I can find some sand, but generally, if I'm looking for sand beaches and sand bottom lakes I head for the east and back home.

It's a wonderful journey, but most of my time now is living with rock, and generally it is hard, unforgiving granite. Ledge rock breaks through at several spots on our place along the river. And where it hasn't broken through it generally is only about ten feet away. Along the shore line are two pieces of break away rock that I call my not so grand Tetons. They're humble rocks. One stands up from the water and is about twelve feet in diameter and eight feet high. The other is on land and is about 15 feet in diameter and 20 feet high. There are several smaller rocks spaced between these two and beyond so that together they form an arc. There are other rock sanctuaries in line with, or dare I say in orbit with the river Tetons but they are tucked away back in the shadows of balsams and spruce.

Last Spring when we cleared out the river front to give light to some Norways that we just planted, the rocks became more visible if not even dominate. At first I grieved the barren shoreline that looked like it had been clear cut. As I grew used to its openness I also appreciated even more the rocks that were uncovered. I was surprise just how much those balsams and aspen had been hiding, and I began to see the arc formed by the rocks. This winter with the absence of snow I had time to make as well as burn brush piles. It wasn't long before I really began to notice the other Teton which was half covered and propping up all kinds of dead balsam and birch trees and branches, and I could see that with a little bit of my help and another brush pile I could liberate that rock. And so I began to help. Actually it took two brush piles; all of them were dead of course except for few of the tag alder growing right along the river. But it was right in that tag alder mess that I found the treasure. It was another piece of granite, maybe even ledge rock poking out from the hill just large enough and flat enough for our dog, "Skye" and me to sit on it and look out over the river. From my rock as I looked out over the river I tried to reconstruct what it might have looked like before the dam. The dam raised the water perhaps four to five feet. The area right in front of me was probably muskeg. Perhaps it had a current of a creek making its way to the river, but high grasses and wet land would have extended out from where I was sitting. A little across the way would have been a few islands of high wet ground support-ing some cedar. Here was high ground along the swamp, and maybe in years past there was a game trail around the swamp and perhaps a deer hunter found this rock over-looking the swamp and sat for a while enjoying the day, or maybe when they flooded the area some logger came through here clearing out the timber, and found this rock as a good place to stop and smoke. So I won't call it pristine.

In Les Blacklock's book, Meet My Psychiatrist, he described an old tree trunk in the woods as his Psychiatrist. He finds "Old Doc" is always ready to listen to his problems and allows Les to find his own answers. Les thought Old Doc was about three centuries old. Three centuries are no small thing and Les was lucky to find someone with that much experience. My rock is older; it is much older; it makes three centuries look like yesterday. I haven't tried out any problems there yet, I just enjoy the presence and the comfort of sitting and looking . I don't think I'll call the rock "Doc" even though I know that healing can happen there. I don't think I'll call it a "Holy Place" either, even though with Skye along, I know that I have a spiritual director right at my side. For now I will leave the place nameless, and tell you that it sure feels good to be there.

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