Why Come to the Sacred Grove?

To Heal You Must Face the Wound

The Dream opens and I’m climbing a wooden structure made of railroad ties. Creosote hangs in the air while I carefully wriggle a square nail loose to pound it inches above where it was. The toes of my boots stick to the railroad ties, like ice crampons I can’t see but sense. A toehold, as I slowly scale the structure using a cluster of hand-forged nails like the ones I used to hunt.

As a kid, I had two childhoods—before, and after. First, in a central California cow-town, and then the remotest county seat in the state. Both places featured mountains and mentors; my Elders. The Old Timers kept me curious and the landscape provided clues. What’s this, I’d ask, holding out a slender hunk of rusted metal. A square nail, they’d say. My eyes wandered down, hunting fragments. Noticing castoffs in the dirt.

This is how I fashioned towns, cabins, and mines in my imagination. Later, I’d add wickiups and early settlements, fine-tuning my inner eye to see where people lived before me. When I discovered cemeteries, my imagination happily hosted Characters and I learned to hunt old records, newspaper clippings, and oral teachings. Bit by bit, I became a Story Catcher, understanding that something of the dead yet lived.