I have been running into magical borders out in the natural world—by which I mean places or situations where the evidence of my senses appears out of synch with the laws of physics—ever since I was a young child. I learned early on to simply shrug these things off, under the assumption that a certain degree of magic is inherent out in the wild. Northern California’s rugged beauty lends itself to such a way of thinking.

Anyway, at some point in my adult life I became interested in bringing an empirical analysis to certain incidents, to see what I might discover. I had reached an age where I was comfortable that magical prohibitions wouldn’t cause such experiences to dry up. I have always been respectful of rules and obligations emanating from the realm of Faërie.

So, yesterday I took the dogs for a romp on the trail where the older one pulled off one of her magical feats last month. She has a German Shepherd-style elegance, and I’ve noticed more incidents of late where she seems to materialize across boundaries and barriers in a manner that defies easy explanation. Cats are notorious for doing this, but it’s a little more unusual in an animal her size.

The instance last month presented an immediate hazard to her livewire younger sister, who is of a totally different genetic makeup. We were heading back to the trailhead after a long hike, when I noticed the older one running up the hillside to the right of the trail in pursuit of something that had caught her interest. The thing is, there was a barbed wire fence in the way that she had somehow managed to cross. The younger one, not about to be left out of any action, took off at full speed towards the hillside. I yelled at her just before she slammed into the barbed wire, taking it right in the face. Dumb dog didn’t even see it. She came back with bloody pricks all over her muzzle; fortunately, it missed her eye. Stupid dog! I was examining her wounds when the other one materialized back on our side of the fence. The puppy’s injuries were minor, and we just continued on back to the car.

Yesterday, I stopped at the same spot to try to figure out how the dog had so easily gotten past the fence. It had occurred to me that there might have been a breach in the barbed wire in an adjacent section, or that the fencing might have been constructed in such a way that she could have gone around it. But I found neither to be the case. Unless the park district has repaired a breach in the fence during the past month, the only rational explanation I could come up with is that she must have recognized the barrier, got down on her belly, and slid under the lowest strand of barbed wire, which looked to be around 15 inches off the ground. It’s a stretch, and it defies reason that she would have been able to pull off such a feat without drawing my attention either coming or going. But there simply is no other rational explanation that accords with the laws of physics.

Gotta keep an eye on that one.

Jerry Brown was sworn in as California’s governor for the third time this morning. I was in college when he was first elected to the office. The Vietnam War had formally come to an end earlier in the year, and Watergate and the Nixon presidency were finally behind us. For a brief window of time, it looked as if the conservationist ethic and ecological principles that had evolved out of the cultural turbulence of the 1960s would be able to take root and begin transforming the unhealthier aspects of American society. (We Californians are accustomed to being an experimental cauldron for innovative ideas; the successful ones then fan out into the country at large.)

Then, for reasons that defy easy explanation, something went wrong on a grand scale. Former California governor and master illusionist Ronald Reagan went to Washington, taking with him a grab bag of Tinseltown tricks and a nihilistic philosophy of “Buy Now, Pay Later.” The Republican Party became duly addicted. The strategy worked long enough to give the Bush family a chance to play out its dynastic fantasies, but Bush the Younger managed to run both the economy and foreign policy into a ditch before he sailed off into the sunset. Now the bill is coming due for decades of reality avoidance and profligate spending.

I don’t mean to imply that Democrats have their hands clean in the mess we’re in, not at all. But, circa 2011, they’re more likely to be wearing the mantle of rational, responsible adulthood in any given situation. Which brings me back to Jerry. He’s quite fallible, but he’s shown over time that he’s capable of learning from his mistakes, his heart is in the right place, and he’s always been a maverick. I can’t imagine a better person to be stepping into the state’s highest office at this critical juncture in our history. It’s going to be quite an interesting ride.

Rainbows over a waterfall in Yosemite Valley are one of the most beautiful sights on earth. Here’s an old story about the source of their magic:

The vast ravine of Yo Semite (Grizzly Bear), formed by tearing apart the solid Sierras, is graced by many water-falls raining down the mile-high cliffs. The one called Bridal Veil has this tale attached to it. Centuries ago, in the shelter of this valley, lived Tutokanula and his tribe—a good hunter, he, a thoughtful saver of crops and game for winter, a wise chief, trusted and loved by his people. While hunting, one day, the tutelary spirit of the valley—the lovely Tisayac—revealed herself to him, and from that moment he knew no peace, nor did he care for the well-being of his people; for she was not as they were: her skin was white, her hair was golden, and her eyes like heaven; her speech was as a thrush-song and led him to her, but when he opened his arms she rose lighter than any bird and vanished in the sky.

Lacking his direction Yo Semite became a desert, and when Tisayac returned she wept to see the corn lands grown with bushes and bears rooting where the huts had been. On a mighty dome of rock she knelt and begged the Great Spirit to restore its virtue to the land. He did so, for, stooping from the sky, he spread new life of green on all the valley floor, and smiting the mountains he broke a channel for the pent-up meltings of the snows, and the water ran and leaped far down, pooling in a lake below and flowing off to gladden other land. The birds returned, the flowers sprang up, corn swayed in the breeze, and the people, coming back, gave the name of Tisayac to South Dome, where she had knelt.

Then came the chief home again, and, hearing that the spirit had appeared, was smitten with love more strong than ever. Climbing to the crest of a rock that spires three thousand feet above the valley, he carved his likeness there with his hunting-knife, so that his memory might live among his tribe. As he sat, tired with his work, at the foot of the Bridal Veil, he saw, with a rainbow arching around her, the form of Tisayac shining from the water. She smiled on him and beckoned. His quest was at an end. With a cry of joy he sprang into the fall and disappeared with Tisayac. Two rainbows quivered on the falling water, and the sun went down.

– Charles M. Skinner, Myths and Legends of Our Own Land

For the first time since the 1600s, the arrival of today’s winter solstice coincided with a lunar eclipse. The weather has been chilly and cloudy lately, and I decided not to stay up and try to see the moon fall into the earth’s shadow early this morning. But I woke up in the middle of the night and lay in bed listening to a chorus of owls whooo-who-whooing to each other from the branches of the tall trees that rim the property. Owl magic seems a good auspice for the start of winter.

I took the dogs down to the bay for a run this morning, because the rains have taken a break. We weren’t able to go down Owl Alley, a long, straight shot near the end of one of our regular routes, because the park district has goats out munching the grass in an adjacent field. So, we stayed down near the water. The clouds and sunlight were teaming up to produce some amazing configurations, and the muted tones of blues, grays and browns suited my mood.

The term “fish ladders” always sounds to me like something the Cat in the Hat would carry around in his bag of tricks. But they’re serious business in this neck of the woods, as this article on salmon restoration efforts describes. As various California constituencies vociferously duke out their God-given claims to water rights, behind the scenes there’s a concerted effort going on to repair and restore the ecosystem from damage caused by former economic boom times (we’re still cleaning up messes left over from the Gold Rush of the mid-1800s). There are lots of interesting, substantive things going on these days, quietly, away from the spotlight. It bodes well for the era of belt-tightening that I dare say is going to be ushered in when Jerry Brown once again takes over the governor’s office.

The Virginia state legislature is gestating a proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution so individual states would have the right to opt out of federal laws they don’t wish to abide by, subject to a 2/3 vote of the state legislature. Eric Cantor, a cocky idiot who will be House Majority Leader in the new Congress, is urging everyone to keep an open mind about this. Phew! Once the floodgates in the mind open up to the lure of delusional revisionism, there’s simply no going back.

It’s actually fitting, given that the sesquicentennial (great word!) of the Civil War is fast approaching, that this subject be given a public airing. Back in the day, the idea of secession was romanticized from a leftist/environmentalist standpoint in Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia, which posited an ecological utopia formed when Northern California, Oregon and Washington split off from the United States to create a separate nation. It was a fun fantasy, but one that I outgrew a long time ago.

Don’t these people have enough to do? We really don’t want to re-litigate the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was passionate about holding the Union together, and slavery was a secondary concern. I know there are many people who prefer not to examine that too closely, but it’s the truth. Our radical experiment in the ideal of liberty and justice for all has made great progress in the past 150 years. We need people in positions of power doing the ongoing heavy lifting required to engage constructively with the major issues of the day. We don’t need lightweights who prefer to sulk when they don’t get their own way and waste a bunch of time indulging in escapist fantasies.

When I visited Monet’s garden at Giverny in the summer of 2001, I understood for the first time how an artist could settle on one piece of land and never grow tired of studying and portraying its beauty. Take a beautiful outdoor setting and add in the play of light and shadow over the course of a day, then spread that across the circle of seasons (during which time Mother Nature works her magic), and you have infinite combinations of wonder to explore. I’m a totally amateur photographer and I didn’t have the luxury of a digital camera then, but I still took some amazing pictures that I delight in looking at.

I’ve been thinking about the idea of people’s souls being rooted in place, and what it might mean if everyone developed a sense of stewardship over a physical location they felt was their spirit’s home. They would hopefully then want to know it better: its history, its natural lore, its ecosystem, its beauty and what it meant to them, etc. I would be expansive about this: for some, it might be their birthplace, even though they had long since moved away. Others might feel most at home in a bustling urban area (not my cup of tea, but that’s neither here nor there). Everybody would decide for themself which place on terra firma sang to them most sweetly. It would apply a deep ecology ethic to manmade systems, rather than being separatist about the whole thing. It might help to restore a sense of rootedness to modern culture. It’s a fun idea to think about.

The idea that Americans continuing to over-indulge themselves into a consumptive stupor will restore health and stability to the economy would be laughable if so many people didn’t seem to fall for it. In fact, our collective inability to recognize and call out the symptoms of the addiction disease for what they are has much to do with what got us into the current mess. Why would I want to spend the day after Thanksgiving elbowing my way through sweaty crowds to buy a bunch of stuff I don’t need when, for the price of half a gallon of gas, I could be out enjoying this?

7/23/02, Burgos, Spain – I’m in Burgos, now. This is where El Cid lived in the 11th century. I arrived here last night and am spending the day resting and sightseeing. I’ll continue on my path of righteousness in the morning. I have about 500 km more to go to reach Santiago, where my holy crusade will end. In fact, I’ve already placed my order for a size XXL 5000 watt halo.

There are some really neat souvenir shops here in town. You can get a genuine El Cid sword here for under $20. I wish I had some space to carry one. On the other hand, I might just need one for protection against the roving bands of godless heathen moors and protestants that I’ve been warned about.

Now that I’ve cycled a few hundred km in northwestern Spain (and having cycled the entire Mediterranean coast on my last trip), I have to admit that Spain is just not as pretty as France. This is really unfortunate, as the cost of living here is much less, I can almost speak the language, and the food is better. In France I really tried to cultivate a taste for frogs and snails, but never really did get to like them. Here in Spain, a tortilla is a flat potato omelette and all of the cafes have tapas, which are an assortment of snacks that usually taste good even if I don’t know what they are made of.

From now on, I plan to slow down my pace a little. After my last trip to Europe, I felt that I spent too much time cycling and too little time enjoying Europe. And here I am making the same mistake again. This afternoon I’m going to read my pilgrim guidebook and try to plan for some more rest days between here and Santiago. The country I’m cycling through is like the area between Bakersfield and Fresno, but with a lot more hills. The two lane highway seems to miss most of the small medieval villages that I really like to see. It’s not as bicycle friendly as France, where there are a lot more rural roads that pass right through the small villages.

God is certainly looking out for the welfare of His holy pilgrims. The temperature is in the mid ‘90s, none of us are even slightly concerned about frostbite, and there are just enough unexpected thunderstorms to ensure our personal cleanliness.

The closer I get to Santiago, the more holy pilgrims I see along the way, as the various pilgrim trails from all parts of Europe converge. I’m expecting that the last 50 km into Santiago will look like the Interstate 10 at rush hour, full of backpackers and bicycles.

I’m really surprised at just how popular this trip is here in Europe. I had never heard of it before someone in Paris told me about it. I have even run across several other Americans here. With the three Euro price for a night of ecstasy in the multi-sex albuergues, a person can easily take a very long, very cheap European vacation and see things that the average tourist will never have a clue even exists. I might even do this again someday, but following a different route. That way I could be the only saint in California with two halos.

It was a year ago today that I moved into my new abode. This is a magical place, and there is much to celebrate! Here’s a quick pictorial sketch of some special moments during the past year: