Today was a special anniversary. Another year has passed since I started fly fishing. I spent 67 days fishing during this time period and each one filled me with profound beauty. Each day deepened my friendship with the creeks, rivers, rocks, trees, trout…and insects.
The beautiful insects trout feed on have captured my heart. Their life stories are incredible with some staying in a nymph stage underwater over a year before emerging into their final form. A few days as a graceful, winged creature and then they mate and die. Such profound symbolism.
I had a lovely mayfly hang out on my sweater for a while as I waded upstream today. Yellow sallies were everywhere, their tiny yellow bodies fluttering like fairies. There were so many insects hatching I had to keep my mouth closed, which was difficult as I kept laughing out loud at the multitudes of flying beauties. Many times my dry fly was floating alongside just-hatched mayflies as they dried their wings before launching into flight.
My heaven. Every part of the ecosystem in harmony with each other. Bliss-in-action. And while it’s fun catching and releasing trout, it’s the place they live in that keeps me coming back. Water. Wild, wonderful, clear, cold water.
Today I hiked and waded nearly 5 miles. Two very fat and sassy fish danced with me—a rainbow and a brown trout. The brown surprised and delighted me as this particular creek is typically a rainbow and brook trout stream…or maybe the browns just don’t show themselves that much for me.
What a thrill to invest my days in such beautiful places. With an open heart, I say THANK YOU! I don’t care how many fish I catch, but I do care how many days I get to spend in this magical place observing the seasons and cycles of Nature as an active part of it.
The only other time I experienced such merging with Oneness was when I was doing yoga on deck of a live aboard dive boat, 90 miles off the coast of the Dominican Republic. It was before sunrise. The moon was bright but so were the stars. As I did every morning, I awakened before sunrise and spent time on the open deck with the sea, stars, and the whales.
That particular morning, I was doing a moving meditation with yoga on a moored, gently rocking large dive boat. It was a dedication to my life’s path and my heart was opening in a big way. All of a sudden, I heard the exhalations of humpback whales alongside the boat. They were so close, I could smell their fishy breath. The more I opened my heart and surrendered, the closer they came until their misty breath was illuminated by the moon light as it drifted across my skin.
I found myself entering a purple flame and in that energy, I experienced sweet Oneness. There was no separation between me and anything. The whales, stars, moon, sea, breeze and I swam within the purple flame.
Saturday, I was at a workshop with Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band. We spent three hours in community engaging in stories and music, all celebrating Earth Day. The night before, I attended an event with them at AyurPrana Listening Room in Asheville. That was a much larger event but powerful with singing and heart-centered music. That started the opening process, I’m certain.
After the second story, we started singing and I placed my hands on the floor, closing my eyes and imagining I was sending love and gratitude to Mother Earth. After a few minutes, I felt a nudge to begin receiving energy from the Earth with my left hand and opening my heart to allow the energy to move through me and out through my right hand into the Earth, taking with it all the gratitude and love we were generating for our planetary home.
Tears were flowing and once again I found myself completely immersed in purple energy, like with the whales. There was no separation and all I could do was breathe in and breathe out and hold my hands on the floor. In those moments, only bliss existed, only Oneness.
It has taken a few days to begin to write about it. How does one write about disappearing into purple energy?
When the experience began, I was thinking of my favorite creek and the trout there and the moss-covered rocks and trees along the bank…and of course, the water. It felt as if all of those magnificent elements of the creek begin to reach out to me and fill me and took me on a journey into bliss.
This is challenging to write about because it’s not easy to attach words to such powerful experiences. It felt like I would open my eyes and see some sort of spiritual smoke that had toasted my hair or that there would be purple streaks on the floor where my hands had rested.
It’s also challenging because after such a huge expansion, there will be contraction. We can’t exactly drive our cars or operate other machinery if we’re so open and in a state of bliss. But these states can help us remember. We can experience the bliss of Oneness while in physical form.
The two times this purple energetic experience happened were related to a deep love for Nature. When I opened myself to this love, I was filled with bliss that lifted me out of the limited constructs of the mind into the reality of complete Oneness. Both times I had to be willing to receive this gift. It isn’t just about giving, it’s about surrendering to receive.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to share this via a blog. The experience with the whales was shared in my book, Cosmic Whales, Mystical Stories from the Sea. It remains, many years later, a life-changing happening. The change results from a knowing that I’m not alone, that Nature is conscious and wants to connect and that we’re all One with Source. Words are limiting, but they are how we usually communicate; so, I share this with you, dear readers, to encourage us all to surrender to receive and experience Oneness that is beyond religion, skin color, species, element, structure.
As I wandered and waded today, I felt a bit off from my usual happy-water-vibe. I couldn’t settle into myself. Couldn’t cast worth anything. I was about to jump on my own case when I heard, like a trickling whisper, The wind is really strong today. It’s okay. It’s very gusty. Just relax and have fun.
So I relaxed and let go of trying to cast perfectly, took off the dropper (nymph fly) and started just playing with a dry fly in the wind. I worked on casting for about an hour. The wind gusted and stopped, gusted and stopped, and I casted and cursed…but only in fun.
I was in a large (for this creek) area so I could actually do a full back cast. I chose different rocks to target and worked on accuracy in the crazy gusts. I didn’t worry about spooking trout because I was just playing around and practicing and had already cast all over the deeper pool and thought I’d scared any trout into hiding.
Even with my casting and quickly stripping line in, a trout started rising in all of that madness and eventually took the dry fly, which totally surprised me after that much chaos in its watery realm. You never know when it comes to trout. (That totally blows every bit of advice on being stealthy while casting).
But it’s not the trout I want to introduce to you, kind reader. Today I want to introduce you to one of my best friends.
It is birthed at 3400 feet above sea level, where Chasm Prong and Gulf Prong come together, miles away from its terminal point at Oconaluftee River. Washout Branch and Bearwallow Branch are two of many small waterways that come together to create my friend, each adding their own unique energy to the ever-growing flow as it moves down, down, down.
When I was feeling out of sorts today, I stopped and looked at the wildflowers blooming, the bright green reflections of new tree leaves in its surface, and the moss-covered rocks around the banks and felt so grateful for the friendship we’ve shared over the past few years.
Sometimes my friend is wild and too crazy to wade in, but days like today, my friend caresses my legs with its 58 degree temperature and makes me feel included, surrounded, part of itself. I can feel discombobulated with crazy monkey-mind shenanigans happening in my head, and my friend calms me, soothes me and points out birdsong nearby…or reminds me that the wind is rather gusty.
The creek has many friends that hang out…trout, bears, birds, wildflowers, snakes, mayflies, trees, moss, rocks…when we all get together it’s a real party.
It’s my sincere hope that all humans can find friends in Nature and visit regularly to have celebrations, dances, and prayer meetings.
From behind a large boulder, the tail of the deep pool looked perfect. I picked up the tip of my rod, stripping off line, and did the back cast. Just as the fly began to follow, I glanced down and about 15 feet in front of me a mayfly was emerging from the water. As it gained altitude, a trout did a vertical leap, at least a foot high, but missed the mayfly. By that time, my fly landed right where the mayfly hatched and the trout turned and grabbed the fly.
The timing of this was quite insane. And thrilling. In the span of a few seconds, there was a hatch, followed by an acrobatic leap, and a twisting dismount that positioned the rainbow perfectly to take the fly. This was one of those, I can’t make this up, moments.
Downstream about 300 yards, and 40 minutes previously, I walked up to a favorite stretch of flat water. Just as I cast the line, a large orange-colored bird dive-bombed me. I was watching the drift of the fly and when I pulled it up to re-cast, the same bird flew within a foot of my head…straight to my face. I thought I was near a nest and ducked….but wait a minute. That’s a strange looking bird.
I continued casting and the crazy bird kept chasing the fly and diving between the loop of my fly line. No bird can do that. I missed three or four nice hook sets due to the freakishly orange bat. Yes, a bat. It was fascinating to watch, but was coming a little too close. In my distraction, I lost focus on fishing. I finally figured out if I raised my arms as it flew near, it would veer away.
A big brown bat’s color varies from reddish brown to light brown. This one was out in the late afternoon, early for its nocturnal feeding habits, but I saw this last spring and had one on another nearby river chase the fly. The bat today not only chased the fly and dive-bombed me, it drank water by skimming the surface of the water. Amazing.
It felt like I slipped into some alternate dimension where Nature was trying to see how much beauty I could absorb, how much interaction with trout and bats I could handle.
The little fly that was smoking’ hot today. I tied it with two red hot spots. Elk hair tail and wing, yellow body with red thread and grizzly hackle wrapped around the body.
It was a 5 ½ mile hike with wading being part of that distance. But it seemed as if a door into a world of incredible beauty opened and I happily stepped through it.
The trout were sweet to dance with me and I had several beautiful fish visit for a few seconds, until I gently slipped the barbless hook out of their mouths as they waited patiently in the water. Without hesitation they swam away, and found a rock to brood under while their pride recovered.
Every time I wade and cast a line, it’s good; today, however, was a visit into….The Trout Zone. I was vibrating in harmony with the rocks, water, bat, trout, flowers, blue sky, trees, moss. And hours later, I’m still in a state of blissful peace.
What brings you to a place of peace and calm? I hope you can create space to invite that into your life soon.
Dreaming of wading…and casting….I couldn’t wait to do a late afternoon/early evening visit to the creek.
There’s something about the warm, espresso-flavored froth as it is slurped…the first taste of the morning. But this morning, as I poured the froth over the espresso, I thought I saw something floating. I ignored it but just as I was about to experience that first frothy goodness, I saw it again.
I got a spoon and stirred and not one, but two, stink bugs swirled in my over-sized mug.
The night before, I always prepare the cup under the spout and make sure water is in the tank. Evidently, two stink bugs overnighted in the cup and nearly created a cappuccino catastrophe. It wasn’t the best start to the day. And it mirrored my week.
Determined to turn it around, I headed up to the loft for yoga practice before I began work…work I do for money, not something I’m especially connected to at the moment. Yoga helps.
After attending to work, I took my dog Buddy for his annual exam and was excited to have a beautiful late afternoon to fly fish after I dropped him off at home. But there was an emergency at the vet clinic and we had to wait to check out. And wait. And wait.
Almost an hour later than I planned, I settled Buddy in with Vern and grabbed my fly fishing gear. I drove to one of my favorite places to wade. After parking, the first thing I always do is pull out my boots, socks, and waders. But today, there were no waders. I left them hanging on my bathroom door from yesterday’s early evening fishing. In my hurry to have fun, I left an important piece of gear.
Bummer.
I was wearing capri tights and a short sleeve shirt because it was so warm. I guessed the water was warmer than the 55 of yesterday. The boots would be rather big without the neoprene feet of my wading pants. But what the heck? I could handle a little cold water…I’ve been excited that wet wading season is coming soon. But usually, I wear neoprene socks with my boots when not wearing waders. It was either forget it and go home, or deal with a little discomfort.
I stared at my rod tube, the waist pack full of yummy flies, the wading staff. I couldn’t leave. Not with clear skies, warm air, and water levels that were back to my comfort level. It wasn’t even a choice…I had to do it.
The boots were a little too big, even with the BOA cinched down as tight as I could screw it. And that first step into 60 degree water was a bit teeth clenching, but what an amazing two hours.
The fish were moody and teased me, but never committed. The wind was gusty and slightly annoying. But I made a decision to have fun and I did. Actually, I made that decision when I pulled on my thick, wool socks and boots. And when I dumped the cappuccino and started over. And when I practiced yoga before work.
I got some awesome casting practice in the wind and visited places that aren’t that fishy but have large, open casting spaces free from tree limbs…not easy to find on the streams where I fish.
As fun as it was, my feet needed to get warm. After nearly two hours, I headed for the car. When I pulled off the boots and soggy socks, I noticed my feet were, in fact, quite numb. Good call to head to the house. But good call to fish, too.
Hours later I noticed how amazing I felt. The stinky attitude I’d had lately had been washed away with the cold water. I think the stink bugs in my cup were a reflection of my funk this week. I could have remained in that grumpy place when I realized my waders were at home; but, I decided to just give it a try. And that decision shifted everything.
We have choice….every moment. What will you choose?
Today was a huge reminder of how fly fishing has changed my life for the better and why I’m working and playing hard to be a guide for women that want to Explore….and Emerge. My next step? A day with my mentor on the water…and then a weekend of Wilderness First Aid with NOLS.
