It’s a sensation that is birthed at the core of my being and moves through my body and mind. I used to find it diving—being in neutral buoyancy, surrounded by water, contained by an ocean or freshwater spring or underwater cave. But it’s been a while since I’ve been diving…selling a home, moving, the plague has redirected my pursuit of deep peace but it’s still with water.
I walked up the trail a mile and a half before exchanging my trail shoes for fly fishing boots. At some point during the wading and casting I paused, seeking something…what am I missing, I wondered. Within a moment I knew…that deep peace that finds me as I merge into blissful Oneness with creek, rocks, trees, fish. Ah…yes. It will come.
I intentionally slowed my wading, created longer pauses in casting, spent more time watching the surface and soon that delicious feeling began to move through me—the return of a cherished friend.
From the first time I cast a line and watched a rainbow trout wiggle its tail and spit the hook, I knew I was hooked. I have been in the water with humpback whales and photographed them and learned from them. I’ve been with a large pod of wild spotted dolphins that befriended me and played with me, but these trout are no lesser teacher and guide than my cetacean family.
Often while wading I am grateful for my yoga practice that helps strengthen my legs and improve my balance. The rocks are slippery, the water is rushing past, the bottom is uneven, so every experience of fly fishing is a yoga practice…slow movement, balance, breathing, connecting with something greater than myself.
It can be seductive to analyze it, to categorize it, but the ultimate outcome is that I feel really good after connecting with deep peace. At first, I thought it was the neoprene smell of waders or wading socks that reminded me of diving. And that might be a trigger, but the real reason I love fly fishing so much is that it opens a doorway to profound peace, just like diving. It’s my meditation, yoga, mindfulness and Oneness practice.
“Did you catch anything?” How many times did I hear that walking the two miles back on the trail after flyfishing today. I don’t go to catch fish. I mean, not really. I go to surrender to the flow of clear water, feel the push and strength of the current against my legs, breathe the sweet air, watch the sunlight dancing on the surface after the fog clears. Yesterday I saw an otter as I sat on a rock in the middle of the creek. A successful flyfishing experience, for me, is just being there and allowing myself to drop into the rhythm of Nature.
I cast my line and nymph (an underwater fly) into a beautiful little pool today and a huge trout leaped out of the water and hit my fluffy, white, wool strike indicator (a strike indicator is a flyfishing term for bobber). It was amazing! A bolt of silver and pink exploded and then disappeared. I didn’t catch her but that one strike made the three hours spent on Deep Creek double….no triple special. Fish are a fun part of the experience but I release them anyway and don’t use barbed hooks so most of them slip off before I land them (which is better for the fish so it’s fine with me).
I stumble verbally when people ask me if I caught anything because I am filled with wonder and delight and gratitude after time on the creek. It seems to lessen my experience if I say no, because that one question is all they want to know. It’s a pass/fail exam. Did you or did you not catch fish?
I generally attempt a quick reply as we’re walking past each other. “No, but wow it was awesome. I had a trout leap out of the water and taste a blob of wool. Yesterday I saw an otter.” They hurriedly walk on giving a polite smile and muttering, “That’s nice.”
After much contemplation—which is considerable on a two-mile hike back to the car—I decided that to keep it simple I would tell the next person that asked, “Did you catch anything?” a quick, affirmative answer. I got my chance a few minutes later when a guy asked and I said, “Yes! It was amazing!!” and he replied with a shocked look, “REALLY!!!!???” I wanted to ask him, Why are you so surprised? Surely women catch fish in your reality.
And I didn’t really lie. I caught a tree limb, two blobs of leaves, my flyfishing boot, a submerged limb. Heck, I caught a LOT of stuff today. But mostly I caught peace…more peace that I have felt in a very long time.
I want to be able to express my utter joy of the experience of wading, sitting on rocks, casting a line, watching a trout magi elder burst forth from her pool…all of that is as good as catching a fish. With no exception. Now I know why they say people that fish are liars. Don’t make us lessen the experience by asking such a loaded question because to keep it simple we’re gonna say, Why I sure did. And boy was it a whopper!
I haven’t really come up with a quick and easy response to the dreaded-question but I look forward to spending much more time contemplating it as I wade the creeks and rivers around the mountains of Western North Carolina. If you see me just ask, “How’s it going?” That’s a much easier question to answer…. “FABULOUS!”
A month ago I met my granddaughter. She was born during the plague and circumstances kept us physically apart for over 18 months. This was especially difficult because my daughter’s announcement of her pregnancy gave me a reason to be present in an increasingly chaotic world. A grandchild, like all children, needs every possible adult to be present and bring forth her or his gifts. This was reason to stay, not only stay but really engage with life in a deeper way.
I’ve wanted to write about our meeting, of connecting with my daughter, son-in-law and Max but a long string of events happened that kept me from sitting down with my thoughts…a new job, facial surgery, a flood that severely damaged nearby areas and trying to regain balance in everyday life with the plague roaring through our world again. Finally, two podcasts opened the door to the inner space and ideas that have been working within me so I could put words to the experience.
During those long months of not meeting her, I longed to whisper into her ear…I love you Max. It was on a ride to the local farmer’s market in Michigan that Max and I connected in that place where the mantle of elder hood was gently laid on my shoulders. We didn’t need to say anything. In the backseat we made eye contact and I signed…. I LOVE YOU. She was taught basic sign language and every time I signed…. I LOVE YOU….she did the sign for ‘more.’ In those precious moments, on the inner I asked her how she was….a bit confused, hard to not be able to communicate what I know…frustrating. Through my eyes I told her it was okay and she had awesome parents to help her…and I also reminded her to remember….remember…that place she had come from and to which she still accesses.
It felt important to make that connection with this beautiful soul. My granddaughter. My daughter’s daughter. You are loved. You are loved. You are loved.
After documenting the Gulf Oil Spill for a year, I came out of that experience very bitter and emotionally shut down. A week spent with Joanna Macy in one of her workshops helped but I couldn’t accept pleasure into my life when so much horror happened and people so easily turned away once the well was capped. No matter how much I told the story, through words, videos and images, people had moved on to the next thing. Forgetting the lesson citizens of the planet could have learned had they chosen. So I began focusing my work on beauty. Perhaps that would capture the attention and lead people to care more.
Back when Em told me she was expecting a baby, I had lost interest in trying any more. I was disgusted with humanity and felt it didn’t matter what I did, it wasn’t making enough of a difference to make a dent in the ecological horrors happening. But there was a child coming into the world that needed me to re-engage with my passion for Nature. To step back into That which called me here when I was born. I couldn’t abandon her to the raging insanity of the world. I had to give my all…for her.
It’s hard to care, isn’t it? We see such suffering, such indifference, such insanity and wonder how it could have gotten this bad. It takes effort to remain engaged with what’s happening and stay open to beauty as the two seem to be opposites. But maybe we’re supposed to learn how to find beauty in a broken world…The tender touch of a nurse to a patient dying alone because of Covid. The person picking up trash along the road. The animal rescuer feeding a tiny, abandoned kitten. Perhaps our growing edge as a society is to see beauty within the ugly, to find points of light in the darkness.
My granddaughter reminded me, even before she was born, that the gifts I have are needed, that my light is needed. Maxine calls me to be my best self, to forgive my mistakes, and to fully engage in the work that calls me.
The day after I learned my daughter was expecting, I saw an otter with two babies on my morning bike ride. I stopped on the boardwalk and listened as she called them and they answered. Otter. That was what I called her until she was birthed and given her human name. Otter, in traditional wisdom, is Woman’s medicine and represents playfulness, laughter, creativity. Maxine’s birth reminds me to embrace this Medicine. She, like all children, are our greatest teachers.
It felt good to gather the gear and head to the creek. But today, I felt a call to a different section of water. Before I even stepped one foot into the water, a beautiful and huge wild turkey hen lit on the old bridge railing and peered downstream. I love it when magic happens from the start.
After she flew off over the water and disappeared into the trees, I walked down to the place where the Oconoluftee and Bradley Fork merge. Heavy cloud cover made the air beautiful, like only the Smoky Mountain air feels and smells. Rocks thickly carpeted with green moss, a light mist and overhanging tree limbs made wading especially pleasant. The fly rod was a prop today–an excuse to wade in the water with the trout and crayfish. I had a few good strikes but today was really about being with the creek and her creatures and learning from them.
I waded upstream to the trail gate with just a few bank walks. There’s just something mystical about quietly walking in a mountain stream. Sure, I look for likely trout hangouts; however, mostly it’s about getting quiet.
At one point, far up the fork, I was walking and somehow caught my fly (which was secured to the rod…ummm, not) with my foot. It came off the line and I knelt down and spent over 15 minutes looking for the tiny nymph fly—not one designed to float but one to sink and look like insect larvae going with the flow of the creek. I looked at my boot but it wasn’t there. I kept feeling it was on me but didn’t see it and so gazed into the very shallow water for a long time. Suddenly, I saw movement and as I kept my focus on the tiny pool, a baby trout—not even an inch long—swam among the small pebbles. He or she didn’t seem to mind my fingers feeling for the fly. It was so sweet to connect with this infant who had yet to become pouty and moody like the wild trout I have met thus far.
Like the one who jumped and flipped a tail at me as I cast a bit further upstream. Really…make fun of me? Just because I stepped on a fly and lost it? I laughed as I moved upstream, glancing up to see people with umbrellas walking in the campground. I had no idea it was raining. I was too into the baby and the fly that got away and the smarty trout that was trying to show me where to cast.
A few hours passed and I was getting hungry and a bit tired. Walking in rushing water over slippery rocks isn’t the same as walking on dry anything. Plus, as soon as I put my waders on I had to pee…never fails. It seemed a good time to end my morning in the cathedral of Nature when I reached the gate at the end of the campground. But that one sweet spot called so I went a bit further into that one magical place where I caught the big trout a couple weeks ago. Thought I’d visit her again…yeah, well, she didn’t care a bit that I was there. But it was still nice to visit and recall how she scared me when she hit the nymph fly.
I walked back through the campground smelling wood fires, coffee, bacon…that never gets old just as moving through the pristine waters of the national park.
I got back to the car and started removing gear. I checked my boots to make sure the fly wasn’t embedded in them. Nope. Oh, well. But after taking off the waders I checked that left leg and shazam! There was the little fly. It caught me well and survived wading through rushing water and kneeling down to play with the baby trout and a bit of bushwacking. I laughed out loud and probably caused a few campers to gaze up from their rainy-day reading.
Every time I fly fish I understand more about why I’m doing it…today it was about connecting with a baby trout, listening to bird song, gazing at mountain laurel gracefully arching over the creek, feeling soft, green, mossy rocks and finding the wild turkey on the bridge.
