TRANSFORMATIONS
SINGING WELLS, RECORDING THE NIGHT
The singing wells drew us back at sunset. Not wells that sing, but men - their voices rising from where they dig for water in the fierce heat of day, each song a claim staked in air and memory. The Samburu shepherds' songs weave patterns through generations, known to the cattle they summon, mesmeric to Western ears. Their voices are strong, and the songs aid them in their labor.
That morning we had climbed the mountain with John, our young Samburu guide, following his path through thick acacia as the ranger's panga cleared our way. My forearms stung with thorny scratches and rash from the hibiscus - I remembered John's quiet glance at my short sleeves at dawn. Now we descended into different mysteries. The shepherds had gone, leaving their wells like cups pressed into the riverbed's pale throat. Where the last rainy season carved a sandy path, these temporary vessels waited for night's wild visitors. The call of Ring-necked doves, like the shepherd songs, hypnotic in the warm evening air.
At dusk, the Matthews Range deepened to a purple that pulled night from its depths. Pink and orange hues dissolved as we settled into quiet anticipation with John and the ranger. Four figures in a jeep becoming shadow. Waiting. Listening.
When we had arrived, John and I positioned my recording equipment down the embankment above the broadest part of the riverbed, where several wells spread wide below. Here, he said, the elephants would come to drink.
We looked over the riverbed. The dry sand caught moonlight, its bright glow dimly illuminating shadow. The pale ground and dark thickets created a monochromatic landscape where movement, not color, would betray presence. We whispered of leopards and their paths to water.
The ranger called out. Elephants. He pointed into the distance, his eyes finding movement long before mine could detect it. The herd was headed toward the wells near my recording gear. John and I, aware we stood between the approaching elephants and the safety of the jeep, hurried back to where my husband and the ranger waited.
We watched dark elephant shapes arrive at the wells. The sound of water splashing as trunks dipped and rose, sucking in then spraying onto thick, dusty skin. Joyful gurgles carried across the quiet night.
From the opposite bank, shadows separated from darkness. Two hyenas moved with their distinctive hunched gait, crossing quickly through reeds and over sand. They paused at a well, drank, then vanished back into the thicket as if they'd never been.
The night deepened. A lone giraffe emerged, its improbable shape impossibly tall against the moonlit sky. It approached a well on the far side, splayed its front legs with deliberate awkwardness, and bent its long neck down to drink.
The air was perfect. The embrace of a light, warm wind.
Baboons began to chatter from somewhere in the darkness, their alarm calls increasing over several minutes. A leopard was near. The ranger swept his torchlight along the riverbed and the base of the thicket, searching. Nightjars rose from the reeds with their circular glide, as we scanned for glinting eyes in the bush.
We sensed movement to our left. An enormous bull elephant, moving with unexpected stealth for his size. Across the riverbed, the matriarch and her herd began their exit, a parade up the far bank. They paused near the top to roll in mud, covering and cooling themselves in the warm night.
The ranger's torchlight found the bull, now quite close. The bull shook his massive head and bellowed, his displeasure echoing across the riverbed. He turned and dissolved into darkness.
The fading calls of baboons told of the leopard's passing through the night. "We can check your recorder now,' John said.
In the bright moonlight, John and I leave the safety of the jeep and ranger. We move through moonlit air alive with pale insects and distant fireflies, a flutter of earthbound stars. The torchlight pauses on eyes glimmering in the distant thicket. "Leopard," John says quietly. I listen to the night through headphones.
The wind lifts, and John's headdress dances, luminous against the night sky. He steps forward to the embankment's edge, and beneath us, moving slowly, the bull. The movement is almost silent. I hear nothing but each breath. Despite the darkness, despite our elevation, the elephant fills the space with presence. The enormous body seems to float through shadow, weightless in the night.
I stand taller than this young Samburu man, but his position is foregrounded in this moment. I'm very aware of this. He remains motionless, at home in this holy darkness in a way that speaks of generations. The bull moves beneath us like a spirit through water, never turning, never acknowledging our existence.
The space between worlds narrows to nothing. We hold our breath.
THE WHALE
As I drove home, the setting sun cast a colossal cloud over the bay—a pink behemoth suspended in twilight. Its weightless form hung between worlds, and I felt the edges of my reality soften. Below, headlights snaked through darkened hills, climbing the San Rafael bridge like bioluminescent creatures emerging from a primordial forest. In this liminal space, the act of driving and my persistent worries seemed to dissolve into the beautiful indifference; that airborne leviathan, suspended in twilight, gave way to stranger seas.
That night I dreamt of a minke whale stranded in a shallow pool, its body submerged save for its dorsal fin and the ridge of its back. The whale seemed content in the pool, splashing about as if it had found sanctuary. Yet its condition meant it was unable to go anywhere or move much at all. It could not link up with others or forage; it could not explore the sea and was utterly disconnected from everything outside the small pool.
Recognizing the whale's plight, I became desperate to help should the small pool dry up. Fretting about what to do, I realized the whale was small enough that I might pick it up and carry it to the open sea. As I attempted this, the whale’s head detached and remained in the pool, its eye blinking at me with a sort of dead stare—a look of shock. The whale's head and its body were not in communion but were held together by a very specific mechanism, one that came easily detached.
I put the whale back and fretted. The head stared at me, still, and the body no longer splashed joyfully. I debated whether to bring the body to the sea and return for the head, or if I could carry them both at once.
Opting for the latter, I tried again, but the head of the whale began gasping for air, in shock and with fright, its eyes bulging.
I thought, "This doesn't make sense; they breathe air." But the whale was panicking, gulping in fear, so I returned it to the shallow pool and fretted more.
As the whale appeared to relax, the body and head mysteriously reattached.
I contemplated the tide–might it rise enough to fill the pool? Or higher still to allow the creature to return to the sea? Clearly the whale seemed content in its limited world, embracing the grayscale comfort of warm water and sandy walls over the enormity beyond. A kind of womb. An earthy swaddle.
Later, I returned to find the whale gone, the horizon a memory of pink. The high tide had expanded the pool until it filled to such an immense size it merged with the sea, and the whale, whole once more, had ventured into the open ocean, leaving only the imprint of its tail in the sand. A beautiful series of shapes. Hieroglyphs of a journey, indecipherable upon the tide’s return.
Bears
The Sierra Nevada at 4am: monolithic giants against a void. My headlights caught fragments of rock face, then darkness, then rock. Doubt crept in as I navigated the narrow park road. The familiar instrumental I'd chosen for comfort turned tiny and strange against the scale of things. I was here to reclaim these mountains for myself, to find them more real than memory. Not escape, but confrontation - with altitude, with solitude, with whatever lay ahead. The indifferent wilderness offered both challenge and solace.
I'd spent weeks reading about bears. The facts were reassuring: no fatal attacks in California's history. Zero.
But facts felt thin in the darkness. I'd hiked these mountains before, but never alone. Previous bear encounters had thrilled rather than frightened, but the Sierras had dangers I couldn't quantify, and the map felt different in my hands now.
The ranger station emerged from the darkness, my vigil rewarded. I handed over my week’s permit and stepped into the wilderness, my resolve as heavy as my outdated pack.
By 10am I was spiritually fortified but physically depleted. “Paradise Valley,” my map suggested. A river ran broad and shallow, its cold shock against my feet sharpened my senses. I sat down on a rock, opened my pack for a snack. Then: movement. A dark mass in the water, rising. Sniffing. Coming closer.
A hallucination. No. A strange mirage. All my carefully researched statistics dissolved.
It was real. A large bear in the water, rising to its hind legs, pitching itself in my direction. Very close now.
I quickly stuffed my lunch back into my pack, pulled my boots onto my damp feet, and scrambled back toward the trail. A fallen tree limb became a perfect, heavy walking stick. I sang to the forest, warning other bears of my presence.
About an hour later, another aberration. One bear right in the middle of the path, and two much smaller creatures in the tall grass. A mother bear and her cubs. I inched forward, singing again, eyes locked on the mother bear. She raised her head, but turned away, moving her cubs deeper into the shade.
That night on a sandy butte above the river, great horned owls punctuated my dinner, their calls a counterpoint to the soft murmur of nearby hikers. Exhausted and comforted by these sounds, I drifted easily into sleep.
Morning revealed enormous tracks encircling the tent. Nearby, several large rocks lay uprooted and overturned. I shuddered, grateful for my oblivious sleep, then paused. My belongings were untouched. A visitation, not a violation.
That day the mountains opened themselves, and my earlier trepidation settled into quiet. At dusk, I snuffed out the fire, ready for stars. Sparks rose as wind lifted smoke from the ashes, drawing a momentary curtain across the sky. As it cleared, there they were: Ursa Major, with little Ursa Minor close by. The Great Bear constellation wheeled overhead, leading its cub across the night sky, silent and steady, mirroring their earthbound kin. The mountains spoke. This time, I listened.
Kits
I.
The kits who visit now are shadows in our nighttime footage. I remember him lounging in broad daylight, unhurried and unafraid.
II.
Every evening at 5pm, he'd arrive nonchalantly, yawning, stretching, wearing that presumptuous look. Time was different then – measured not in minutes but in the space between his visits, in the gathering darkness that brought him to our door.
III.
Summer evenings, he'd claim the deck, sprawled in pools of golden light. Afternoons he'd stretch across the driveway beneath the old oak, his mangled ear cocked at a rakish angle, blocking our cars with perfect indifference while his timid but tenacious kits rested on our deck pillows.
IV.
Madeleine knew him first, knew him best. She found him broken, or rather, he found her. She nursed him, named him, and taught him to answer her calls. He learned to trust - not completely, never completely - but enough to let her see beyond his mangled ear and the deep scar across his throat.
Several times a day for months she'd feed him, watching as he grew stronger, until his gait steadied and his ribs no longer showed beneath his coat.
His tastes ran peculiar but precise. "Foods that begin with P," Madeleine had explained, her voice low, sharing this knowledge like a precious secret. We'd arrange his meals on a plate: peanuts, pears, pecans, peaches. Through the kitchen windows we'd watch him sort through his feast, pausing at sounds we couldn't hear. For two years, this was our evening ritual - his dining, our watching, the forest darkening around us, his small shape distinct against the towering firs.
V.
Through him we came to know our corner of the forest. Coastal mist fed the moss and lichen that draped the elderberries, nurturing the sword ferns below. Twisted oaks stood sentinel at dusk, their hollows his refuge. Huckleberry bushes, dense and wild, covered the forest floor and tree stumps - their berries, his favorite summer treat, their purple stains across our deck chronicling his visits.
VI.
His family knew our ways - the kits drowsing in sunny spots on the deck, copying their father while their mother watched from the forest edge. Now when kits come, it's only in darkness. We hear their muffled calls through the fog, but unlike those first bold youngsters, these new kits remain spirits in the moonlight.
VII.
When we returned home late, he'd appear at the meadow's edge, running ahead of our headlights with his charming, distinctly vulpine side-trot, tail bobbing merrily as if to say: "Here's the way home." He'd lead us down the drive like an eager host, his wild grace making ordinary moments extraordinary.
VIII.
The deck still bears his markings, though fainter now. Berry-stained wood and musky traces remain - evidence of nights when the forest reached right up to our door. His brethren leave their own signs now, different but familiar. At night, these new kits circle the house in darkness, moving past our offerings, their wildness unwavering.
IX.
We touch the stumps where he rested, peer into the shadows where he once appeared. The forest holds its mysteries as it always has. Each night his descendants remind us, their voices carrying between forest and home, that one wild spirit chose to share our days.
*For the gray fox who taught us to speak forest*
SEA STAR FRAGMENTS
the wound seals itself
quickly as though
the body always knew
how to make boundaries
from breakage
the body keeps
its own calendar of tides:
yesterday: curl inward
today: test waters
tomorrow: become ocean.
radial truth means:
holding both wound and healing
without choosing
without fixing without
forcing resolution
integration from the center
from what others would call
opposite:
strength and yielding
remembering and releasing
staying and becoming
five points
five rays
five paths
perfectly distributed
some days the body remembers
everything at once: the shock
of first separation the way
water fills every empty space
each memory
its own blueprint
of transformation
between tides
no single direction means forward
the sea star opens not in growth
but in release
in expansion
the intertidal oracle teaches
completeness
is to contain the
blueprint of transformation.
wholeness isn't an absence of division
identity includes the capacity to split.
such transformation requires
turning inside out
stomach becoming threshold
stomach between self and world
stomach processing what cannot
be contained
one star becomes two
becomes five becomes
the strange math of division
where five directions equal whole
at lowest tide
thirty sisters gather
on stone each one
teaching:
subtraction becomes addition
separation becomes wholeness
wound becomes doorway
becomes beginning
becomes birth
between stone and water
between holding and reaching:
thousands of feet
pulling at resistance
until stone yields
until change begins
and here:
what if safety isn't something
we find but something
we become?
trust this:
every ending
contains
the center
of something
new
twenty years of reaching
twenty years of holding
twenty years the tide walker knows
another way to be broken:
between waves between breaths
between stone and sky and
whatever comes after fear
each fragment carrying
its own blueprint
of knowing
the deep peace
of being both anchor
and exploration
the body whole
once more
spiraling outward:
five arms
five hearts
five ways to say
I am here
I am here
I remain
I expand
I exist.