Downward to the Cave...

This is another piece from my journal...not necessarily crafting-related, but interesting nonetheless...

I have wandered

The woods that I have known

Since I was a child.

When I was young (and the world spun along

a perfect circle),

I had a recurring dream:

Digging into the earth,

I found a treasure,

Long hidden,

Safely kept.

That dream is coming true. The more time I spend in that space, the more I realize that my childhood has been hidden from me, by me--I have buried a great deal of myself somewhere in that secretive valley. There's a mutability to the landscape that I had never noticed before--it was fixed in my mind when I left it behind ten years ago, and there it has stayed ever since. A part of me still goes, 'This was here yesterday!' A part of me is still that wondering, wandering child, asking, 'Why?'

Among the rocks, there is something waiting. I hope it's me.

Hidden away in a valley that is almost vertical, there stands a cave. It's not impressive for anything other than the fact that it exists, and it will not always. In a hundred thousand years, it will not be there. It's not impressively deep. It's not spectacularly beautiful. It's a shallow hollow in the rocks, filled with moss and the excrement of the pigeons that nest up in the roof. But it is a sacred place for me. The valley is a challenge. In the ten lost years, the landscape has radically altered, after a torrential flood and a tornado leveled the trees for miles around, making what was once a pleasantly challenging hike a trial.

I want so badly to bring somebody else to the cave, to show them a new thing, as I was shown it, many, many moons ago. I want them to see it, when the wildflowers are in bloom, when there is green all around.

While I'm wishing,and speaking of changes, I want Biscuit back. I miss hiking with him. He was a Feist (sp?), a little black squirrel dog with soulful brown eyes, short legs, and a beaver tail. He was a free yard sale dog, always eager for love and attention. It's hard, the first time you realize that your pets aren't going to be there forever. I wasn't there when Dixie went. I wasn't there when Biscuit went. I miss them. That house, that place just isn't the same without them. A walk in the woods isn't the same.

I want to see the spring again, and the creek, through the eyes of a child. I want my childhood back. What have I left buried? I have divested myself of so much that I just dismissed as unnecessary--what awaits me among the unassuming trees?