Sunday, July 25, 2010

Fragments of Eternity

When I was traveling from Massachusetts to Montana I passed through South Dakota. I remembered from my cross country travels in 1985 how much I loved the Black Hills, but before I got that far, I passed through the grasslands and they were beautiful to me. I pulled over at one point, got out of my car, and began walking through the grasses into the north. My logical mind told me that I would eventually reach something human-made … but I felt another truth alongside that one … I had entered into a fragment of eternity. I seriously thought about stopping right then and there and finding a place to settle somewhere in that ocean of grass.

This weekend I am staying at a cabin of some rancher friends. It’s south of Butte and north of Dillon. I can hear ‘my’ river just to the east of this lovely little home. I’m writing this on Friday night and will post it when I return to Butte sometime on Sunday … though I must admit – if there was a chance that I might stay here … for a very very long time … I would jump at it.


Just before sunset I decided that I would  head out back of the cabin and walk up the dirt road into the eastern hills. (Even though I was warned about the rattlesnakes warming their bellies before the dark set in!) I walked past rusted pickups and antique haying equipment … I passed up the road watching the almost-full moon rise above a new set of mountains. I opened … and politely re-locked the gate … and continued as far as I could, passing off the main road onto a little path that led up a small rise.



I stood there in the twilight that rushed down from the Pioneer Mountains just across the valley and I was again placed into another fragment of eternity … similar and different from they way I felt in the grasslands of South Dakota. Here there are no grasses waving in the strong breeze … just sage and cactus, stones and rocky hills. I turned to the south and to my left the moon was rising higher into the night sky and to my right Venus fell toward the western mountain peaks. This felt like home.


I’m writing this in the loft bedroom of the cabin … it’s 10:30 pm, but there is still enough light so that I can see the sillhouettes of the bare peaks against the darkening sky as I glance out the windows. The ceiling fans above in this loft and below in the main room create a gentle breeze and hum and outside… ah, outside I hear crickets, the river, an occasional car as it  passes by on the distant highway. It is a blessing to be here.

I’ve always said that when I move (and I’ve moved many times from home to home to home) I want to move someplace I find to be  “this or something better” than wherever I am at the moment. And as I mature and gain perspective and discover what it is I love out in the world and in myself “better” changes its definition. Or I change.

My move from Egremont in Massachusetts to Dillon in Montana was better for me for so many reasons. And my move from Dillon to Butte – even better than before. I know that this particular little cabin is not my home … and … I feel that I’m being given a taste of possibility for my next ‘better’. Maybe here … maybe someplace very much like here – with the faint scent of eternity waiting behind the leaves of the cottonwoods in the breeze and the broad splash of stars across the night sky.

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