Blue Highways: Pitt, Washington

Unfolding the Map

LHM chases a hang-glider from the top of a canyon down to the river, and learns how balance and knowing limits is important if one is going to undertake the mysteries of flight.  I'll expand on this concept a bit and apply it to life - as LHM intended for this section, I think.  To locate Pitt, a hard little place to find, check out the map.

Book Quote

"Something darkened the windshield just as I came to the edge of the high slope.  I ducked, braked hard, and leaned out to see what it was.  Should have guessed.  A man had just jumped off the mountain in a hang-glider....

"'....It's a balance,' Holliston said.  'We've got to risk a little more each time to improve and go beyond what we've done in the past.  But if we take on too much at once, it could be the last lesson.  The problem is we don't always know when we get in over our heads.  We've got to trust our gut reactions without giving in to them.  That's what's hard.'"

Blue Highways: Part 6, Chapter 8

Klickitat River Canyon at Pitt Bridge. The field is the site to where LHM would have chased the hang-glider. Photo at Dry Side Property's website. Click on photo to go to host site.

Pitt, Washington

When I was young, I was fascinated by airplanes.  I could see them a long way off too because I am far-sighted.  A former foster parent once told me that when I was two, I would see an airplane that he couldn't see, and he didn't believe me.  Then he would hear the faraway sound and locate a speck in the distance and realize that I was right.

Today I'm still fascinated with flight and flying things.  Because of my eyesight, I've never tried to take flying lessons.  But my fascination extends out into other forms of flying.  I'm just as enrapt if I see a balloon in the air (and believe me, in Albuquerque you see a lot of balloons during the best flying weather) as I am if I see a squadron of F-16s roaring away or on a landing approach at the Air Force base near my house.  Just the other week I could be found outside my house, staring into the sky as the Air Force's Thunderbird squadron did its maneuvers for an airshow at the airport just down the street.  Though politically I am mindful of the need for a military, I am still against the use of the military unless it can be shown to be absolutely necessary.  Yet, I love watching the military jets do their maneuvers and think about the engineering that went in to creating these slim pieces of metal that can defy gravity and move so gracefully in the air.

Of course, as the quote reminds us above, everything has to be done in balance.  One learns to push the boundaries without going too far.  Those who are successful in pushing the boundaries are those that survive.  Those that don't might end up dead.

Think about it.  In an airplane, everything depends upon the balance of the wing.  From the biggest, most lumbering aircraft you have to the sleekest, quickest fighter jet, everything depends upon the balance of the airfoil the jet rides upon, its wing.  Upsetting the balance a little bit, such as raising or lowering a flap on one side or the other, causes one side of the wing to push down while the other raises, and the plane turns.  Too much, and the plane will spin out of control.  Even when fighter jets do some of those jaw dropping turns and maneuvers, they are doing it within the performance levels of the aircraft - slipping over the edge will still result in a small object, the plane, meeting a massive object, the earth.  We all know what body will survive that collision.

In a balloon, different circumstances are present but the need for balance is ever-present.  A balloon pilot is constantly judging the balance between warm and cold air.  Cold days are the best to fly, because the hot air created by igniting propane and heating the inside of the balloon canopy will give the balloon the best lift.  Once in the air, the only thing that can be controlled fully by the pilot is the rate of ascent and descent - other than that they are dependent on air currents at different altitudes.  A pilot must judge fuel, weight, ground wind-speed and other factors before making a determination whether to fly, and once in the air, how to land.  Misjudging any of these factors could be fatal.

I had a co-worker once who did hang gliding.  He was looking forward to the day that he could do a launch off Sandia Crest, the 10,600 foot peak to the east of where I live.  He told me that the flight would consist of taking off the peak maybe trying to catch a thermal updraft, gliding a bit, and attempting to land at a large field a few miles away and about 5,000 feet lower in the city.  However, like the men LHM sees hang-gliding in Pitt, he was fully aware of his present limits and what he would have to do to be able to take that leap.  He had been working with a hang-gliding instructor, and he had been gradually working his way up to larger hills to glide from.  It was a process of testing limits a little at a time.

Human experience has often, throughout our history, been viewed as a metaphor of flight, and for good reason.  We compare children leaving home with baby birds leaving the nest as they step out on to the branch, and launch themselves into the unknown.  If they survive the landing, and the other myriads of dangers out there, they will make lives for themselves.  We often talk about ideas, or dreams, or love taking wing.  We engage in flights of fancy.  We are up in the air about things but sometimes we can't get off the ground.  Occasionally, life hits us with some turbulence and we have to come in for a hard or a crash landing.

The Greeks gave us the story of Daedalus and Icarus, the father and son who escaped imprisonment at in the palace of Knossos in Crete on wings fashioned out of feathers and wax.  Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun nor too close to the water.  But Icarus wanted to try his wings and eventually got so close to the sun it melted the wax and he lost his feathers and fell into the sea and perished.  I read this story as a cautionary tale on two fronts.  Daedalus, the wise father, knew the lessons of balance and harmony and knew that the best path lay between two extremes, the sun and the sea.  Icarus, the impetuous younger man, failed to heed his father's warnings and, wanting to test the limits of his capabilities, flaunted the balance and harmony and paid for it.

We admire those people whose flight plans in life have kept them on a relatively safe course.  They may have navigated turbulence and faced times when they have been put in a tailspin, but they've kept their wits about them and they've only tested their boundaries within their limits.  We tend to pity and sometimes avoid those who don't seem to learn that lesson.  Their lives, out balance, seem to be crash landings that happen over and over again and sometimes, they don't walk away.  If flight truly is a metaphor for life, then our task is to keep our wings level, push the boundary once in awhile, and keep soaring until it is time to bring it in.

Musical Interlude

I can't believe that this song, from 1987, is almost 25 years old now, but it fits perfectly with the theme of this post.  David Gilmour had just taken the solo leadership of Pink Floyd after the departure of longtime bandmate Roger Waters.  Gilmour is an accomplished pilot, but for the first time he was leading the band on his own.  The song Learning to Fly can be read as Gilmour's realization that he was embarking on something new and, like a chick about to step off the branch, or a hang-glider about to make a first run down a slope, he was going to have to learn to fly again.

If you want to know more about Pitt

I literally couldn't find anything about Pitt.  A Google Search only brings up things about Pittsburgh or Washington DC.  I guess you won't learn much about it.  But here's some links for the county where Pitt is located:

Klickitat County
Klickitat County Fair and Rodeo
Klickitat County History
Wikipedia: Klickitat County

Next up: Klickitat, Oregon

Blue Highways: Hopi Cultural Center, Hopi Reservation

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapWe stop with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) at the Second Mesa where the Hopi have their Cultural Center.  While you rest there, I will muse and ponder on some religious, philosophical questions, based on a little knowledge of Hopi myth, about balance in self and world.  I humbly beg your indulgence, and hope it might cause you to think about balance in your own life.  Are you able or not to keep balance in your life?  Click on the thumbnail of the map to your right to see where we are currently balanced on our literary journey.

Book Quote

"Like bony fingers, three mesas reached down from larger Black Mesa into the middle of Hopi land; not long ago, the only way onto these mesas was by handholds in the steep rock heights.  From the tops, the Hopi look out upon a thousand square miles.  At the heart of the reservation, topographically and culturally, was Second Mesa.  Traditionally, Hopis, as do the eagles they hold sacred, prefer to live on precipices; so it was not far from the edge of Second Mesa that they built the Hopi Cultural Center.  In the gallery were drawings of mythic figures by Hopi children who fused centuries and cultures with grotesque Mudhead Kachinas wearing large terra-cotta masks and jackolantern smiles, dancing atop spaceships with Darth Vader and Artoo Detoo."

Blue Highways: Chapter 5, Part 2

View from Second Mesa near the Hopi Cultural Center. Photo by Susie Vanderlip at Legacy of Hope. Click on photo to go to site.

Hopi Cultural Center, Hopi Reservation

To prepare for this set of posts, I read a little on Hopi prophecy.  Okay, I happened to be at the library, saw a book on Native American prophecies, Native American Prophecies by Scott Peterson, opened it, and found a chapter on the Hopi prophecy of Pahana.  It was quite fortuitous, because I really wasn't sure what I was going to write about since I have never been to the Hopi Reservation, and my knowledge of some of the other pueblos to which they are related was only going to go so far.

After reading a synopsis of the Hopi creation story, and about the prophecy that helps define their culture and how they view the world, and then how historic and modern events play into or jar against that prophecy, I am left with some broader philosophical questions.  Perhaps these would be answered by a visit to the Second Mesa and the Hopi Cultural Center, or perhaps not.  But, since I am not really taking a trip but am riding shotgun with LHM by reading about his journey, I hope you will indulge me a little philosophical speculation and musing.

First, a quick rundown of the Hopi creation myth and prophecy.  The Hopi believe that we all live in the Fourth World, and before that, humans lived in the Third World inside the earth.  They were happy until that world got out of balance due to selfishness, greed, power, and licentiousness that affected everyone from the leaders on down.  The leaders, seeking another and better world, sent out animal and bird emissaries, and a sparrow found a hole in the sky and flew through into our world, which was dark.  There the bird met the Earth's caretaker who initially refused the people's entrance into this world but eventually relented when told that only the good ones would come.  The people planted a bamboo reed and climbed inside it up to the hole in the sky and crawled through the sipapu into our world.  There, they were taught how to plant and to live simply and in balance with the earth.  The caretaker gave gifts of corn to all of the people, but only the Hopi showed the wisdom to choose the smaller ears of blue corn.  The caretaker then scattered the people to the different directions, and the Hopi were told that after a period of migration, they would see a star and the star would guide them to a place, on the backbone of the earth, where they were to build their village and live in harmony with each other and in abundance from their environment.

What really strikes me about this creation myth is that it seems to touch upon common themes that accompany many other creation myths.  It seems that there is a powerful message in these synchronous myths - one that we continually fail to heed.  The long and short of it, to me, is that humans once lived in an almost perfect state, and then we screwed it up.  Whether humans came out of the earth after messing up the Third World, or were cast out of Eden after screwing up there, or any other creation story where humans have to fall or fail before rising again, it seems that over and over we are reminded of how things once were better until we started getting arrogant and upsetting the balance.  Balance is important in the world, and we often forget the whole in our minimal perception of the part that affects only us.  The effects of our choices on our physical and social environment, even to those we cannot see, especially harmful ones due to our selfish actions, is something that is continually addressed in our creation myths, and we ignore them.

These creation myths also, for me at least, point to our inner selves.  We were born into a state of innocence.  At some point, when we start making choices, we lose that innocence, especially when we learn that a choice is bad and suffer some kind of punishment for it.  Sometimes, our innocence is taken by others.  Childhood abuse is a way we lose our innocence, for example.  Or when we are adults and some violence is visited upon us.  But at some point, even if we've had hardships in life, our choices become our own.  We've all known people that seem to create their own miseries.  They live out patterns that may have been started by a traumatic experience that is not their fault, but through their choices they continue to create trauma and drama in their lives and others' lives.  I relate to that, because I too was a victim in early life, but as an adult, I cannot fall back on that excuse any more.  My abusers can't be blamed for any of my decisions as an adult.  Any bad choices I have made of my own free will that have upset the balance in my life and have caused me pain, and I've made a few of them in my life, are my responsibility alone.

I'm beginning to understand that when we make choices, we start to live the lives we make.  Many of us can make happy lives, a few of us make ourselves miserable over and over again and put the responsibility on others.  We can cast blame about for the terrible things that have happened to us that are out of our control, but when we make choices we can continue the patterns of trauma or stop the self-destructive tendencies that permeate our lives and put us out of balance.  We are capable of making good choices or bad ones, and if we make bad ones, then what happens after the choice is made cannot be laid at anyone's feet but our own.

My sister, who is a sort of wiccan mystic and clairvoyant, told me that she believes that souls are reincarnated over and over because they are curious and want to explore almost every possible experience.  She tries to encourage my soul to move to a better place.  Buddhists, it is my understanding, believe that our actions in a present life determines whether we are reincarnated with more understanding and wisdom.  For Hindus, reincarnation allows us to move from lower lots in life to higher ones if we don't screw up - then karma will send us tumbling back.  Judeo-Christians, of course, believe that when we die, if we were good in life we will be rewarded with everlasting life in heaven.  All of these beliefs add up to a belief in a progression based on doing well, on staying in balance in our inner and outer lives.

Peterson's book says that the religious beliefs of the Hopi about inner and outer balance govern almost all of their actions.  I, for one, could learn much from their world view, because I suffer when my life gets out of balance, and I am happiest when it is in balance.  The Kachinas, which LHM mentions above, are the Hopi equivalent of saints who live among the mountains and fly down as clouds and take human form among the people.  They warn the Hopi of the consequences if they lose sight of the balance of world and self.  I could use some Kachinas in my life, especially during my times of distress.  Perhaps they are around me, and try to help me, but I just don't listen when they speak to me.

Musical Interlude

I wanted to put a different Bruce Cockburn song here, called Hills of Morning, which I thought actually fits a little better, but I couldn't find it online.  This one, Creation Dream, will do nicely.  Though sung from a Christian perspective, I think it captures the essence of creation...a power or reality beyond our imagining and all for good.  If creation is corrupted, it is we who corrupt it.

If you want to know more about the Hopi Cultural Center

Hopi Cultural Center Website

Next up:  Oraibi, Hopi Reservation