Blue Highways: Umatilla, Oregon

Unfolding the Map

For the first time since we started traveling with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM), we go back into a state that we've already visited.  Okay, so a technicality might be when we passed through the Navajo and Hopi reservations from Arizona and back into Arizona, but the reservations aren't really carved out as separate states.  In my mind, then, this is a first and I attach to it some symbolic qualities of a new beginning in William Least Heat-Moon's journey, especially since he had been so emotionally low in Oregon before.  Where does Umatilla fit in the geography of the journey, take a look at the map!

Book Quote

"Across the Columbia at Umatilla, Oregon, and up the great bend of river into country where sage grew taller than men."

Blue Highways: Part 6, Chapter 10

From McNary Dam Overlook in Umatilla, Oregon. Interstate 82 bridges over the Columbia River in foreground, and Mount Adams in the background. Photo at the Columbia River-A Photographic Journey site. Click on photo to go to host page.

Umatilla, Oregon

Here is a first for LHM's journey in Blue Highways.  In the nearly 200 places that we've visited so far, he has never doubled back into a state after leaving it.  He may have meandered, and he may have wandered, but he has pretty much kept himself moving straight through states, seeing some of what they have, and then moving on without a backward glance.

So why does he dip down into Oregon again, crossing the border at Umatilla (pronounced yoo-ma-till-a - I live in a Southwest border state and my inclination is to pronounce it ooh-ma-tee-ya)) and then going up the south and east side of the Columbia River?

A simple answer is that it's where the road has taken him.  If you look at the map of the area, the road he has been driving upon in Washington, state route 14, ends at Interstate 82 across the river from Umatilla.  He evidently decided to cross the river on the interstate, and then pick up the Columbia River Highway (US 730) to continue his drive along a blue highway.

He also has tended, whenever possible, to avoid interstates.  An alternative route might have taken him up Interstate 82 to Kennewick, where he could have then taken US 395 across the river and then started making his way east on US 12 from there.  But he chose not to.  Instead, he dips back into Oregon.

I don't put a lot of stock into this, but just go with me for a minute here as I look at some possible symbolism of this return to Oregon.  It may be a bunch of crap, but all of my posts are my own interpretations of what I'm reading so far, so I can go out on a limb once in a while, like I have a few times in my posts.

Symbolically, it seems as if Oregon was a difficult state for LHM.  Really, beginning in California, he had some despair and began questioning why he undertook this journey.  He began to perceive life and our travels in it as an unending circle that just keeps bringing us back to the same point.  He didn't really see the utility of that, especially since that same point always seemed to be a low point.  As he moved up through Oregon, these feelings became more intense.  In Corvallis, Oregon he reached his nadir.  Sitting in Ghost Dancing, while it rained for days, he called his wife and she didn't want to talk to him.  At that point, he decides he wants to see "what the hell is next."  He continues to the coast of Oregon where Lewis and Clark reached the end point of their westward journey, and that association with the explorers seems to enliven him.  After touching the coast, he turns east and at Portland, he heads into Washington.  In Washington, he briefly flirts with a woman who fires his imagination.  Then he meets some hang-gliding folk who discuss the thrill of the unknown and the risks involved.  As we read, and travel with him, we can see his writing change as well - he gets back into the trip again and seems more excited to see what else might come his way.

Here's my stretch with the symbolism.  His dip back into Oregon seems to be a return to the same state where he once languished in turmoil and low spirits.  Except that now, he isn't languishing anymore.  It's therefore a return to a former area of weakness but now with strength and a groundedness that lets him move through and not get stuck.  It is a repudiation of negativity that put him in the blues before.  And, as we'll see, he stays forward looking, moving without pause on to Wallula and to points beyond as he heads back into the state of Washington.

I do counseling because I've dealt my whole life with being stuck in places that aren't necessarily the best places for me to be.  These are self-critical, self-pitying and ultimately soul-sucking places that want me to stay there.  I've learned that when I leave those places they don't just disappear, just like Oregon was not going to fall off the map once LHM left it.  Instead, my hard places sit there and wait for me, seemingly knowing that I'll come back by roundabout routes.  If I'm not paying attention, often I end up back in them.  Then I get stuck again.  But lately, I've been doing something different.  I've been visiting those places but in a different frame of mind and with a different reference point.  Sometimes, it's hard.  But other times, with a new vision and outlook, I can remake those places into something much nicer.  It becomes me deciding when, how and even if I will visit, not fate or life dictating to me where I go.

Another very important and real symbol - by "real" I mean not my imagination - in the passage above is LHM's mention of sage.  Sage has symbolized a number of positive concepts throughout history.  On this page, I learned that sage stands for or was thought to contribute to the following:

immortality
increased mental capacity
healing
life creation
prosperity
business
curative powers
spiritual cleansing
banishing of evil spirits

In addition, sage is at the heart of a Christian legend that relates how Mary and Jesus escaped from the soldiers of Herod after Jesus' birth.  They asked a rose bush to open its petals and shelter them, but the rose bush refused and told them to go to the clove plant.  The clove also refused and referred them to the sage.  The sage blossomed abundantly and sheltered them, and the soldiers passed them by.  Since that time, the rose has been cursed with thorns, the clove with flowers that don't smell very good, and the sage has been blessed by curative powers.

Since LHM drives into an area abundant with sage, it doesn't seem to be a stretch that he is driving through a cleansing place, a healing place, and a place where the bad and even evil of the past can be banished.  And maybe this is all a coincidence and means nothing.  Sure, LHM could have decided to take the interstate and avoid going back into Oregon again.  But he didn't, so you can draw your own conclusions.

So, that's my little foray into symbolic territory.  Perhaps I've overthought this, but that's the beauty of symbolism.  It doesn't have to be something that one plans out.  LHM probably never even thought of this - he was just looking for a blue highway rather than the interstate.  It was up to me to make whatever symbolic allusions that I perceived.  But, I can take these flights of fancy because I am an unique reader and I can interpret as much as I want and I can allow my thoughts to go whither they wish.  That's the beauty of reading, Littourati!

Musical Interlude

Once again, I had a song come to mind for this post.  I'm not sure why it this song wanted to come forward, but it did.  The title is appropriate to the post, and so enjoy Get Back by The Beatles in their famous last rooftop concert at their Apple Studio in London.

If you want to know more about Umatilla

Center for Columbia River History: Umatilla
City of Umatilla
Wikipedia: McNary Dam
Wikipedia: Umatilla

Next up: Wallula, Washington

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