Thursday,
September 5, 2013:
I stayed the night at the M-6 in The Dalles Oregon. I probably
wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless ya really need to sleep. However, The
Dalles itself is one of those high spiritual vortexes where the Columbia River
once sluiced through narrow basalt formations over Celilo Falls. For well over
ten thousand years tribes built precarious scaffolds over the falls to reap a bountiful harvest of the Pacific salmon spawn. This was where Ken Kesey’s character, Chief,
from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest lost his soul after The Dalles Dam replaced
these fishing grounds in 1957.
Lewis and Clark camped here on their epic
journey west and this was where the steamships debarked on the way through the
Columbia Gorge upstream from Portland. I can feel the history and history comes
alive in the sweat and tears of those who have passed lives on this sacred
spot. The local legend has it that, in the time of the Gods, a chief (Saghalie) settled
where the Gorge is today. The chief built a land bridge so that the families of
his two cantankerous sons, Mt Adams (Pahto) and Mt Hood (Wy’East) could meet. The
sons both fell in love with the same beautiful maiden. She couldn’t choose
between them so they did what men would do a million times over in any bar for
a maiden’s attention: they went to war. The volcanoes blew, the earth shook and
the land bridge collapsed. There we have it, 17,000 years ago, the way it was
then: a family squabble with everlasting consequences. The lesson is: Make
peace or suffer separation. All the father wanted was unity to enjoy the land the
gods gave them. I don’t know whatever happened to the beautiful maiden… I guess
it wasn’t important enough to mention what became of her, just as the causes
for most wars are forgotten or become minor compared to the travesty they
create and the harmony they destroy.
geo 5,456
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