Appalachian Arms outstretched

In Virginia, and for the first time on the trip, I actually have a strong cell connection, but as the first foray into Virginia in early May, the temperatures are skimming triple digits and it's really getting to me. Wearing my last pair of clean underwear, I went to do laundry on Wednesday thinking I’d get a reprieve from the heat and soak up some air conditioning. Nope. The thermostat read 79 when I got there. There were six ceiling fans, but none of them on. By the time I got my clothes into the dryer, the thermostat read 83.  I couldn’t see any one that seemed to be working there, so I called the number posted on one of the doors and left a message. Pretty quickly, a kindly woman was there apologizing and getting the AC started. But my body had reached a place that I couldn’t stop sweating.  I could feel the air cooling down, but I continued to drip with sweat, leaving white marks everywhere I touched my clothes as I folded them from the salt. I’m post-menopausal, but it was like a never-ending hot flash, generating its own heat regardless of what was happening around me. I had client calls the rest of the day and was grateful we’d already moved them to phone instead of Zoom because I looked like a red-faced drowned rat. 

Yesterday, I decided to go up the mountain and escape the heat.  Shenandoah National Park is 15 minutes from where I’m staying and there’s a drive along the Blue Ridge Mountains that make up the park they call the Skyline.  

Instant relief. It had been a sticky 87 at 9 when I left camp, but was 75 and much less humid on the mountain.  At the first outlook point, I pulled in and sat on the wall overlooking the Shenandoah Valley below.  

Once considered the Wild West, the Shenandoah Valley has seen a lot of trouble. 

In watching Ken Burns’ new documentary series on the American Revolution, I was (well, maybe not so) surprised to learn how much of the story we’ve been told about the causes for the Revolution have been spun.  We’ve heard stories about the tyranny of King George, no taxation without representation and the like.  But King George didn’t impose the taxes we’ve heard sparked the Revolution.  Parliament did that to help pay for all the costs incurred protecting the American colonists from the French and Spanish armies and incursions with indigenous folk defending their homelands.  Citizens in the UK were paying 25 (of what I don’t know) a year in taxes to defend the Americans, while the Americans themselves were only paying 1. Not fair, right? So Parliament introduced the stamp, paper, and tea taxes to help recoup the costs.  They weren’t hefty taxes and could have been easily absorbed. 

What King George did do was to have a conversation with several indigenous leaders.  Britain couldn’t afford to keep standing armies in the colonies to protect the settlers from constant raids.  So the King forged an agreement with the indigenous leaders that the colonies would remain to the east of the Appalachians. The tribal leaders agreed and a decree telling colonists not to go west of the Appalachians was sent out.  

Many of our Founding Fathers were land speculators.  Being told that they weren’t allowed to go any further west meant their fortunes would be restricted to the plantations they already owned.  This infuriated them. But how to get the Americans behind them? Why should the average colonist care if the 1% can’t make even more money? 

But they also owned newspapers and had tremendous influence over public discourse, so they got folks stirred up about the paper, stamp, and tea tax to foment support to break away from King George so they could speculate west of the Appalachians without interference from the Crown. 

This story hadn’t changed much by the time we got to the Civil War.  The only ones benefitting from states’ rights to own slaves were slave owners.  The longer the South held onto slaves after the North had granted freedom, the worse off the South was.  Real estate in the South was worth ⅓ of what it was in the North by the time the war started.  Public schools were few and far between in the South, so illiteracy rates were incredibly high.  Plantation practices drained the soil, so plantations grew in size to try to keep profit margins, meaning there was little land left for yeoman farmers to work their own land. Southern plantations were not as productive as Northern free fields. And the practice of slavery kept innovation and invention at bay as most capitol was put into the slave trade rather than R&D for other fields.  

The Civil War, like the Revolutionary War, was “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.”  The rich remain really good at spinning a narrative that convinces the rest of us to lean in to accomplish their goals, regardless of the cost to us. 

Shenandoah Valley is littered with Civil War sites.  Several significant battles occurred in this area ranging from Gettysburg on down through Virginia into North Carolina.   

As I sat on the wall at the lookout point and gazed down on the Valley, I connected with the mountains.  They felt like sisters. Their connections to each other running deep under the ground - like linked arms as they stood watch over the valley below.  I introduced myself and told them why I’d come and the kind of work I do.  I asked them if I could be of service.  As we got to know one another, I felt the depth of their connections to each other, running the length of the Blue Ridge mountains.  Then it was like their arms stretched under the valley and linked with the outstretched arms of the Massanutten range on the other side, cradling the valley in their interlinked arms. 

How much support we have woven under, around, and above us that we aren’t aware of! 

As I felt the swelling of that sweet undergirding support underneath me, the spirits whispered for me to move on down the road so I didn’t burn. 

Through the course of the day, I got more connected to the Blue Ridge and larger Appalachian ranges. To the people that had lived there before the European settlers came.  I felt folks being pushed off of their traditional homelands and pushed into and over the mountains to survive when resistance to the settlements didn’t work.  

I felt how the mountains provided for them. Tried to protect them. At lunch at the lodge, I overheard backpackers talking about their journeys “This trail is all about learning to let go” one sojourner said.   

The mountains’ presence swelling around me like matronly elder spirits, their guidance and tough lessons still resonating today with the backpackers that enter into their tutelage by crawling on their back. We seem to be in a dearth of eldership in the Western world, especially in America, but eldership is all around us if we learn to listen.  Our other-than-human kin have so much wisdom to impart. We just need to learn to listen. To humble ourselves-- not in the sense of thinking of ourselves than less than, but in recognizing that we’re not the only ones with something to teach, something to give. We’re surrounded by wisdom and good counsel, if we’ll just be quiet and receive it.  As I was contemplating this eldership, I saw a doe and her fawn skittling up a hillside. 

We’ve had a spell of scarcity spun over us. We buy into so many stories of not-enough--about ourselves, our value, our worth, about the world we live in. About how deserving we- or others-are of care, of dignity, of connection and belonging.  But we are woven into so many systems of care, support, and belonging. Our bodies work 24/7 to give us what we need from what we give it. The elements surround and support us. The earth channels water to the surface and produces exponentially more from each seed that takes root. If you pay attention, you’ll see layer after layer of support wrapped in and around you.  

Then there’re the layers you can’t see or study in a biology textbook. The Vibrantly Wise & Well ancestors that all of us have. Ancestors of blood, of the land, of calling and vocation. Then there are the forces that the modern world has told us are dead things but are very much alive Beings- the mountains, the rivers, the fields, the stars and planets. All are holding and supporting us in all kinds of subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ways.  But we’re told stories that shut us off from all of that. That turn us into orphans- alone in the world. That make our worlds so small. That turn everything into a hustle or competition. 

What do you need to let go of to connect to all this support that surrounds you? What stories make your world small? Close off avenues of connection to the humans and other-than-humans around you? What stories set you into competition instead of collaboration with those around you? 

The hikers on the Appalachian trail set off on their journeys often over-prepared. As the days pass on and they gain more and more miles of experience, they discover what they’re carrying that they don’t need. And the heavier the pack, the harder the journey, so they leave things behind.  What did you think you needed but see now that it was your fear talking rather than the needs of the road ahead? What’s making your backpack so heavy you can’t enjoy the scenery? What do you need to leave behind?

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