Bristlecone

Yesterday we went up into the White Mountains. It’s the home of the world’s oldest trees, the Bristlecone Pines.
The road was gated before we were able to get to the groves so we hiked up the road through patches of snow until there was too much snow to go further.
It was the perfect opportunity for a walking meditation. The trees had one voice. It was a low, slow, deep, muted sap hum. I started wondering if there was a human universal of connectivity but the variety of genetics, neurology, chemistry, culture and even gender makes our natural connection questionable. It was one of those ah-ha moments to realize I’d left the rich ancient oneness of the trees to wander off in the forest of my mind and to return to the energy of nature, humbled, for my ambling walk down.
We’ve camped at a Vista point below the gate and I got up for the dawn on the Eastern Sierra Peaks, what looks like a solid line of 13,000 foot giants. Yesterday (and today) there have been controlled burns of acres of sagebrush down in Big Pine. (This really defies reason when the air quality is already pushing lousy from the air coming up from the LA area.) The mountains, ghostly and distant, are still too vast a chain for my little camera to present more than a bite of…