If you are familiar with North American Indigenous spirituality you may have heard one or both of these two pipe origin stories; the first is the story of White Buffalo Calf Woman who was responsible for bringing the Sacred Pipe to the Lakota People. The second is the story the young woman who falls in love with Thunder and is responsible for bringing the Sacred Pipe to the Blackfeet People.
There is another Pipe origin story that I feel must be told at this time. The difference between to two pipe origin stories refernced above and the one I am about to tell is that I actually witnessesed and participated in the unfolding of it. To you this will be just another story, but for me it was an unfolding of a series of events that I witnessed and participated in.
Since the age of 15 I have dedicated my life towards healing, change and personal growth. My path has remained consistent until the present day. Reich, Sweatlodge, Sufism, the guidance of dreams.
As i recall the events I'm about to share it seems that there was much about life that felt pregnant with possibility. I had been married about a year prior to our trip and had been regularly attending the Sweatlodge ceremony with a group of Natives on one of the reservations close to my home In Tacoma, as well as sweating alone at least once per month. I am a person of energy and capable of intense focus and drive which has served me as a blessing and a curse alternately. However during this period of my life and especially this trip I was excited to just allow the experiences of the trip their natural course rather than feeling a need to control and drive some over reaching agenda or schedule. My friends seemed happy to follow along with this take it as it comes attitude as well.
About 30 years ago my three friends and I backpacked into the Sky Lakes Wilderness area in Southern Oregon. Our destination was Lake Ivars the Northern most lake of the Sky Lakes cluster of seven, situated just South of Crater Lake, the grand daddy of all high mountain lakes. Crater Lake is all that remaines of a huge Volcano, Mt. Mazoma, that blew its top many, thousands of years ago leaving a 6 mile across crater filled with the waters of melted snows and natural ground springs. The water is pure, crystal clear, freezing to the touch even in summer and fathomless in it's depth.
Our adventurous party of four consisted of Steve a friend from my days at Kent State University,, Doug the youngest and a resent addition to our group of friends, John the oldest of the group and a friend of mine since I was 18 years old, and myself a newly married young man 35 years of age.
Talk about the rocky broken trail the tall meadow grasses and the dwarf evergreen trees at this high mountain altitude above sea level. The land felt unspoiled and pristine due to the low number of human visitors to the area as well as the deep snow pack of the winter months which seems to clense the land of all signs of human accupation from one year to the next. There is something about this lake basin that has called out to me sinse I was a young boy. When there one has the feeling that the wilderness is as curious and observing of us at least as much as we are of it. Steve, John and I had backpacked into the Sky Lakes Wilderness the summer before following the same trail into the lakes from Klamath Falls to the East until it T-bones into the Pacific Crest Trail.. During that adventure we had taken the Pacific Crest Trail to the South and camped at Long Lake the largest of the Sky Lakes. This year we traveled North on the Pacific Crest to Lake Ivors.
The first leg of our journey was about six miles of gradual but constant climbing until we arrived at the junction with the Pacific Crest Trail. At this point we took the Crest trail to the right and North to head towards our Lake Ivars destination. During this second leg of our journey the trail was much less traveled and required a keen you to keep from loosing our way. The ground cover completely obscured the view of the trail in many places and required us to send a scout ahead. to make sure we were staying on course. We hiked a mile or so before the trail took a steep decent into a valley that seemed to run east and west with lake Ivars situated on the south side and the remnants of what was once mount Mazama and now is Crater Lake.
Once we arrived at Lake Ivors we all decided to set up camp on the South shore of the tiny lake. The site we selected was nestled among trees growing close the the shore in a flat area located at the base of a steep slope that went up 40 to 50 yards and crested onto a small flat meddowed plateau. The lake itself was small (one could easily throw an egg size stone to the other shore which consisted of a burm shaped rise in the land that acted to cups the tiny lake awhich also served to overlook a deep valley. In addition the expanse of the valley was finalized by a rise in the land which culminated in a steep climb to the hills forming the base of the rim peak of Crater Lake.
After the grueling 8 mile hike in we setting up our camp and then chose to eat a light dinner before turn in for the night. The next morning I woke up early to the brisk cool air of the mountains. and walked the short distance along the east side of the lake to stand on the lakes nothern burm to look down steep side of a deep valley that separated us from the rising hills that made up the sloped sides of the huge crater that is Crater Lake.
Part of my purpose in being here was to honor the gifts that had come to me from this wild place and so went about searching for a place to offer a prayer with tobacco. I had brought with me the Grandfather pipe and walked alone into the woods to the east to privately offer my prayers to the spirits of this land by loading and smoking the pipe. Again the feeling came to me that the land was watching but now the feeling was much stronger.
