10: Embracing Change – Smoke, Wind, and Whitebark Pine
Reading time: 16 minutes
If you read Part One, "Digging Through the Rubble," thank you! I truly appreciate you and your comments.
My backstory may have been difficult to read; it was the most challenging to write. Still, embracing the historical timeline helped me uncover deeply held beliefs and traumas driving my adult decisions. Bringing the past into the light is the only way to embody the awareness to heal and change.
Please join me in reading Part Two, "Mother Earth and Me," where I immersed myself in the natural world while creating vibrational essences. During this time, I encountered nature spirits, ancestors, and star beings, which revealed a deep connection between humans and the unseen benevolent forces of the natural world that exist beyond our everyday awareness. Nature provided the love, support, and guidance I needed to reframe the past. I'm thrilled to share my experience, portraying how an intimate relationship with the natural world is available to all of us!
PLEASE START HERE to access chapters in chronological order.
“Change Knelt down beside me in the wilderness, and in the gentlest voice I've ever heard, she said: 'I love being the reason for all of your beginnings'—then she kissed the tears from my eyes, stood up, and reached for my hand.” ~ Heather K. O'Hara, The Path of Songs
BY THE SPRING of 2010, I was sure the world was my oyster. My kids were pursuing lives away from home, and the past was safely behind me. I was a strong, courageous, and independent woman who had successfully co-parented two exceptional children. I was socially active with several close friendships and many social and activity friends. I was part of a sisterhood of women we affectionately called WWW, short for Wild Wise Women. We supported one another, offering witness, accountability, encouragement, and companionship for almost ten years. I felt blessed.
When I turned fifty the following summer, I didn't know the threads holding me together would begin to unravel or the ghosts of my past stowed away in tidy boxes, would emerge as unfortunate events and a health crisis to splinter my reality like a tornado in a cornfield.
DURING A HIKE on Lost Trail Pass in the Bitterroot Mountains, I had my first profound encounter with a whitebark pine. While hiking with a friend, he explained that the whitebark pine was working its way upward in elevation because of climate change to find the cooler climates they needed to thrive. The plight of the windblown pines made me consider how humans coevolve with the changing earth and expanding universe. I wondered what we could learn from the whitebark pine.
My decade of work with vibrational essences taught me that plants express themselves through unique physical signatures comprising their shape, color, texture, scent, and the environment where they grow and thrive. Similarly, stones, mountains, weather, and natural phenomena and events all express their innate qualities through a physical signature. These signatures are a part of their wisdom—their message to us. I was learning to listen deeply, observe nature and how I felt in response, and not judge my interpretations or the messages I received.
I yearned to make an essence of whitebark pine to discover what I would learn from the weather-beaten and gnarled trees. Still, I had to wait for the snowpack to melt to reach the higher elevations. The delay worked well because I had a busy summer planned.
At the time, I was co-managing Alaskan Essences and owned a beautiful home bordering the national forest, close to the wilderness, where I played hard in the mountains and rivers. I also had the one thing I valued above all else: a committed, loving partnership.
Or I thought I did.
Billy was a retired whitewater rafting guide, log home builder, and a talented furniture maker. He smiled with his entire body and hugged as if his life depended on it. I adored his gentle and affectionate nature and his deep love for his fourteen-year-old son. I had known him for nearly sixteen years, so being with him now felt natural and safe. In the fall of 2011, I sold my house and moved into his. We planted a garden, rafted and kayaked the local rivers, and made plans to float the Yukon.
After a few months, I learned that safe choices don’t always guarantee safety. I was too busy being happy to see that Billy wasn’t. He hid his pain behind smiles and hugs and dreams for our future, and he hid an addiction in a seemingly never-ending liter of vodka in a top cupboard of the kitchen. The orange juice he always drank wasn’t just juice. Remembering life with my mom, I checked other cabinets in the house, but I didn’t find more alcohol. Instead, I discovered two paper grocery bags of unopened collection and recent foreclosure notices. My heart sank.
Billy's life had begun spiraling out of control before I moved in, and I hadn't seen it. It was difficult for me to admit that Billy was an addict because he was beautiful and kind. I saw life as I wanted it to be, not as it was. Just as I didn't recognize the engrained patterns guiding my decisions, I didn't see the unresolved trauma driving his. Like most people, the trauma began in his childhood home, where his sister lived and died of cerebral palsy, leaving Billy and his remaining siblings with unresolved wounds that later resulted in estrangement. The more recent end of his marriage and the death of his lifelong best friend and business partner, a remarkable man who carried the burden of their work together, took a toll on Billy’s tender heart.
My survival modes of denial and rescue were in control. I ignored my needs and tried to save the man, our relationship, and our home. I made back payments to the bank with what was left of the proceeds from my home. The bulk of it had gone to Billy months ago as an investment into what I thought was our forever home.
IN JUNE 2012, a year after moving in with Billy and more than a decade since I began my work with Alaskan Essences, I attended essence practitioner training with Steve Johnson in Homer as his assistant and a participant. It was a welcome escape from the stress of home. A small fishing town on the Kenai Peninsula, with gravel beaches, tidepools, and sea stars, was a balm for my troubled soul. Our group wandered the Homestead Trail through meadows and bogs, searching for flowers and places to make essences. We also explored Kenai Fjords National Park and cruised alongside playful sea otters, lazy sea lions, and breaching orcas as ice from slow-moving glaciers tumbled into frigid water.
Back home, Billy was overwhelmed with the stress of financial difficulties, the influence of alcohol, and an unwanted encounter with his manipulative ex-wife. I returned home to a flurry of life and relationship changes. In an intoxicated paranoia, he forced me out of what I thought was my forever home and forever life, and the safety net I’d built was gone.
I stowed my grief and anger away with all the rest and gathered some things. With the help of a couple of friends, I moved into a small apartment in Darby, a tiny town nestled in the Bitterroot Valley surrounded by wilderness and national forest.
A week later, I flew to visit my daughter Katie, who was finishing summer university courses in Chambéry, France, a small historic city nestled in the mountains west of the French Alps. From there, we spent three glorious weeks couchsurfing through Italy by train. While falling in love with Italy's culture, history, and food, the Bitterroot Valley filled with smoke. Fires in the neighboring wilderness were out of control, and when I got home, the smoke was so thick I couldn't see the mountains surrounding me. Making the whitebark pine essence would have to wait.
The following week, I was on the road again to Fort Benning, Georgia, for my son Tyler’s graduation from Army basic training. I hoped the smoke would be gone when I returned home, but it flowed over the mountains from Idaho, and a high-pressure inversion caused it to settle in our valley, where it stayed. Everyone was miserable. On some days, it was so thick it burned our eyes and throats. The air quality ranged from very unhealthy to hazardous for the entire month of August. Valley residents did their best to maintain their spirits as at-risk humans and animals were evacuated.
My daily drive to work usually offered sights and scenery that took my breath away, but smoke obscured the beauty. Billowing monsters of orange, brown, and gray concealed our big blue Montana sky. At home in my tiny apartment, the smoke was confining, which magnified the feelings of grief I was trying to avoid.
Billy lost our home to foreclosure, and my dreams and the money I had invested in our lives were collateral damage. With the emotional and financial loss of the summer, I was afraid and uncertain about my future. I was starting over again, this time with nothing. I was angry with Billy and didn’t want to see him, but I was also angry with myself. I fought a daily battle between wanting to help Billy and focusing on my own needs. Ultimately, all I could do was forgive myself and move forward with a promise to do better.
ONE DAY, I jokingly told someone that I should make a smoke essence. I was surprised when something inside of me responded with a resounding YES! I let the idea of making a smoke essence simmer. I tried to push the thought aside, but something bigger than me conspired to make it happen.
I made plans to create the essence that coming Friday. Ancient Greeks believed fire represented spirit—the first element in the creation of the universe. Fire is the transformer and destroyer, representing destruction and birth, endings and beginnings, and life and death all at once. It relegates the past to the past to make room for the new. When I began to consciously connect with the smoke, something shifted inside.
I began to see smoke as the in-between place of transformation—a dark, uncertain, and frightening place. I learned that if one is aware and present enough to embrace the uncertainty, the in-between place is assurance that change is occurring. Smoke is a by-product of this creative process, clouding our outer vision and forcing us to look inward for strength and inspiration into a time of dreaming and envisioning what is to come. As my attitude about the smoke shifted, I grew excited to make the essence.
September 5, 2012
FIELD NOTES: Bare Cone Lookout, Bitterroot National Forest
On a Friday morning in September, my son Tyler joined me for a two-hour drive up a winding dirt road to a fire lookout. We were pleased the smoke was a bit less dense, and the air quality was in the unhealthy range instead of very harmful. We drove past Painted Rocks Lake, a reservoir at the southern end of the valley fed by the west fork of the Bitterroot River. We stopped to take pictures of the smoke as it drifted, circled, and gathered above the water's surface, creating spectacular imagery, like a semi-transparent veil into another world.
As we drove, a black bear jumped onto the road from a steep embankment, turned, and ran on the road ahead of us. We followed the bear and laughed joyfully. We loved our wild mountain home. We watched and laughed until the bear scrambled up a hillside into the cover of trees and shrubs.
As we climbed in elevation, the smoke cleared. At the sight of a blue sky, my spirit and heart began to sing, and my mind started to panic. The cells of my body responded to the sun and blue with lightness, but my mind resisted the sudden change of events. Part of me wanted to turn around and return to the smoke, but my heart assured me everything was unfolding perfectly.
We arrived at the top of the cone-shaped peak where the fire lookout stood. The vista was a spectacular three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the surrounding mountains and valleys of northeast Idaho and southwest Montana. The sky above was clear, and wispy, smoky tendrils snaked throughout the hills and valleys below, creating soft layers within the visually stunning landscape. It was breathtaking! We had sun, and we could breathe. We did, deeply!
While taking pictures of the smoky panorama, I approached the lookout building and wondered what the universe was trying to tell me with the blue sky. When I saw a small tree beside me and realized it was a whitebark pine, chills spread throughout my body. I laughed out loud as the universe poked fun at me.
Tyler and I found an ideal place to make the essence in a stand of whitebark pines below the tower. We connected with the dwarfed and gnarled trees and expressed gratitude in advance for their participation. We found an opening to provide us with sunlight for several hours, placed a clear glass bowl on a carpet of fallen pine needles, and filled it with water. Next, we looked for comfortable places to sit.
When we looked back to the bowl, we were puzzled by a small dead branch lying on the ground next to the essence bowl. Its needles reached over and into the opening, touching the water's surface. Neither of us had placed this stick there, nor did we think we were near enough to the bowl to kick the branch accidentally. And the trees were too far away to have just dropped it. We decided to embrace the mystery.
The day was surprisingly warm and sunny. As we settled in for the attunement, I realized I was delighted with the unexpected turn of events. I took in the expansive view and, in my mind's eye, saw a thread of energy weaving through all the events of my life, a thread that was becoming more perceptible as I grew older. I thought of karma and how many view it as a force of retribution or destiny generated by our past actions. I saw it as a tapestry of our thoughts and actions, binding people, events, and places throughout time and space. We aren't victims of the past. We alone decide what the past means and how each present moment will shape our future.
I breathed deeply and connected with each of the surrounding pines. The tallest stood about forty feet. The whitish-gray bark was darker and more textured on the older trees, but they all had gnarled winding branches dressed at the ends with countless clusters of five long needles. I sensed the trees were aware of us, and I thanked them in advance for what we were about to receive and for disclosing their secrets in a way we could understand. Tyler’s eyes were closed, already tuned into his surroundings and the intelligence surrounding us, so I made myself comfortable and joined him.
Air was the first element to speak to me. Many cultures consider air the element of intellect and imagination and wind the breath of life. A wind blew from the west to the east around the mountaintop. Then, another unique voice chimed in as a wind blew around the cone from the south to the north. Another voice gusted through from the north to the south. A fourth chimed in, blowing from the east to the west. The four winds were speaking in unison, each with a distinct pitch, range, and feeling of power. I welcomed the diverging air currents and breathed deeply to fill myself with the nourishing mental energy.
In my mind’s eye, the four winds created a spiral of energy moving upward from the essence bowl. This spiral held the blueprint of the changes occurring around and within us, and the wind was the unseen force of intention driving the transformative process. The wind carried the smoke into the heavens just as my intent and imagination directed the transformation in my life.
I laughed out loud. I had spent the last two months cursing the smoke, focusing on the harmful and unhealthy byproduct of destruction. I cursed the lonely place of seeming nothingness where I felt powerless and alone and forgot who I was. I was impatient with the in-between time of uncertainty, but once I embraced the smoke and made peace with it, I was blessed and divinely guided toward what I truly sought—the gift of the whitebark pine.
Cottonwood seeds drifted past, and I marveled at their wind-propelled journey from the valley below to this higher elevation, observing how life and renewal always manage to find a way.
As I connected with the trees and my surroundings, I envisioned a deep taproot anchoring me into the Earth. Nearby, two whitebark pines with branches reaching towards one another formed a frame to showcase the distant rows of mountains and wilderness layered with heavy smoke. Clouds and mountains faded into the distance as I looked through the framed opening. I heard from somewhere deep inside that our expectations and desires drive our inner fire. If we follow divine guidance and surrender our control when smoke hides our view, we will be surprised with an outcome much more significant than we could have imagined.
My gaze returned to the trees surrounding us. Their gnarled branches embodied resilience as they adapted to a changing environment, and their trunks grew in the direction the robust wind blew them. Their ability to overcome the adversity of the elements was evident in how the trunk of one tree wound around a boulder in an embrace, claiming the obstacle as part of its strength and foundation.
I reflected on resilience and adversity in my life and the lives of those close to me. Humans are incredibly resilient, perhaps more resilient than any other living being. Our ability to bounce back from difficult situations starts developing in childhood and continues to grow throughout our lives. However, individuals and societies can become inflexible and resistant to change, hindering our ability to recover and grow. Resilience and adaptability are essential for navigating periods of significant change and for helping children cope with trauma, tragedy, and stress. They are also crucial for adults, as they face the challenges of providing a safe and fulfilling life for their children while also dealing with the physical and emotional challenges of aging and grieving personal loss.
Tyler later told me he saw the smoke as a benevolent presence, a messenger of renewal. Smoke was a veil, a reminder of the constant presence of transformation in our lives, concealing the destructive and terrifying fire. We cannot always face that kind of destruction as it occurs. He understood that smoke always clears after the violent and passionate fiery energy consumed what was necessary to make room for something new.
After the sun moved across the span of the open sky, we brought our awareness back to the top of the mountain and each other. We expressed our gratitude to the unseen realms of nature and gathered our belongings in silence. Holding the amber bottles containing the magical essence, I began to cry. An overwhelming feeling of hope rushed through me, and I realized then that it’s not just all good; it’s all amazing!
Smoke, Wind, and Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis)
Essence qualities: (embracing change and transformation) The smoke, wind, and whitebark pine environment essence provides deep emotional support as we invite conscious evolution and transformation into our lives. It enables us to connect with a higher vision and perspective to maintain joy and hope as we embrace the gift of change, even as it occurs. This essence promotes resilience, strength, and adaptability while the past burns down around us so we may embrace the emerging future. It reminds us that we are safe during ongoing cycles of destruction and renewal and that these cycles are all a part of the sacred circle of life.
Indications: resisting change; resisting the shadows of the exiled parts of us; lacking trust or faith in the unfolding of one’s life; being caught up in the illusion of fear and uncertainty and the imposed beliefs of others; placing too much emphasis on what we judge to be negative; lacking optimism and hope for the future.
Affirmations: I AM the right person, in the right place, at the right time. I give myself permission to live a better life today than yesterday. I allow resilience and adaptability to transform me in positive ways. Change is part of nature’s perfection. It is safe to change.
NEXT: Chapter 11: Flowing With Life - Natural Hot Spring
Your comments really make my day! I write to connect with people, and hearing what you have to say inspires me to share more. If you can't comment right now, no worries—just drop your thoughts when you can!
What a wonderful reminder ... To trust that "everything is unfolding perfectly". 💖
I love this Marnie, I'm saving your writings and dipping in when I can. Thank you for such deep tree and nature wisdom, you paint exquisitely with words and bring beauty to each learning. xxx