Earth & Magick

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Episode #3 – 18.8 Mb (or 19.74 depending upon who you ask…) -  20m 34s

Show Notes for Episode #3 – Earth & Bones

Welcome to Earth & Magick, where Earth Science and the Craft meet! I am your host, Meical abAwen.

Episode 3, Earth & Bones:

Welcome to Earth & Magick, where Earth Science and the Craft meet! I am your host, Meical ab Awen.

This is episode 3, Earth & Bones, a narrative episode in which I relate what can happen when you assume that this good earth is solid underfoot.  I also provide a brief glimpse into the social complexity of a simple fossil hunt with family; and then there’s the dogs.

So, sit back and listen, I hope you enjoy the show.Narrative – Bones of the EarthPodcast #3 – Earth & Bones

As I scramble down the hillside through the twisted brush and oaks, I can see that the valley is small and self-contained: neat in its simplicity, man-made?  It is shallow at first, and then descends for a few hundred yards until the valley ends at an abrupt wall of stone. It’s as though a Titan’s hand had thrust a scoop into the Arkansas hills, and lifted all the rock away.

Dogwoods lining the valley walls tell me this area was mined out decades ago, and that there is plenty of water here.  Good. This one area will provide all I need to complete my report. I’ll be able to map the layers that the great scoop cut through, and draw the cliff face in good detail. I have been searching all day for an exposure like this.

This morning I packed a light load, and I’m glad I did.  It isn’t hot, but there aren’t any roads in this worked-over land and I am worn out.  World War II’s great consuming hunger reached even here to northwest Arkansas, hungry for the coal hidden underground.  There is hardly a section of this county left that hasn’t been mined out. The surface is pocked with craters, and the streams and rivers have all run crazy.

I’m here to see what impact more surface mining would have on the natural environment.  That’s a laugh.  There’s hardly any natural terrain here: our hands never lay lightly upon this land.

I am walking along the base of the cliff and not paying attention to my footing, when I walk a step too far.  A crust of mixed ice and dirt, leaves and coal over running water gives way. As I fall I throw my arms wide and my field-pack and gear land behind me.  The suddenness of my fall and the shock of cold water leaves me gasping.  A moment earlier I was standing on a bench of weathered black coal that lay below the telltale sandstone.  Now I’m up to my chest in deadly cold water. A strong current tugs at my boots and only my out-thrown arms keep me from being dragged under the crust.  I can feel my legs going numb already in the cold, and I twist to look over my shoulder.  Where is that tree that was nearby? Are the roots within my reach?

They aren’t, and my turn has caused me to slip further down, and now the cold black water is tugging harder and my legs are swept up.  If I move much more I’ll go under for sure.  My god, any god, — help me now. Please.

I have one good try in me before the cold claims me: time is running out.  The strap on my field-bag is close enough to grab. I try to snag it on the nearest root, my lifeline.

I am able to pull myself up onto the bank, but not to stand. I weep, suddenly, from fear and the horror of almost dying like this.  If I hadn’t reached the strap, if I had gone under, the current would have dragged me beneath the cliff-face to die in the dark, cold water. No one knew where I was going to be today.  No one would ever have known what happened until they came back to this godforsaken area, and excavated the rest of the coal, and found — me. I would be a bonus, a curiosity in 5 paragraphs in the local paper.
After a while I start again.  My notebook is still dry and there is work to do. Best not to get behind, it is a long ways back to my car and it is already late afternoon.  There is still more work to do.
The last mile of my hike back lies before me. It is dark, and I cannot see my way clearly. Dogs have been following me for a while, at first just one or two, but now a pack.  They are wild.  Feral.  Town dogs who lost their warmth and security, or the descendants of pets the miners left behind, 40 years ago.  I should be afraid, I guess, but I’m not.  Just now I can’t feel anything but numbness and the ache of walking for miles in wet boots.  My feet are clumsy and I am exhausted.  From time to time I lean on the stick I cut, to rest.  The  dogs come a little closer every time I do.  So, let them come and I’ll deal with them.  I survived the sucking-dark water: the dogs are not so bad.
I never looked back at them. I never let go of my walking-stick, and never looked back and began to run, and they never came. They just quietly faded away to their hills.

In the old days the hand of man lay lightly upon this land, or so they say. I think there were just fewer of us then. Fewer to take from the land and fewer to fight over what others had. Now we’re like a pack of dogs, always on the move. We cast back and forth across the good earth, ripping up the coal to feed our wars. We forget that we are not the masters here. The stone has its own ways, and its own dark and hungry holes. We forget that at our peril.

Stone Musings

She looks closely at the ground as we move down the slot canyon, hoping to be first to find a fossil. Not just any fossil, she must find a better one than I will find. It will be special, because yet again my wife has beaten me at my own game.

Number two son scrambles from rock to rock, scuffs dirt and attempts to kill all the innocent wildlife within range of his throwing arm. He watches me, and should I bend down to look at some non-descript pebble, he’ll be there before I can lay claim.

He’s no faster, though, than number one son, who has learned both to dog momma’s footsteps and to keep an eagle eye on number two in jealous speculation. This son, this most jealous son, would do better by looking down. The layer he is following is strewn with fossil shells. There may be a real prize, just there.

They all watch me from the corner of their eyes.

And I? I watch them also. I step down through the ages of this landscape, and I wonder at their brief fascinations and frantic scurryings, back and forth as though the rock were made just for them: eons of uplift and downfall and brief violent wrenchings, stone death, despair and rebirth, made just for them and their hands.

No wonder they always win. I wonder why they think that I always lose?

Thoughts

We earth scientists often walk alone. Sometimes things happen that are hard to explain to others; hard to share.  Often we DO share our love of this good green earth with our families and our friends. But even then, sometimes especially then, we are distracted, we are torn between the world of men, and that of Land and Sea and Sky.

This has been Episode #3 of Earth & Magick.  Many thanks to:

• Oona McOuat for the use of her arrangement of Drowsy Maggie as the theme music
• Damh the Bard for Land and Sea and Sky
• Turlough O’Carolan for just having existed and for Si Bheag, Si Mor/Snowy Fall

Bright Blessings to you all.

Meical abAwen

Earth & Magick by Meical abAwen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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