Symbols

By

Ray Purcell

I’d been unsettled lately by a profound dissonance. Like a dream that seems to reoccur, a dream where you wake, or seem to wake, only to drift off again to the same dream sequence. Since this is all starting to mislead you, dear reader, that there may be some good bread about to be served for the mind, some free ranging profundity of metaphysics, let me halt that here and now. I have been disturbed by the enigma of the pigeon.

It all began this past 4th of July weekend when my daughter and I left after work on Friday to go to the Needles, one of the Southern Sierras premier rock climbing venues. The Needles, from strictly an aesthetic point of view, are striking spires of granite that distinctively stand apart from the surrounding geologic landscape and are completely distinct from Sierran domes. When the light is right, usually toward the end of the day when the sun is setting or in the fall when the sun is low, these towers of granite take on an otherworldly, fantasy appearance, perhaps like the fabled Avalon. And the sheer walls glow with a surreal golden yellow like the gilded domes of some mythic city.

From a rock climber’s perspective the Needles are world-renowned and attract climbers from all over the world. It’s not uncommon to meet climbers from France, England, and Australia whose vagabond climbing road trips of America’s premier climbing destinations include the Needles. Climbers are attracted to the Needles not only for the clean airy granite lines, which are consistently reviewed as rival to those in Yosemite, but the Needles mystic appearance. The spires clearly inspired leaps of fantasy among the first asscentionists who named the separate spires after the weavers of magical spells and incantations. Names including the Witch, and The Warlock, as well as the more exotic practitioners of magic like The Djin, and The Necromancer.

It seems that all rock climbers have a “tick list” of must do climbs, but mine has a Top 10 list. It‘s a dynamic and frequently changing hierarchy of climbs that I’m just itching to get on. This summer a climb in the Needles moved into position among the Top 10. Climbs don’t have to be hard, hard being a relative term, just fun. I won’t even bother trying to define fun. Suffice it to say that the Magic Dragon, an approximately 12 pitch 5.7 route up the slabby South Shoulder of The Magician just sounded fun. To be precise, the first three pitches are about 5.7, while the slabby shoulder is 5.5 “run-out”, and a 5.7, arguably 5.8, height dependent crux move on the summit block.

The grand alignment of time off from work for both me and my daughter seemed auspicious, and the 4th of July a portent of good climbing on the magician. Less mystical, though no less difficult to fathom, was that my daughter seemed anxious about something and I couldn’t help but pick up on the vibe. Perhaps it’s one of those arcane Mars/Venus distinctions but Courtney seems to process best when she talks, and I listen best when I’m going somewhere. Since we both like to climb together, and at risk of overworking the theme, it’s magic.

As we drove out of Bakersfield the veil began to lift and the focus of Courtney’s brooding took shape. She had been working in a locally administered AmeriCorps program that among other community service programs, provided after school homework assistance for kids with special learning needs. She had expected to serve two years in the program locally, but due to political and economic complexitudes (a word I now coin in honor of the Grammarmatician-in-Chief) beyond my willingness to understand/accept, her program was assassinated in Sacramento.

As it turns out the only option for completing a two-year term was through one of the national AmeriCorps programs. And herein lies the substance of my daughter’s angst. A national posting would require working out of an Americorps residential campus in either a decommissioned military base near Denver, or at a Veterans Administration Hospital in Perry Point Maryland for ten months. Now Courtney’s a Type A type, and where the nut didn’t drop far from the tree she’s at least more resilient than I can remember being at the same age- good thing. Still my little fledgling was being blown out of the nest early by the winds of change. It’s just too bad that that wind was breaking from Washington D.C. to Sacramento- but I’m not going to get political here.

We’d had dinner at That’s Italian in Kernville and then drove up the North Fork in the gathering gloom of a warm July sunset. As we snaked up the twisty mountain road above the Johnsondale Bridge that crosses the North Fork of the kern River, Courtney described the substance of her phone interview for the national position. We were pitched side to side in the cab of my little truck with each sinusoidal twist in the road. Through our leaning to and fro, she told me how during the interview she was questioned about her thoughts on leadership. Now in my estimation leadership is, and I’m being kind, an intuitive concept for most... if not an abstraction, national political figures accepted.

It’s uncommon to hear someone define let alone practice high functioning leadership, especially someone young. Paraphrasing, she told the interviewer that where she was not compelled to lead in all circumstances, given there might be someone more suited by skill or knowledge, that she equally valued the importance of supporting leadership, and that where necessary she would not hesitate to lead. She described good leadership as at once be both servant and master.

We had turned off onto the Sierra Divide Highway. Rounding a turn and in the very last light of day, we could see the silhouetted outline of The Needles on the northern horizon, it was inky black against an indigo sky. As I stared at the planetarium like curve of horizon I thought about Courtney’s concept of leadership. Since I know her, I know that she has integrated the principles of leadership based on the life of Christ. In the face of this realization I am humbled, not by Courtney so much, but the majesty that she has welcomed and is guidance in her life. As it should be.

We bumped up the dirt road that leads to the trailhead for the Needles in the black of a moonless night. The windows are down and the night air is liquidy cool and flavored with the scent of firs and the musty damp earth of the road. After pulling into the little climbers camp that is set in a small saddle just before the trailhead parking lot we pull out the Rubbermaid boxes (have you ever given any thought to the concept of a rubber maid?) where my car camping and climbing stuff lives. We line up the boxes next to the truck, roll out our sleeping bags and drift off to sleep listening to the whispers of other climbers and the distinctive rustling of nylon sleeping bags inside nylon tents.

Where the climbing is certainly as good and probably better than that in Yosemite Valley, the ambiance of the Needles is definitely superior. Generally the Yosemite climber has to be up before the Sun to queue up for the most coveted climbs. At the Needles there’s time to let the day slowly diffuse into you as the rising sun sifts through the pines and firs. Most importantly there is time for coffee and to set the tone of the day by savoring it. There’s no bell that sends climbers racing about like Greyhounds slavering after a mechanical rabbit.

Courtney and I shouldered our packs and headed out the trail thankful for the still cool morning since we hadn’t gotten out trial legs yet. Before long we dropped down into the saddle before the trail raises again to the Needles Fire Lookout. So far we’ve been able to stay in the morning shade cast by the first of the formations, The Magician. We started looking for the climber’s trial that drops off of the main trial to the south and flanks the precipitous west shoulder of The Magician. There were several vague trail-like markings in the dirt, so we pause and unshoulder our packs to ease and facilitate the decision-making. We each wander about the saddle and met again to confer about which scratched path in the tree litter to follow. The consequences of choosing poorly would likely mean bushwhacking hell.

We agree, commit and throw our lot with the last trail on the right just before the main trail starts to climb. Once in the dense oak and manzanita a trail, magically reveals it’s self because it’s magically marked with red plastic strips of surveyor’s tape. This correct trial transits a relatively easy and economical line that passes below The Magician and early on has a clear view of the fire lookout. The trial terminates clearly at the base of Black Magic, the recommended 5.7 start to Magic Dragon.

In silence we dump our packs and go through the now well practice routine of beginning a climb. The rope gets laid out, or “stacked“, to prevent knots and kinks while belaying. Climbing harnesses are adjusted and fastened without distraction to make sure the all important waist webbing is securely doubled back through the buckle. I can never do this routine with out thinking of that ridiculous scene from Cliff Hanger where the girl’s harness buckle is torn through as if it were wax (which I understand it was) by her own scrawny body weight. Racked, stacked, watered and fed I lead out on the first pitch while Courtney attentively belays me.

The best place to put in the first piece of gear to avoid “rope drag” is a bit high up for the first moves off of the “deck”. But once done the tension drains out and I start to enjoy the first pitch of a left facing and trending crack. The strategy for a climbing day that is not unnecessarily long is to combine pitches where possible, which is a challenge low on this route because of potential for “rope drag” along the wandering line. Climbing helmets have ordinarily become a staple with us, and I was sorry to have egregiously forgotten them as I tried to avoid kicking loose a rock missile from a loose ledge at the top of the first pitch that would certainly hit my belayer.

The second pitch took us to the top of a pillar that lies lazily against the lower shoulder of The Magician. There we found a comfortable belay with a new and improved view down the east and west sides of The Magician. We chewed on Luna Bars as we looked down into the gully between The Magician and Djin Needle. We could hear climbers hollering commands and couldn’t help but notice that one exchange was getting... well, testy- perhaps black magic was at work.

The third pitch follows an easy line along a right facing kind of granite bolster, and at the top is another spacious belay marked by a pine tree. On the fourth pitch the shoulder of The Magician rolls over like a whales back, and is well textured with shallow scoops and knobs. The route begins to “run out” on 5.5 granite slab. I was enjoying my slab wanderings until Courtney yelled out that I had about 10 or 15 feet of rope. When the rope remaining starts to get short in length it’s time to find an “anchor“. But instead I found my self playing “anchor”, “anchor” where’s the damned “anchor”.

When I spotted the “anchor” I was slightly high and to the right of it, which forced a thought provoking downward traverse, given my last “protection” for the rope was a “sling” on a knob of rock that had the features of a chicken head sticking out of the granite. Once I was secured at the “anchor”, a full 60-meter rope length away from Courtney, I noticed another anchor below and still slightly west of me. Oh well, pitch four and five just got combined, I had climbed a line well to the east and would never have seen the lower anchor- that’s the joy of slab climbing.

I put Courtney on “belay” and took in the little rope remaining between us. She disassembled, or “took down”, the anchor on her end and started to climb. If I’m belaying up my partner I prefer to refer to them as the second rather than the follower. I realize that this is just a matter of semantics, but in climbing each partner bears, pardon the pun, the gravity of responsibility in equal measure. But then partners equally earn the freedom that the climb rewards them with.

While I watched her climb I started to reflect on her thoughts on leadership and supporting leadership, of at once being both servant and master, or for that matter husband and wife, employer and employee, leader and second. The thought caused a crystalline moment of clarity- as clear as air that fell away below us. From the corner of my eye I saw a hovering form that, once I attended to it, took the shape of a Peregrine Falcon. With lizard like quickness it inclined its head to regard me, and at the same time thoughtlessly, effortlessly inclined it’s tail to adjust it’s soar to changes in the rising thermals.

I decided that this passing raptor was a totem for the moment- then, damn, I wondered why. I’ve always avoided anthropomorphizing, never wanting to hear my kids refer to the mean shark or the friendly Koala Bear. At least on an intellectual level I always thought it was better to just take creatures for what they are, each in their own way they are born, eat, have babies, and die, and so do we. Never the less I’ve never entertained the thought of having say... a pigeon as a totem, or seeing a pigeon as a good omen. Of coarse that’s all magic stuff about portents, and omens, and such, and it’s just superstitious mumbo-nonchristian -jumbo, isn‘t it. I found that I was spending more time and energy avoiding the enigma of the pigeon so I just decided to roll with it, accept my nature.

Lets start with a classic comparison and contrast. Pigeons and peregrines are both birds, right. Moving right along, the contrasts. At approximately 4500 years B.C. the pigeon, then the Rock Dove was domesticated for food, AKA squab. The pigeon’s only less ignominious role since domestication was carrying messages, originally for Cesar’s Army, but latter, Napoleon. Peregrines, on the other hand, were first used by the Chinese to aid in hunting 1400 years ago- though not domesticated. Falconry became popular among the royals and aristocracy of Europe and came as a past time to the United States in the early 1800’s. The pigeon, however, was introduced to North America as a nonnative species by the French in 1606 and, like the starling it went feral and took over.

An Internet search on the peregrine will immediately reveal an expansive selection of concerns that use the word peregrine to symbolize their company. They range from tour companies to devices that more precisely deliver radiation therapy. A similar search on pigeons will uncover an equally expansive list of companies who eradicate them. Were any of the now notable polling companies to do a survey, I predict that less than 1% of the world population would have anything good to say about the pigeon other than “tastes like chicken“.

Have you ever heard anyone say “my heart soars like a pigeon”, or this, scripted for a western “ may this feather give you the strength of a pigeon”. No, and that’s because the pigeon is a sky rat. And why, you may ask, is the pigeon so ignoble? Because that balcony and power line crowded with, neigh teaming with pigeons, not to mention the droppings that they leave behind, is the very antithesis of what is good in humanity. The pigeon is sloth, laziness, and the lowest level of opportunism incarnate. Pigeons are the abandonment of human potential. And yet pigeons just be pigeons. In truth, pigeons can only represent pigeons, humans on the other hand...

The truth was not revealed in my climbing experience or in the flight of that peregrine. I didn’t find this truth until weeks latter, it was engraved in a granite tile that paved the entrance to the California ScienCenter in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park. It was a humid grimy day, with poor air quality, blowing litter, and pigeon covered edifices. In that tile was writ:

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

Maya Angelou, 1995

The contrast hurt. I went home and looked up the entire quote and decided that some of the qualities that we anthropomorphicly ascribe to ourselves from raptors and the other symbols that we rally behind aren’t so hot either. Once again the contrasts hurt, and I realized that I was better off just taking these creatures for what they are, and to look for hope in the leaders of tomorrow.

Courtney and I delighted in two more pitches of slab until we arrived at the summit cap. There we traversed left to a terrace. I easily hopped up the terrace and without thinking about my vertically challenged partner grabbed for a committing high hold. It wasn’t until I’d set up my anchor beneath the railing of the fire lookout that the difficulty that I’d set her up for dawned on me.

To make things worse the wind whipped up noisily and some kid started running around the catwalk that surrounds the lookout screaming. All my high ideals and Zen like peace went out the window when Courtney started to struggle and I wanted to peg the screaming kid with my number three Camelot on the end of a sling bolo style. The problem was little Johnny's parents showed up. On top of that Margie the Fire Lookout was giving me the hairy eyeball every time I even got close to her freshly painted lookout railing. She seemed uncharacteristically pissed, and I caught her muttering something about the holiday and all the visitors.

Ultimately short Courtney solved in three hard moves what I pulled through in one. Latter she demonstrated the moves in animated fashion in what looked like some kind of fertility dance from crippled pagans. We hurriedly sacked our gear as we were shooed off the catwalk by Margie who gestured to the catwalk visitor limit- obviously a new Federal Statute. On the way down the steps that descent airily from the lookout I stopped and looked back at Courtney. She was standing perfectly framed below a billowing Stars and Stripes with the lookout behind. The red, white, and blue were dazzling against a startlingly blue sky. I started to get goose bumps as I composed and fired off a picture. Some symbols can still do that to me. Perhaps some day soon we will, as Maya Angelou puts it, “come to it”.

August 2003