I spent three days traversing the incredibly beautiful Wyoming countryside, seeking out a home in the dust and grass, searching for signs of my foundation in the wind.
I visited Yellowstone and marveled at all those Big Scenic Vistas, humbled before Bison, quieted by the sheer power of earth. I peered up at Devi’s Tower, at the grooved fiery rock, echoes of the giant bear’s failed attempts to climb to the heavens. I watched the brim of sunset over the Grand Tetons. The rays of light broke through the brooding clouds to alight upon azure blue water and shatter atop the rocky crags of the many sisters, oozing like butter down her side.
But it was when I found myself alone on the top of a mountain in the Big Horn range, at the foot of the Medicine Wheel, that something in me broke loose.
I had traveled the narrow, dangerous road and had walked almost 2 miles to reach it, up the winding path, in the high altitude until I felt my heart might burst. The only sounds that came to me were those of my footsteps, beating out their rhythm over the gusts that raged across the open sky.
The Wheel was placed upon the grass a thousand years ago in a remote location where the air plays about the skin and the sun comes to roost at night. Prayer bundles are tied against the barbed wire and flutter in a wind that smells of far away rain and crushed earth. Hundreds of ribbons, feathers, tobacco ties, dream catchers, precious stones, beadwork strands and personal messages encircle the Wheel as it stands vigilant on the top of the mountain. Direction stones revolve around a central Creator who radiates 28 paths to the outer rim. Each of the main piles of rock is sprinkled with ceremonial gifts, and the center itself contains spears in great abundance.
As I stood before it, the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming stretched out in such sweeping peaks and valleys, such delicate shades of being, such power and vulnerability, such utter and complete silence, such holy, holy power that I wondered if I would remain there for an eternity. But that wanderlust, that restlessness was and always is too strong a force.
I remembered a woman I met at Devil’s Tower. I discovered that she was driving from Washington east without a real destination. She thought Nova Scotia might be where she ended up. I told her that I was following the same course, but in the opposite direction and we had a laugh together. She told me of her home on Bainbridge Island, just off the coast from Seattle, a community of artists and authors and left me with these words, “That place, that place has a way of calling people to it”.
I have chosen to be lost, having left the only place where I ever felt comfortable for the pull of the great beyond. I feel like a waterskipper on the surface of a churning pool, a swallow darting through a hurricane in search of the flighty, fleeting insects. I feel like I’m falling through the void, holding dearly to the roots I thought would never crumble, would never be dislodged. This entire trip is really just about finding a place to belong.
All these thoughts and feelings swirled around me. The wind, always the wind, filled my ears with a whining song that only seemed to rise with every passing second. I have never experienced wind that blew from all directions at once, and it seemed as I was at the center of the world, the place where all the breezes are born. I closed my eyes and listened to the bells tied to some of the prayer bundles mix with the sound of the larger ribbons thrumming and thumping the earth.
Route: 90W from Custer, South Dakota through Devil’s Tower to 14A at Sheridan, Wyoming. From 14A to Lovell, Wyoming. Then 14W and the Chief Joseph Highway throughout Yellowstone with stays at Cody and Jackson, Wyoming.