Standing on Holy Ground

The Dream

“I am walking down a street on my way to see someone.  I am told to take off my shoes to show respect, so I do. I set them beneath a newspaper box on the sidewalk.  Then I am told to take some food as a gift.  I remember a little jumbled grocery store on the way and think to myself, I can probably go in there without shoes.  When I get to the store, I see that it has been converted into a library.  I look through the window at a modern, well lighted room with stacks of books, tables for reading, and a librarian’s desk.  I am looking through the window when I wake up.”

         Crossing on the ferry from Ocracoke to Cedar Key yesterday, I saw wild ponies.  A herd of them, maybe thirty or forty, stood on the sand and in the water looking across the sound as though they might just swim away.  Seeing the ponies both exhilarated me and caused a curious sadness.  They looked as though they remembered something across the water, something they wanted to get back to, but in order to do it they had to swim the choppy water of the sound.  I realize I’m projecting here.  That is my reality.  I have witnessed something I want to get back to, but I live far away in a world apart.

         This sojourn has reminded me that I need to travel more, just to see the places left that are wild and relatively untouched.  Driving through the protected wetlands and fertile farmlands of the Cape Fear River basin, I thought, ‘this is what the people of New Orleans didn’t have to protect them from flooding.’  Miles and miles of wetlands are nature’s way of providing for living beings of all kinds.  The dark, rich farm soil was supporting corn and soy and peanut crops on small tracts.  Sometimes, because I live in a city, I forget that there are still farmers working to provide for me.  It was gratifying to see so much planted land.

         I am on the homeward leg of the journey and hoping to hold on to the sanctity of the experience; the slapping waves, the constant wind across dunes, the wildness of the ponies, the casual friendliness of the people.  I want to remember the unusual burr of the island dialect and hold the image of weathered cottages under berry-laden juniper and twisted, low-to-the-ground live oaks.  I am taking off my shoes on holy ground, and hoping to offer you food for the soul in these words. 

                                  In the spirit,

                                  Jane