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October 2000.

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February 2001

Feb. 25, Sunday

We arrived about 4 pm. Aaron, a sophomore student of mine at Golden Valley High School, and my co-contest winner, had his parents drop us off. We were privileged to each have a separate cozy little cabin, deep in snow. We were also fortunate to have two extra pairs of hands to carry our numerous bags, including four cameras between us. I brought my panaramic camera, and checked out a digital camera from our school library. We attended an elegant reception, being waited on by suave waiters and cordial waitresses, who offered us delectable hot appetizers on silver platters, in the Solarium of the Ahwahnee Hotel. While sipping on White Zinfandel and Cola, we watched a cloud turn pink at the edge of a looming mountain outside the window. I made up my mind to sit in every chair and sofa in the great halls of this monolith. So, we began that process, seeing the rooms from a difference perspective, noting the colors and design of the ceiling and the paintings depicting the history of Yosemite. Aaron had never experienced this before and he was a pleasure to watch as we observed together. We later met another student/teacher team who had simply been invited to attend. I readily told them that we had to earn our way! But what a way it was, an experience I would never trade with anyone. And an experience that needs to be part of every teachers' repertoire of educational adventures. I cannot express the importance of this team effort more. Aaron was asked to look up information on the Net about the Miwok Indians, John Muir and Thoreau and to get some quotes with which to start. Each of us wrote half the text and then combined it, both editing it together. Then we sat down after school the day before the deadline and spent 8 straight hours putting 6 slides together for a power point presentation.

Aaron took off early for a trek across the meadow to Mirror Lake, then met me back at the hotel for the first poetry reading. We listened to several people speak. Robert Hass, previous Poet Laureate, was scheduled to speak first but was incapacitated, so his wife, Brenda Hillman, spoke earlier than planned. Brenda mesmerized us with her poetry dealing with love, adolescence, depression and other subjects pertaining to the "interior wilderness". Afterwards, there was a panel discussion with the issue of the great need for writers to write about Yosemite. The speakers were Malcolm Margolin, founder and publisher of Heyday Books; Steve Medley, President of Yosemite Association; and Steve Cassell, fiction writer of Native American literature from U.C. Davis. According to Margolin, "Nature writing has gotten into a rut" There needs to be more humor, irony, and sarcasm, according to some. In contemplating those thoughts, we then hiked over to the Wildlink office to record our events.

Feb 26, Monday

After leaving here yesterday, we were able to interview Phil Johnson, who is partly Miwok. He is employed by the National Park Service, as a cultural demonstrator.

While we chatted with him,
he was preparing a shaft of wood, using obsidian,
which is volcanic glass, to strip the bark off to expose the bare wood. He was making arrows the way the Indians did earlier,
as the aroma of spice bush came wafting into our nostrils. This is a special smell the wood contains and can be readily appreciated as he was stripping the wood. We asked him questions about his knowledge of the Miwok Indians and took pictures.
I wrote the following poem:

"A Clear Shot"

The Miwoks understood nature best
As they hunted,
Wove baskets,
And took care of our exquisite bit of paradise.

A Miwok warrior
Now grown old
Sits calmly by his teepee
An animal skin drapped over his lap
Obsidian sharp against the shaft
Scrapping down to the bare soul of the wood

How often I have wished for
A silent scrapping of the exterior
To reveal my true soul
Emerging like a clean, straight arrow
Ever ready for a clear shot at life.

Afterwards, while eating lunch outside the museum,
we saw a family of 9 deer meandering past us...
for another Kodak moment.
We walked back to the hotel and joined the poetry walk group. Shelton, a Yosemite park ranger led six of us out and around the hotel to capture images for a collective poem. Shelton would make a statement and ask a question and let our collective minds wander and as we talked,
we wrote until the spirit moved us to end the poem. It was combining the environment with images of our ancestors and how they speak to us
through Mother Nature.

Afterwards, Aaron took a hike back to the cabin while I sat comfortably writing poems in the lounge. While writing, I met another conference-goer
who had published his poetry and he gave me suggestions as to how to publish our own work.

Aaron then joined us and we read each other our poetry

that we wrote the last two days. We then went upstairs for a collective reading of Robert Hass' poetry, since he, himself, was still incapacitated. We could only catch the first 20 minutes of it before we had to go down for dinner in the main diningroom. There, we had a leisurely meal with piano music and candles lighting the room up like an old medieval mansion. We later sat in front of the gigantic fireplace, reminiscent of Elizabethan days, and discussed what we had seen, heard, felt and planned for the future. We were then driven back to our cabins rather late.

Feb 27, Tuesday

We both were so tired, we slept until about 8 am.
Then set off together to the hotel by shuttle bus,
which ended up being so packed that we couldn't fit anyone else on the bus
except Al Young, who was to be our first speaker at 9:30. So, we got a preview of this marvelous man, who later read his poems, and sang some Blues, and told us tales of Kuwait, where he was 48 hours prior. After his reading, we heard Brooke Williams,
a Mormon author, who read his prose with humor and
a serious look at death to make his writing not only vivid, but poignantly believable.
We then grabbed a very quick lunch in the main diningroom again, and raced off to our next session.

We met with nine other people to write individual poems
and share with the group.
Our assignment was to step onto the balcony of the room
we were in and just observe what we saw and how we felt about it. Each of us had about 15 minutes to write
and then we read and critiqued each other.
Or rather we looked for lines that we really liked the best or commented on tone
and mood. Afterwards, we went on a photo tour that we cut a little short due to deep,
knee high snow on my part
and Aaron's prior knowledge of photography, on his part.
We used the time to write.
I had a chance to sit and chat with Al Young in the lounge before I hiked to the Ansel Adams Gallery for a private showing (only 4 of us) of his work and his life story.
We were also shown the work of many other photographers who are doing unusual things
with either the development of the photo or with special effects while photographing.
Whew! It is a marathon, rich with images, voices, and ethereal views.

We were taken back to Curry Village for pizza, but the place was too full, so we hitched a ride by bus to Yosemite Lodge for their buffet, which we gobbled so fast, we hardly knew what we had eaten. Then, we jumped back on the bus and headed back to the hotel for more readings. We listened to Louis Owens and Pam Houston. Pam had one story to tell that was really remarkable about her time in Alaska as a mountain goat hunting guide. She writes with honesty and flavor.

Feb 28, Wednesday

Aaron & I set out for our first readings of the day by Gerald Haslam, who concentrated on the everyday folks of the central valley. Jim Houston talked about the lady in Hawaii who could talk to rocks. Then, noontime found us at our poetry group again, where we read our old poems and helped each other edit them or read new poems and offered comments. At 1 pm, we were videotaped separately for a short video to be made later to help promote the conference for next year. Then we had a leisurely lunch in the main diningroom. Afterwards, we were videotaped again, together this time, working on our own writing. We then left to go back to the cabin and change for the banquet. Back at 6 pm, the banquet was held in the Solarium, a vast two story high, all-encompassing room, looking out on the misty woods and looming granite walls. Candlelight flickered from numerous wrought-iron candlelabras peppering the room. It was magic! We had a cocktail hour first and then sat down to a sumptuous meal. Aaron and I were introduced as the first place winners of the contest. We then set off to take our last night's pictures around the hotel. Pictures of funky chairs, magnificent chandeliers, monster-sized fireplaces, Indian artifacts, historical portraits of cowboys and Indians at work. Afterwards, we caught another reading by Gretel Ehrlich, who did a study of John Muir's life and writing, as well as her adventures in Greenland. Afterwards, some more pictures and then to bed.

We had to get up extra early to pack and store our baggage in the lockers at the Curry Village Lodge. Fortunately, another teacher/student team helped us load and deposited us at the hotel for a lengthy breakfast in the gargantuan dining hall again. We crept into the next reading a bit late and caught the tail-end of Kim Stanley Robinson, who has written science fiction about Mars.

Our last, and one of the most satisfying speakers was Francisco Alarcon. We met him outside in back of the hotel, burning sage in a clay dish. He then began to invoke the spirits of the North, South, East, and West. He had us all turn in each direction, explain which spirit ruled and say the word, "Tahui!" (pronounced Tahwee). This was a Nahuatl expression to invoke the spirits. Nahuatl is the name of Alarcon's Indian tribe in Mexico. Later, we went indoors to experience his joy of reading in his native language with the translation in English. He also invited a fellow poet, Jorge Argueta, to read his own poetry, also with great energy and enthusiasm. Francisco says that "Poems are tatoos. Poems fill pages; tatoos puncture flesh". With that quote, I have to admit that the impressions of this magnificent conference will forever be tatooed on my soul!