Oh how I love this story, I found myself on the brink of tears throughout reading and listening to it. I have held a similar question tucked somewhere deep within: how to belong to this land and find home here, where I was born and raised but my ancestor’s bones are not buried and the folktales in my blood originate far away across the North Atlantic sea. As a European mix myself, growing up in Northern California, I dearly love this land and also feel this heart-aching combination of distance and familiarity. While also constantly learning how to be here in a reverent and true way. How can the stories of my ancestors, the stories I am growing anew in me in this land, find roots here, and should they? It reminds me of this quote from your Hestia essay:
“make home of the earth where you are, in deference to it, not in dominance. Make home of your body’s earth. Touch the four corners, the four directions, the four elements. Touch the materials of your life. Inquire into their virgin origins. Circumscribe your ground. Inquire into its origin. In the origin is the refuge, and the hearth.”
This has been a guiding light for me since first reading it back in 2020.
It just so happened that the same weekend as The Seven Dwarves of Mt. Diablo, Part 1 was posted, I had planned to go to Mt. Diablo myself. I was delighted that the timing of sharing your story and my visit to this very mountain coincided. It had been a long time since I had last been there, but it was a journey I would make every February/ March when the Pedicularis densiflora was blooming and it wasn’t too hot yet. This time I carried your story with me as I trudged up the steep trails. I found myself on the verge of tears most of the time, it was a struggle as my body remembered how to hike up and then down a mountain. At one of the highest points, I just sat down and cried by a flowing stream with the view of the North Bay and the open heart wound in the mountain, cut open by the Clayton quarry. I wasn't expecting such a flood of emotions! How a place can hold so much memory and meaning both personally and of its own self, and how it can knock you off your feet when returning after a time spent away.
I dearly love your stories and how they weave history, fiction, folklore and myth through the lands where you live (especially the ones rooted here in California). Through them I have found a way home, a tender tendril and a strong root connecting me to this land and the land of my ancestors.
I'm sad to have missed the time of the Grey Fox Epistles, and thank you for sharing this treasure of a piece. I would greatly love to read them all someday! I raise a mug and toast to you dear Sylvia!
Sophia, what incredible synchronicity that you were literally about to head to Mt. Diablo; I can hardly believe it, and yet I also absolutely can. I am so moved by what you shared about sitting by that open mining wound on the mountain and just crying. It's a potent landscape isn't it; so much held there of grief and profound wildness both. Also love that it's your pedicularis gathering spot-- such a rare one to find in abundance in the Bay Area, what magic that you were out harvesting her. I've always been a bit in love/entranced by that particular plant. Say hello to the beloved mountains and bay for me, and blessings on your own writing and work.
Wow. Wow. Another outstanding one, Sylvia. I know I keep saying it, but this writing is really blowing me away. This love story, this impossibly tender love story, had me at the edge of tears sitting yesterday morning reading it with my coffee. And it has haunted me every moment since, and I know will stick with me for a long while. I only started reading your work regularly- though I encountered it years ago via the Dark Mountain project (also how I first came across Paul Kingsnorth)- in recent times, so I had no idea you very creatively were sending out hard copy versions of these stories to people all across the country. That's remarkable!
Well, no real creative commentary here, just praise. Your writing has a combination of immense heart and a curious soul, and a deep understanding of the origin point of mythological transformation present in all the religious texts, work of mystics and seers, that is why I've always been attracted to mythology, fantasy, religion, and spiritual tracks of all kinds, and eventually ended up being a practicing member of a religious community in an age when everybody else seems to be fleeing just about every myth out there, except for the modern favorites of Capitalism and Marxism, neither of which ever particularly appealed to me. I'll take Fantasy over Facts any day- it seems to me most of the "facts" present in post-Newtonian physics and in the "reality" of of the Dow Jones Index or the story about life you'll see on BBC or CNN are essentially Fantasy in the end. Just a Fantasy that to me feels hollow and cruel and loveless. The Fantasies you're writing about feel rich with succor and tender and in love with this Earth and with the spiritual energy present in it- and present in us. Better sort of Fantasy to follow, I'd say.
Keep it up, Sylvia. We're all listening, and benefiting from this important medicine, this valuable work, prophecy in an age of spiraling collapse and crumbling. Probably the best time for prophecy to show up. Worked for Moses after all. Nobody wants to step away from a corrupt Pyramid of Empire when it all seems fine and dandy. When the old Pyramids are about to fall, a few wise people can Imagine and Dream and See. What lies Beyond. And Within.
Bless you, what generous and kind words these are. And there's more yet to come of this devastating story, in a week! It really takes me out when I revisit it; it was heartbreaking to write, just came pouring through all those years ago from Mt. Diablo, old holy mountain of the Bay Area. Thank you as ever for your support and your seeing and your enthusiasm; and your words about fantasy, yes-- so long as it's fantasy in the truest sense of the word, not illusion or delusion but far back to it's seed in the Greek "phos" and "phainein" -- light, and "to show, to bring light" which all find their root root in the Proto Indo European "bha" to shine— so here's to fantasy that dreams and imagines by following the essential light of the heart, that listens and visions and responds to the light in the earth too, and all beings. x
exactly! I was looking up the word "Fantasy" recently, as a sort of amateur etymologist, and found it fascinating. For much of my life, as a nerdy "smart" guy, people have put me solidly in the "intellectual" box. And I think I was raised in many ways in a world of "facts", which I'm starting to see the limits of. A lot of the Kabbalistic traditions, which ultimately tie into a lot of mystical and Gnostic Christianity, talk about "Light", the "Inner Light" (a la Quakers), and how important it is. Maybe there is some kind of cosmic light, whether or not it's "proven" by quantum physics or whatever it doesn't matter, within each of us, and maybe to find it and find it in others- and in "the fullness thereof" of every visible speck of the living, breathing universe, is the purpose of life. And what would that kind of world, that kind of culture, that kind of "economy", look like? Pretty different, I imagine; Adam Smith and Karl Marx never even started on that trailhead.... the mystery of love, the mystery of light, light even in the shadow. Jesus can't walk up that Mountain and speak of Comforting and Mercy and Peace until he sits in that Desert. Lenten Time now, seems to me our whole shaky civilization is in something of a Desert, past the certainties of the machines and the stock markets afraid to ever stop and be silent. When the humming of the wires and engines stop, Birdsong begins again.
Amazing way to hear this story, what a scene. I'm honored :) Thank you so much Trilby xx -- and stay tuned for the second half and true conclusion in a week-- though I'm wondering so it's not a cliffhanger if I should share it tomorrow?? ;)
Oh how I love this story, I found myself on the brink of tears throughout reading and listening to it. I have held a similar question tucked somewhere deep within: how to belong to this land and find home here, where I was born and raised but my ancestor’s bones are not buried and the folktales in my blood originate far away across the North Atlantic sea. As a European mix myself, growing up in Northern California, I dearly love this land and also feel this heart-aching combination of distance and familiarity. While also constantly learning how to be here in a reverent and true way. How can the stories of my ancestors, the stories I am growing anew in me in this land, find roots here, and should they? It reminds me of this quote from your Hestia essay:
“make home of the earth where you are, in deference to it, not in dominance. Make home of your body’s earth. Touch the four corners, the four directions, the four elements. Touch the materials of your life. Inquire into their virgin origins. Circumscribe your ground. Inquire into its origin. In the origin is the refuge, and the hearth.”
This has been a guiding light for me since first reading it back in 2020.
It just so happened that the same weekend as The Seven Dwarves of Mt. Diablo, Part 1 was posted, I had planned to go to Mt. Diablo myself. I was delighted that the timing of sharing your story and my visit to this very mountain coincided. It had been a long time since I had last been there, but it was a journey I would make every February/ March when the Pedicularis densiflora was blooming and it wasn’t too hot yet. This time I carried your story with me as I trudged up the steep trails. I found myself on the verge of tears most of the time, it was a struggle as my body remembered how to hike up and then down a mountain. At one of the highest points, I just sat down and cried by a flowing stream with the view of the North Bay and the open heart wound in the mountain, cut open by the Clayton quarry. I wasn't expecting such a flood of emotions! How a place can hold so much memory and meaning both personally and of its own self, and how it can knock you off your feet when returning after a time spent away.
I dearly love your stories and how they weave history, fiction, folklore and myth through the lands where you live (especially the ones rooted here in California). Through them I have found a way home, a tender tendril and a strong root connecting me to this land and the land of my ancestors.
I'm sad to have missed the time of the Grey Fox Epistles, and thank you for sharing this treasure of a piece. I would greatly love to read them all someday! I raise a mug and toast to you dear Sylvia!
Sophia, what incredible synchronicity that you were literally about to head to Mt. Diablo; I can hardly believe it, and yet I also absolutely can. I am so moved by what you shared about sitting by that open mining wound on the mountain and just crying. It's a potent landscape isn't it; so much held there of grief and profound wildness both. Also love that it's your pedicularis gathering spot-- such a rare one to find in abundance in the Bay Area, what magic that you were out harvesting her. I've always been a bit in love/entranced by that particular plant. Say hello to the beloved mountains and bay for me, and blessings on your own writing and work.
Wow. Wow. Another outstanding one, Sylvia. I know I keep saying it, but this writing is really blowing me away. This love story, this impossibly tender love story, had me at the edge of tears sitting yesterday morning reading it with my coffee. And it has haunted me every moment since, and I know will stick with me for a long while. I only started reading your work regularly- though I encountered it years ago via the Dark Mountain project (also how I first came across Paul Kingsnorth)- in recent times, so I had no idea you very creatively were sending out hard copy versions of these stories to people all across the country. That's remarkable!
Well, no real creative commentary here, just praise. Your writing has a combination of immense heart and a curious soul, and a deep understanding of the origin point of mythological transformation present in all the religious texts, work of mystics and seers, that is why I've always been attracted to mythology, fantasy, religion, and spiritual tracks of all kinds, and eventually ended up being a practicing member of a religious community in an age when everybody else seems to be fleeing just about every myth out there, except for the modern favorites of Capitalism and Marxism, neither of which ever particularly appealed to me. I'll take Fantasy over Facts any day- it seems to me most of the "facts" present in post-Newtonian physics and in the "reality" of of the Dow Jones Index or the story about life you'll see on BBC or CNN are essentially Fantasy in the end. Just a Fantasy that to me feels hollow and cruel and loveless. The Fantasies you're writing about feel rich with succor and tender and in love with this Earth and with the spiritual energy present in it- and present in us. Better sort of Fantasy to follow, I'd say.
Keep it up, Sylvia. We're all listening, and benefiting from this important medicine, this valuable work, prophecy in an age of spiraling collapse and crumbling. Probably the best time for prophecy to show up. Worked for Moses after all. Nobody wants to step away from a corrupt Pyramid of Empire when it all seems fine and dandy. When the old Pyramids are about to fall, a few wise people can Imagine and Dream and See. What lies Beyond. And Within.
Bless you, what generous and kind words these are. And there's more yet to come of this devastating story, in a week! It really takes me out when I revisit it; it was heartbreaking to write, just came pouring through all those years ago from Mt. Diablo, old holy mountain of the Bay Area. Thank you as ever for your support and your seeing and your enthusiasm; and your words about fantasy, yes-- so long as it's fantasy in the truest sense of the word, not illusion or delusion but far back to it's seed in the Greek "phos" and "phainein" -- light, and "to show, to bring light" which all find their root root in the Proto Indo European "bha" to shine— so here's to fantasy that dreams and imagines by following the essential light of the heart, that listens and visions and responds to the light in the earth too, and all beings. x
exactly! I was looking up the word "Fantasy" recently, as a sort of amateur etymologist, and found it fascinating. For much of my life, as a nerdy "smart" guy, people have put me solidly in the "intellectual" box. And I think I was raised in many ways in a world of "facts", which I'm starting to see the limits of. A lot of the Kabbalistic traditions, which ultimately tie into a lot of mystical and Gnostic Christianity, talk about "Light", the "Inner Light" (a la Quakers), and how important it is. Maybe there is some kind of cosmic light, whether or not it's "proven" by quantum physics or whatever it doesn't matter, within each of us, and maybe to find it and find it in others- and in "the fullness thereof" of every visible speck of the living, breathing universe, is the purpose of life. And what would that kind of world, that kind of culture, that kind of "economy", look like? Pretty different, I imagine; Adam Smith and Karl Marx never even started on that trailhead.... the mystery of love, the mystery of light, light even in the shadow. Jesus can't walk up that Mountain and speak of Comforting and Mercy and Peace until he sits in that Desert. Lenten Time now, seems to me our whole shaky civilization is in something of a Desert, past the certainties of the machines and the stock markets afraid to ever stop and be silent. When the humming of the wires and engines stop, Birdsong begins again.
Listening to this story laying in front of the wood stove on a night the power has gone out with candles flickering, cat laid out in top of me.
Don’t have anything especially astute to say in response, just wow. Deeply fed yet again. and that ending.
Amazing way to hear this story, what a scene. I'm honored :) Thank you so much Trilby xx -- and stay tuned for the second half and true conclusion in a week-- though I'm wondering so it's not a cliffhanger if I should share it tomorrow?? ;)
Oh how I loved those stories. I saved them and put them in my life books. I read them still....
Susa, bless you, that brings tears to my eyes. Thank you for being here, reading alongside as I write, all these years. xx
💕
So beautiful...Thank You Sylvia. It brought tears to my eyes. You really know how to share a story.