I used to endure bad asthma attacks and emergency hospitalizations at Kaiser. At that time, Kaiser prescribed ProAir and Albuterol, which fight against each other, and the victim is me, gasping for air from uncontrolled asthma. It worsened as I experienced the stress and traumas of a highly toxic workplace in a state agency.
My husband got assigned, years later, in our retirement, to do a post-doctoral teaching sponsored by Fullbright in Leyte. We took a trip to Baybay, Leyte, his next research seminar assignment. I also was doing an all-day seminar on ‘Ethics, Spirituality of a Quality-Conscious Professional.” I had an asthma attack coupled with allergies and bronchitis. I was gasping for air with every sentence I uttered.
My husband suggested I reschedule, but I pushed through, knowing folks were travelling from faraway campuses of Tolosa and more. I completed the seminar. At the end of the seminar, this academic personnel was so motivated, and I asked for volunteers to share: one said she would make love to her husband more and folks laughed, while another said I would wake up to my life and pursue my doctorate.
When we returned to our condotel, I couldn’t change clothes. This was when my husband said; I am taking you to an emergency. By the time the ambulance came, it was an hour later, as they had to find a working battery for their hospital ambulance. Being the journalist I am, I wrote a full-page newspaper story in Taliba; my editor then was Suzan Rosal, and that story was leveraged to get more funding for the infirmary.
A good doctor, Elwin Jay Yu, conscientiously researched what meds to give me. His service was impeccably professional and first-class quality care, even though his third-world surroundings of an infirmary had worn-out sofa springs, torn upholstery cover, leaking plumbing in the toilet, and termite-infested ceiling rafts.
He got me back to normal so that I could breathe again and braved dawn morning masses for Simbang Gabi in Tacloban, Leyte, a week later.
When I returned to the US, my husband put me into a regimen of juicing fruits and vegetables. I did not like it as it seemed I lived to see the bathroom all the time. I didn’t understand the concept of cleansing my body from the insides. That was in 2008.
I went back years later to visit and the infirmary was upgraded to Level 1 hospital.
During the 2020 peak of the Coronavirus, Dr. Yu immediately imposed quarantine and, with proactive university authorities, decided to keep the students in campus dorms safe and safer. Now they are vaccinating them.
Fast forward to 2021. I am now juicing 2 cups wild blueberries, 2 cups apples, and 2 cups spinach, my anti-inflammatory drink, each morning. I have only been doing this juice this year.
Today, knock on wood, I have more healthy days than sick days and no emergency hospitalizations.
This year, we were fortunate to drive 3,677 miles and visited five national parks: Great Basin, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Capitol Reef, and my all-time favorite now out of 29 national parks we have visited, Glacier National Park.
Still with all these, I had allergies in May, that led to uncontrolled asthma. Kaiser, this time, through their asthma and allergy clinic, prescribed the right meds for me: same inhalers, of Flovent and Serevent, the equivalent to the Swiss drugs prescribed by Dr. Yu, and allergy meds for the evening.
Thanks to Kaiser’s Dr. Joyce Lee, VSU’s hospital’s Dr. Elwin Jay Lu, and my juicing blueberries, which keep my asthma under control for me to keep living to the maximum.
My lesson: To not settle for hospitalizations, that I am more than my asthma!
“YOSEMITE Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, waiting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantage of both solitude and society. Nowhere will you find more company of a soothing peace-be-still kind. Your animal fellow-beings, so seldom regarded in civilization, and every rock-brow and mountain, stream, and lake, and every plant soon come to be regarded as brothers; even one learns to like the storms and clouds and tireless winds. This one noble park is big enough and rich enough for a whole life of study and aesthetic enjoyment. It is good for everybody, no matter how benumbed with care, encrusted with a mail of business habits like a tree with bark. None can escape its charms. Its natural beauty cleanses and warms like fire, and you will be willing to stay forever in one place like a tree. Government protection should be thrown around every wild grove and forest on the mountains, as it is around every private orchard, as the trees in public parks. To say nothing of their value as fountains of timber, they are worth infinitely more than all the gardens and parks of towns.” – John Muir, “The Wilderness World of John Muir.” “That first impression of the Valley—white water, azaleas, cool fir caverns, tall pines and stolid oaks, cliffs rising to undreamed-of heights, the poignant sounds and smells of the Sierra, the whirling flourish of the stage stop at Camp Curry [renamed to Half Dome Village as of March 1, 2016] with its bewildering activities of porters, tourists, desk clerks, and mountain jays, and the dark green-bright mood of our tent – was a culmination of experience so intense as to be almost painful.” — Ansel Adams on his first visit to Yosemite. Yosemite National Park was established on October 1, 1890, a magnificent array of towering granite, waterfalls, meadows, rivers, creeks, redwood forests, spanning 747, 956 acres. Once inside, one feels serenity instantly. From the snow, covering road shoulders, to white snow understory surrounding the trees, snowflakes shimmering in pine tree leaves and branches, a morning circuitous drive of 33 miles to the inner rim of the national park allows you to breathe in God, with every breath you take. There is no mistaking God in this magnificence. Last year’s visit in 2016, marked by drought, gave my husband Enrique and I, a shy display of water in trickles. It took a trip up to Glacier Point, with a commanding view of Half Dome, Yosemite Village and the Sierras (greeting us with a magical surprise of double rainbows) after gray clouds had cleared a bit. With showers to cool us down, we did not mind it at all, as the rainbows beckoned us to capture God’s magic. As you get into Yosemite Lodge, the Upper Yosemite Falls rises up to meet you, with its strong flows, as if not enough, a Middle Yosemite falls, and Lower Yosemite falls, with much stronger volumes, now flowing after several snow storms. In February of 2016, a snow-dusted Half Dome greeted us with robust water flows at Bridal Veil Falls, causing folks to stop at a viewpoint by the tunnel. I wanted to write snowcapped, but as with each day of warmer weather, the snow had diminished to dusted Half Dome. Yet, its grandeur, and that of Bridal Veil Falls, which we got to hike and be with, up, close and personal, did not diminish. John Muir’s apparent love for Yosemite is recalled, “No temple made with human hands can compare with Yosemite,“ and his famous quote,” I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown for going out, I found I was really going in, “ emblazoned on the storefront of Nature Shop in Yosemite’s Lodge. Firefall and thousands of photographers “Firefall was an old Yosemite tradition,” National Geographic’s Kenneth Brower wrote, “Every night a bonfire of red-fir bark was built on Glacier Point. From Camp Curry below came the cry, “Let the fire fall!” And down it poured, a slender cataract of lava splitting the dark cliff. It was a bad idea, probably – no current management plan calls for a rekindling of the firefall-but it certainly was spectacular. There have been no [man-made] firefalls since 1968, yet a pale scar still shows where the fire burned away the cliff’s lichens.” Michael Frye, a photographer who took photos of Yosemite for 25 years, now 26 years in 2017, described firefall at Yosemite National Park, as a convergence of three: “The perfect Horsetail Fall photograph needs three things. First, there has to be enough water. Second, the sun has to be low in the sky when it’s still hitting the fall to give it that orange glow. Third, the cliff behind and to the left of Horsetail has to be in the shade when the water is on fire; the contrast between the backlit waterfall and the dark background is what makes this event so dramatic.” This 2017, the magic is even more enchanting as the winter rains have created rip-roaring waterfalls, so robust that we can just imagine what sunset would bring, perhaps golden showers so magnificent that would induce tears in us, the photographers. Tears in awe of God’s magic! We became part of this magical gathering of photographers in Feb. 2016, where Canon lovers stood next to Nikon enthusiasts, exchanging tips. Others had telephoto zoom lenses with a range of 650-1300 mm, while younger photographers with limited resources, applied their creativity instead, using binoculars with iPhones to produce decent enough shots. Stan Moniz, in a red jacket, became the unofficial mentor to women who admitted their first adventure with Firefall. “Ah a virgin,” and everyone laughed. For four days, we waited for sunset when the exact moment of God’s magical sun rays would hit the waterfalls, first as mist, then increasing in volume with sunset. By 5:37 to 5:48 pm, the sun would set and give us flashing colors and each day, sunset got later. On Friday, a gilded vertical yellow water flow and framed by dark shadows, it assumed the shape of a heart or a teardrop. On Saturday, thousands showed up. Sunrays fell on the waterfalls, creating a distinct yellow and framed by orange on its sides. By Sunday, a light yellow on the waterfalls, with a hint of orange flashed and just in a snap, the sun disappeared. I was ready to go home but Enrique requested one more night for Firefall watching, to which a photographer said, “Make him pay dear.” He took me to Ahwahnee Hotel’s buffet breakfast, now with a new name, The Majestic Yosemite Hotel. That Monday, we were gifted with yellow, orange and even pink on Horsetail Falls, God’s magic manifested. The conflict between right and wrong During the firefall watch, many photographers shared their indignation at the renaming of park’s icons: Ahwahnee Hotel to The Majestic Yosemite Hotel, Curry Village to Half Dome Village and Wawona to Big Trees Lodge, “I care that my national parks are national treasures. They are America’s assets. I care that their Indian names are preserved.” “The first tribe for which we know the name—the last to call the valley its own—was a band of Miwok who named it Ahwahnee, “the Place of the Big Mouth,” for its shape, and called themselves Ahwahneechee, the people of that place,” Kenneth Brower wrote. Delaware North, once a concessionaire that run these facilities for years, had lost its concessionaire’s privilege. In an effort to squeeze the federal government, it claimed compensation for its alleged trademarks and filed a lawsuit to claim monetary gains for these iconic names: The Ahwahnee Hotel, Curry Village and Wawona, which they pegged the value at $51 million, while the National Park Service counters that the dollar value of the trademarks Yosemite names at $3.5 million. How can they file trademarks for something that never belonged to them? The Ahwahnee Hotel was commissioned by the National Park Service’s former first director, Stephen T. Mather, to be built by a private company, Yosemite Park and Curry Company for public use, even if priced to attract only those with money. For example, Bracebridge Christmas event is priced at $1,000 per ticket, while lunch buffet is affordable at under $50. During World War II, this hotel hosted the US Navy, and in 1943, the Navy converted this into a hospital, “In two-and-half years, 90,000 service men and women relaxed in Yosemite National Park, while 6, 752 patients were treated.” No written contracts will ever erase the fact that this magnificent acreage belongs to all of us, America. Ahwahnee Hotel might be fictionally regarded intellectual property by Delaware North, but this particular site never belonged to Delaware North, not its name, as it belongs to the Native Americans who lived in this place, regardless of Delaware’s erroneous filings of trademarks, and erroneously decided upon by US Patent and Trademark Office. We hope these series of wrongs can be righted now by first, a withdrawal request of trademark privileges for Delaware, second, by an appropriate ruling of a judge to return these iconic names to the public and third, due diligence by National Park Service that these public treasures are #NeverforSale, much like in the tradition of National Park Service’s principles in 1896. “The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it. I trust, however, that our club [Sierra Club] will not weary in this forest well-doing. The fight for Yosemite Park and other forest parks and reserves is by no means over; nor would the fighting cease, however much the boundaries were contracted. Every good thing, great and small, need defense. The smallest forest reserve, and the first I ever heard of, was in the Garden of Eden; and though its boundaries were drawn by the Lord, and embraced only one tree, yet even so moderate a reserve as this was attacked. And I doubt not, if only one of our grand trees in the Sierra were reserved as an example and type of all that is most noble and glorious in mountain trees, it would not be long before you find a lumberman and a lawyer at the foot of it, eagerly proving by every law terrestial and celestial that that tree must come down. So we must count on watching and striving for these trees, and should always be glad to find anything so surely good and noble to strive for,” as written in Anne Rowthorn’s compilation of “The Wisdom of John Muir.” What justifies a private company to claim these intangible names, as if their Garden of Eden or their God’s firefall, to profit from their alleged fictional sale of trademarks, when it is a public asset? Much like God’s magic in firefall, so intensely beautiful, what Delaware is doing to treat Yosemite National Park’s iconic names, as if commodities on a fire sale, is so painful to the rest of us, including the 4,000,000 visitors to this park.
Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste.
Wallace Stegner, The Wilderness Letter, written to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, 1962 and subsequently in “The Sound of Mountain Water” (1969)
Ecuador was the first country to officially recognize the rights of nature in 2008. Rather than treating nature as property, Ecuador recognized that nature has constitutional rights and has the “right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles.” “Rights of nature” means that ecosystems and natural communities are not merely property that can be owned, but are entities that have an independent right to exist and flourish.” In November 2010, the city of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania became the first major municipality in the United States to recognize rights for nature.
Priscilla Woolworth, 2019
Will California follow the example of Ecuador and Pittsburgh? Go North towards Antelope Valley and the super bloom of orange poppies are prevalent as far as the eyes could see.
Drive South to Anza-Borrego or east towards Joshua National Tree and the wildflowers of different colors are in full bloom.
A drive towards southeastern San Luis Obispo and Carrizo Plain’s 246,812 acres of national monument promises a spectacular extravaganza of wildflowers in bloom, known as California goldfield flowers. Others describe these wildflowers as yellow daisies, tiny violets, and lavenders.
“In the foothills, golden brush shrubs begin to bloom, gleaming with bright yellow petals. The supple purple of the bush lupines will bless the scenery along with pale yellows of the loco weed. Depending on the year, poppies will litter the landscape with plump orange petals,” according to the Bureau of Land Management in 2016.
Nurturing respect for mother nature’s wildflowers
“Mama, are we going home now?”
“No, we are going on an adventure,” Mom responds, as she grips the steering wheel and describes where we are headed.
It is where the clouds awaken your spirit, made weary by streets with large potholes, untrimmed trees and uncollected trash in LA City. It is where colors of hot pink, purple, yellow, orange are in the hills. It is as if Monet painted the hillsides with these colors, almost an artist’s palette.
Princess, a pseudonym for my four-year-old granddaughter, calls them out: “yellow, purple, orange, and rainbow.”
“But there are no rainbow hills,” I said.
“I color them on paper, Grandma,” she said.
It is where we went on unpaved roads, “off roading,” surrounded by vibrant yellow daisies on both sides of the road. It is where the birds are tweeting so loud that my granddaughter pointed north, “You hear them over there.” It is where you see patches on the mountain, from 30 miles away, carpeted by wildflowers that you get so excited at seeing the possibilities of thousands of blooms.
In one section, my daughter C saw a small rabbit and said, “Princess, there goes a bunny.”
“It is almost Easter, I would greet the bunny ‘Gung Hai Fat Choy,’” Princess answered.
“Princess, that means Happy New Year,” Mom explained.
“But, the bunny does not know that,” Princess said, with her celebrated wit.
We all could not stop laughing.
“Stop laughing,” she said. Even at 4 years old, she has boundaries.
“Sweetheart, when grandma laughs, she likes what you are saying. She is not laughing at you. She is not making fun of you,” Mom explained.
I almost choked to the point of an asthma attack, holding back my laughter, my joy really!
Hillsides carpeted with poppies in Lake Elsinore (Photo by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz )
Purple, orange, yellow carpeted hills
My favorite daughter C enthusiastically points to the hills, as if Monet painted them, not with pastel shades, but vibrant yellows, purples and oranges.
The season had just started. What happens then when the orange mini flowers grow more in two weeks or so? I imagine these poppies would bloom, much like Lake Elsinore’s Walker Ranch’s super bloom early March. You feel closer to the Creator and overcome by gratitude for what He created. I could not contain my delight, and the blooms seemed enough, keeping me inspired for days. Lunch was half-eaten, as I felt satisfied, not needing more.
I imagine the Ryan Cayabyab Singers (RCS) singing, “The Hills Are Alive,” like Julie Andrews did, but with RCS’ signature dance moves, complete with a wheeled-in Steinway piano. I continue to imagine Maestro Ryan Cayabyab, the Philippines’ National Artist on Music, playing with gusto all the pieces he wants to, absent an audience. I imagine the music he would play would be out of the 12 musicals he has created, the last one, from, Larawan, based on Nick Joaquin’s plays, which got the best musical score award at the Metro Manila Film Festival 2017.
Joy from flowers
“Mama, I am very very happy here. Great flowers to bring me here. I like seeing all the colors.”
“Mama, I do not want to leave, I like it here.” She perhaps has her agenda: to look for ladybugs, as we just pointed to a giant one.
“Don’t step on the wildflowers. They will say, ‘Ouch, it hurts, stop,’” she said.
We got off our vehicle to walk up the trails. She ran so fast to the top of the trail, then ran down to get me and took my hand: “Here Grandma, let me help you.”
As we got up the trail, I thanked her.
When we got home to eat dinner, she laid out the spoons for us and handed us a pint of ice cream, but withheld the last one, which she likes.
Her mom reminded her to share both. She got off her chair and took out another pint to share: lavender honey and a prior one, cacao nibs with mint.
“Hmm, delicious,” I exclaimed and took a few spoons.
Days later, she remembered and whispered: “Grandma, thank you and Lolo for coming to my house for dinner.”
I kissed her and said, “Welcome, we are so happy to be with you. We love you so much.”
After our goodbyes, she gave me a purple heart with glitter.
“Is this mine?” I asked. “Oh my Princess, you really know I love hearts, huh?” She nodded.
Would your heart not melt if you spent this kind of a day, surrounded by nature’s wildflowers, whose energies somehow are absorbed?
Will you gain an appreciation for every wildflower, even the miniatures, similar to recognizing a four-year-old’s warmth and compassion as her mom’s positive spirits?
The blowing winds gave us such a chill, realizing “the mountains are calling” as John Muir once said and “going to the mountains is going home.” We headed northeast.
Mammoth lakes
Home feels serene and pristine. We passed by Lake Palmdale, nearly four miles inshore length where trout fishing is an attraction. Lupines and mustard wildflowers saturated the hillsides with purple and yellow colors. The palette changed to red rock in the canyons as we approached Red Rock Canyon State Park a popular site for camping.
The desert has more in store for us literally, in the form of windmills generating power, whose blinking red lights on the horizon indicate power generation and power transfer at night, and acreage of solar panels absorbing the sun’s power to generate energy for our population’ s use.
As we approach Highway 395, gray rain clouds threatened the serenity of our very scenic ride. Pelting sounds of rain on the rooftop of the vehicle could be heard. Both sides of Highway 395 had snow-capped mountains. It was blinding pristine white as far as the eyes could see.
A local told us it was snowing since Thanksgiving. It is now mid-March. It started with 3-feet high snow, and by Valentine’s Day, 10-feet snow covered the main highway which was subsequently shut down. “Please hand me the shovel,” a worker said to me, while four others scooped the snow off the rooftop of a storefront business. I handed it to him, while he retrieved it, halfway down the ladder.
Snow capped mountains in front of frozen Convict Lake (Photo by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz )
A frozen Convict Lake greeted us. It is described as “nestled in the aspens of Convict Canyon, below the towering peak of Mount Morrison and adjacent to a 170-acre crystal clear lake, Convict Lake Resort,” according to its website.
I watched two skiers come downhill the Mini Morrison Chute Ski. It took four hours to walk up the ascent and the “cheap thrill downhill ski was 20 minutes,” a skier told me. Their priceless big smiles said it all. We then drove to the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, an 18-foot high snow bank, dwarfing our nine-foot high vehicle. A crowd of skiers waited for their lift to the snow line. They all looked so tiny as they skied the mountain so thick with snow. As they got off skiing, a refreshing look of satisfaction was apparent on their faces.
“The Earth has taken excellent care of us – let’s return the favor,” Oprah asserts in April 2019’s The Oprah Magazine.
More than returning the favor, we must follow the example of Ecuador and Pittsburgh that recognizes the “constitutional rights of nature to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles.”
Never shall I forget my baptism in the font. It happened in January, a resurrection day for many a plant and for me I suddenly…. overflowed with light…Light of unspeakable richness was brooding the flowers. Truly, said I, is California the Golden State—in metallic gold, in sun gold, and in plant gold. The sunshine for a whole summer seemed condensed into the chambers of that one glowing day. Every trace of dimness has been washed from the sky, the mountains were dusted and wiped clean with clouds. To lovers of the wild, these mountains are not a hundred miles away. Their spiritual powers and the goodness of the sky make them near, as a circle of friends…You bathe in these spirit-beams, turning round and round, as if warming at a campfire. Presently you lose consciousness of your own separate existence: you blend with the landscape, and become part and parcel of nature.
John Muir, “Twenty Hill Hollow in A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf,” 1916.
A new measure of light and force
Zion, Utah — Watch the gleaming, quaking aspens and their orange glow leaves perk you up. Stunning cottonwoods are nearby with blinding sunshine gold leaves. You feel so stunned by the onslaught of bright yellows; it confuses you for a while.
Which tree should I take a photo of? Then, as you walk, the cottonwoods are framed by a backdrop of red iron oxide mountains, quite majestic – you wonder how were these sculpted? Who made it possible? Whose mighty force was it? The winds? The waters? God?
By the river walk, the gentle murmurs of the river water and the sunlight backlighting the cottonwoods and aspens make you gasp for air. You walk and the energies imparted by these yellow cottonwoods uplift your spirit. Even more so as you see the cyclists, the runners and trail walkers pass you by, until nature’s sculpted tree bark looks like kissing large owls.
On the opposite side, you see a man doing his morning walk by the river. There are no birds to be heard in this trail, just the gentle murmur of the river water sounds. Perhaps they are sleeping or hibernating somewhere?
Meanwhile, you hear the sounds of the children so excited from finishing the trails and loudly say: “Dad, imagine we saw 9 deer. Nine, Dad!” It was a volume of excitement one can hear many yards down as the canyons echo the sounds.
But mind you, this Virgin River, though looking mild, tiny and gentle, belies its strong carving force of the canyons. “Virgin River has been at work, cutting the canyons, which took millions of years. Tons of rocks have slid over the centuries. Even as recently as 1995 folks were stranded in Zion Lodge, and another close call in 2010, when its Virgin River waters rose twenty times its current volumes, with flash floods eroding the highway. Over the centuries, the Virgin Water cut through seven tons of sedimentary rock, including two thousand feet of solid sandstone,” according to the audio tour of Zion Shuttle Bus, Nov. 9, 2018 and “it still does its work of canyon cutting, and it carries away a million tons of sediments a year, mostly during flash floods as the waters move boulders and tall trees.”
By the Zion Gorge, where you are warned of miles and miles of crosswinds, I felt in awe of the towering beige colored canyons surrounding both sides of the highways, towering to heights of skyscrapers. How did God create this magnificence?
After a seven-hour drive from Los Angeles to Hurricane, 30 miles outside of Zion National Park, we found a campsite with a frontal lake view. Bingo, I told myself, I feel rich to be camping with a frontal view of the lake.
The blue waters were calm and the area hosts a ramp for boating. About mid-afternoon, the winds started howling. We figure it would stop but the 23 mph winds got even stronger and persisted until 3 a.m, rocking our van, like a crib. Not just the wind force, but also the sounds remind you of a greater force: “The Holy Spirit is around.” In doing so, I relaxed to a new sense of calm to sleep through the night, but it was too cold.
A new measure of cold
Have you tried making coffee in the evening and had leftovers? The next morning, about to sip, you could not, as it has been transformed into brown crystals.
“This is a new measure of cold,” Enrique (my husband) said, who likes to chase after the aspens and cottonwoods’ fall colors each year, despite the freezing conditions.
This cold weather makes for challenging trips to the bathroom, and you end up sprinting back to the sleeping bag to warm up your frigid toes. You start imagining, “Who was that who came in, but did not make any peeing sounds, yet flushed the toilet and closed the door?” Was it a ghost or did that person really was quiet?
On the way back to the van, I asked permission to pass by the tree, after, there were no more strange happenings. In rushing to climb back into the sleeping bag, my husband offers his right hand to hold my left and the new cold has unexpectedly become new warmth. Hubby really loves the wild and his good-natured self readily comes out.
The new cold brings more incentives, as cooking a hefty breakfast: a well-seared rib eye with broccolini, fresh pineapples and papaya, eggs, toasted sourdough with carrots/pear/green apple/ginger juice. That hefty brunch is equal to many energy bars that no trail mixes were needed, just water for the river walk.
After a mile of walking, surrounded by shimmering bright yellow cottonwoods, you re-live what John Muir refers to “you bathe in the spirit-beams, turning round and round, as if warming in a campfire.”
But we do have a real campfire, proactively set up by Enrique ahead of our needs in the evening. They appear as if towering pancakes, that slowly burn for hours until it is time to call it a night. By 8 p.m., lights are out, until nature calls.
The campfire that looks like a burning stack of pancakes
As you make another bathroom break, you pause and look up. At first, the sky has a litter of stars but, at dawn, a gleaming constellation of stars, you wish you could identify each one that you see. The next day, Stan Monitz’s Instagram post identifies it as the Andromeda Galaxy and a shooting star.
Oh my, God’s abundant grace is magnificently on display, the dippers are readily recognizable, and you gaze some more, even as you shiver in the cold.
Patriotism to protect future generations
Ansel Adams reflected on: “The American Pioneer approached the Natural Scene in a very different way than we must now. The land and its provisions were seemingly inexhaustible. The problems of existence were more severe. The Pioneer undoubtedly cherished his farm, his ranch and his range – representing something almost infinite in extent and bounty —young, vibrant, ever enduring. Now, as the blights of over-population, over-exploitation and over-mechanization encroach from all directions, we come to love our land as we would love someone very near and dear who may soon depart, leaving naught but the recollection of a beauty which we might have protected and perpetrated. We must realize — and with desperate conviction –that it is truly later than we think,” in a charter day address at UC Santa Cruz, 1965.
Veterans Day came and we head back to Los Angeles driving down Highway 15, a stretch named Veterans Memorial Highway, in Utah and Arizona, going to California.
I recall the sacrifices made by Eleazar, my father, an orphan of two veterans, his mother (Josefa Aquino Abarquez) and his father (Maximo Abarquez) and his three brothers (Angel, Constancio and Norberto) all Philippine Soldiers, who all died after they were killed by Japanese soldiers and while defending freedom and democracy in the Philippines, during the Japanese Imperial Army Invasion of the Philippines, during World War II.
I did not learn of his sacrifices until he died in 2000. At the time of his passing, I encouraged my mother to write about the love story of my dad and her to assuage her grief. After the tragic losses of his family, my father persevered through law school after which he served as a government employee, enforcing the labor codes of the Republic of the Philippines. He taught me to be more humane, to be generous and to be kind, especially to the poor.
I also reflect on the sacrifices of Enrique, Sr. (Enrique’s father), who survived the Bataan Death March, walked over 200 miles (a distance from LA to San Diego) day and night, counting all the unburied dead along his path. He negotiated with his captors and appealed to their human needs to eat, offering himself and his team of soldiers to cook for them, as he claimed that they, the Japanese soldiers would need strength to do their tasks. He and his team of soldiers were spared as a result. He went to law school, each day, walking miles and miles. He became a country lawyer, and sometimes his fees were paid in the form of eggs, chickens, pigs, and even milking cows, which Enrique, Jr. learned to milk, as the eldest in the family.
A new measure of art in the canyons
I still remember the violin music that Enrique Jr. played, Yesterday a familiar Beatles tune, and Ang Bayan Ko. He kept fiddling that night while the surrounding trees in Mount Rainier gave such an echo, a resonance that beats an amphitheater in the national park.
I was washing my hands several feet away and I could hear the sounds of the violin music. The next day, campground guests complimented him for their concert treat, they jokingly said.
This fall 2018, we walked to the amphitheater and two flutists were playing Note E Native American tunes. Bob is 83 years old, but looking like 60 years old, carrying a fleece blanket with individual slots to house eight flutes. One had a distinctive bird design at the top and Bob explains what the wind barrier does: it controls the ingress of winds as one blows on the flute, gently, not hard he said.
His companion, Carey is an equally energetic flute player in his 70s and he too carries a backpack with eight flutes. They reside in Hurricane, where we found a man-made lake. Together, they make their occasional trips to Zion to look for canyon spots to echo back the flute sounds they make. They referred us to YouTube for beginning lessons on how to play the flute, specifically Native-American sounds and soon, mobile flute players.
A descend from the amphitheater to the river walk, we chance upon Mary Piaget, a watercolor painter capturing the Zion canyons on her canvas, while taking art classes from the legendary Carl Purcell. The cold outdoors are their classrooms and their paintings warm people’s hearts.
God’s grace is indeed abundant: from a “dance in spirit-beams” surrounded by gleaming yellows of the cottonwoods and orange-brown aspens, to the golden sunrise that bathe the canyons, to the howling winds at 23 mph in our first evening to 32 mph the next, to frigid cold weathers that morph into the warmth of human hands, resonating flute sounds that warms one’s soul, family of does without the buck (family of deer) amazing muted watercolors of Mary’s painting of the Zion canyons that make you say, “Oh, for with the grace of God, all are possible, including the miraculous last camping site that we got for three nights. Thank you God Almighty, Your Nature is unspeakably abundant!”
But not quite, as John Muir would say, “A very fine blacktailed deer went bounding past camp this morning. A buck with widespread of antlers, showing admirable vigor and grace. Wonderful the beauty, strength, and graceful movements of animals in wildernesses, cared for by Nature only…Deer, like all wild animals, are as clean as plants. The beauties of their gestures and attitudes, alert or repose, surprise yet more than their bounding exuberant strength. Every movement and posture is graceful, the very poetry of manners and motion. The more I see of deer the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength, through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and boulder piles, across canyons, roaring streams, and snow fields, ever showing forth beauty and courage.”
Happy Thanksgiving to Asian Journal’s readers, and I am grateful for our upcoming eleventh year of writing for this fine publication come 2019. May you all have a wonderful get-together with your families!
Cover Photo by Enrique B. de la Cruz
[Editor’s Note: A version of this column was previously published in June 2012]
Bryce National Park in Southern Utah is known for its red rock spires and amphitheaters of columns. It is described by the Paiute Indians as “bad men turned into rock by coyotes.” The true story of this place began 60 million years ago. Oh! Ranger described it as “famous for its unique geology of red rock spires and horseshoe-shaped amphitheaters, located on Utah Route 63, south of Utah Route 12 (a National Scenic Byway).”
Photo courtesy of Bryce National Park’s Facebook page
The history of Bryce Canyon began at the end of the Cretaceous period. The Claron Formation has been deposited, uplifted and eroded by ice, snowmelt, thunderstorms and the roots of plants and trees. As billions of tons of ground rock moved out of Bryce Canyon and into the Colorado River, amphitheaters of colorful temples, pillars, domes and spires were left standing.
The park ranger (whom I spoke with) reported 3,300 visitors on June 21, 2012, and the Hoodoos (the park’s newsletter) reported 1.3 million visitors a year.
Two decades ago, we visited Bryce Canyon National Park. On the way, we stopped to buy a bucket of fried chicken. All patrons glanced at my son and I. It was as if their eyes measured us from top to bottom, and their penetrating glares revealed their aghast feelings, as if conveying: “who are you to come to our place?” or simply, “who are they?”
Our young son (who was about nine that time) quickly got inside the car and told my husband, Enrique, to head back to Los Angeles. He felt that this state is inhospitable to folks like us, unlike California.
Fast forward to 2012 — everyone we met was so friendly.
At camp, a father struck up a conversation with my husband. He narrated that he once lived in Northridge, and now lives in Carlsbad.
Hazel, a graduate of environmental science, grew up in West Hills, Pennsylvania. She loves the adventure of being outdoors at Bryce, while volunteering with interdenominational services at Bryce Canyon on Sundays. She is part of the Christian ministries, working with 40 national parks and deploying volunteers like her to serve at the lodge restaurant.
At a pizza place where we ate, a world map is on the wall, with stick pins clustered on different continents: Europe, North America, Australia, Japan, and 20 folks from the Philippines. Another server asked me where I am from. She said she wants to go to Boracay because she saw pictures shared by J1 foreign exchange students from the Philippines and she fell in love with the place.
That afternoon, we took a scenic drive from Rainbow Point, ending up in Bryce Point. At Bryce, the vista spanning 100 miles was awesome. I held my husband’s hands and thanked him for driving us both to this magnificent place. The route he took got us through many scenic viewpoints: Rainbow Point to Black Birch Canyon, to Ponderosa Canyon, to Agua Canyon, to Natural Bridge, to Far View Point, Swamp Canyon and finally, Bryce Point.
But first, a trip to the visitor’s center, where we watched an orientation film. It becomes a guide as to what viewpoints to cover and which viewpoints were promising for photographs.
At sunrise, around 6:15 a.m., we went to Bryce Point. Here, the columns and spires appeared lighted from the inside, as if candles were hidden behind them, yet it was the sun reflecting on the red rock, giving a warm glow to the red rock columns.
It contrasted with the deep green forest of bristlecone pines and the bleached white soil in some areas. While walking the trails, I heard different languages spoken: Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, German and East Indian language.
My husband described what he saw at the viewpoint: a father pushing the wheelchair of his young daughter, who was holding a camera and was being kept alive by a cacophony of life support machines.
My husband and I held each other, as we felt gratitude for what we have and said a prayer for the sacredness of duties that both these parents have, to give their child the best of experiences, for how many days she has on earth.
That is how we feel — gratitude that we are able to travel and be outdoors with Mother Nature, that we are able to walk, to put one foot ahead of another, and to keep heading for the trails.
The last trail we took, Queen’s Garden, was advertised as an easy 1.6 mile-roundtrip walk.
But it was hardly easy. The mountain air zaps out the oxygen, leaving you with just 70 percent. The scorching heat of the sun is at 98 degrees Fahrenheit and two pints of water are not enough.
As I walked uphill, I took cover in every shade of a tree I could find. I saw figures which resembled a teddy bear, the Santo Nino, Miss Piggy, and Queen Victoria.
My husband, Enrique, held my hand at the last few yards and at the end of the trail, he went ahead. On the way back to meet me, he offered me a cold pint of bottled water, which I drank halfway in seconds, to revive my wilting body’s energy. One drawback of heat is some bodies lose energy quickly, draining electrolytes.
Water not only sculpts the red rock columns, it also restores a body to its normal capacity and cements a love bond between a couple.
On the trail, I offered to take a picture of a young Asian couple. As I took a shot, I asked if they were married. The guy said yes, but the woman was not smiling.
I imagine she wilted in the heat, just like me. “Smile, like you are in love for the very first time. See that guy over there, I have been married to him 33 years,” I said.
The young husband smiled and said: “We will keep doing the trails then.” The wife managed a smile.
The murmur of the winds, the sweet tweeting sounds of brown stellar jays, the sounds of flute played by the Paiute Indians (one resort guide hushed us to stop and to listen, but I could not hear), with car sounds traveling on the highway, interrupted by the happy voices of tired cyclists, announcing hot showers (that includes moi), and the bliss of doing laundry at the general store (after wearing dusty clothes and smelly socks from hiking the trails), all seemed at peace, so serene and perfect with Mother Nature!
I sat under the shade of the bristlecone pine trees with such bliss — a whole forest in front of me. I noticed the sweetness of the tweeting birds was matched by the rapport of a man with a squirrel, which posed long enough to have the animal’s photos taken. Happy Summer vacation to all of you!
Photo by Enrique B. de la Cruz
“Mother Nature is at its best with no makeup, just lighting! All you need to do is discover it,” said Enrique.
[Author’s note: The stares I referred to in this article happened two decades ago, yet somehow, these remnant bigoted practices have been revived, renewed and resurrected virulently under this Republican president’s administration, in June 2018, and at its worst form, separation of young children, as young as toddlers, from their parents. More on this at the next issue.]
“When you are seasoned with the salt of Truth, your own body of knowledge suddenly reveals a new dimension. The principle of relativity is mad practical in a new concept of unitivity. You will come to see that even as the subatomic particle has no existence outside of the electromagnetic field that holds the atom together, but is the field expressing as a particle, so man has no existence outside of God, but is the activity of God expressing as man. All your scientific facts suddenly come alive, they become dynamic potencies. And with this keener insight, you become a seasoning influence in the world. You become a peacemaker.” —Eric Butterworth, Discover the Power Within You, 1989.
31 days of camping, juicing, of cooking nutritious meals. What did I cook today – salmon in tomato broth, oregano, basil, and olive bread with garlic and sautéed mushrooms in butter – all tasted good but weariness is all I could taste. Even the bees sensed my restlessness, they hovered around me, buzzing, teasing me as if to bite me, yet, I managed to calm myself down.
I do not sleep like a log – I move about and when there’s skimpy space to move inside the van, I wake up and I wake up my husband as well. Then, it is about falling asleep again, which as one ages, grows more gray hair, is not as easy to do.
But as difficult and taxing it is to my physical body, the rewards are priceless – seeing the sunset – a blue line, a gold line, intersecting with white clouds, and then receding golden sun’s rays; a deep blue lake from a mountain that blew its top – a metaphor for blowing one’s top off, releasing all one’s toxic energies accumulated from past hurts/trauma to reveal a magnificent purity within, where good energies can be channeled back and forth and not stopped.
I call it an open heart, allowing others to influence you, to persuade you, to see it from their perspective, not just my own. My husband calls it a deeply rooted tree without rocks to stop the inflow of nutrients from the soil, after watering.
And just when I am about to give up camping, my husband hurries us both to see Watchman lookout at sunset. How gorgeous it is – blue, gray, gold, white bands, and then a blue backdrop – and my weariness evaporates with the howling music of the winds. Howling, haunting, but also soothing, and liberating for one’s spirit to join with the winds.
Seeing my husband so happy, so relaxed, so comfortable is enough to know he found his bliss. As to me, rustling of the winds, leaves of trees and violin music with a good sleep and hot showers at the camp store energize me, a new being no longer remembering the 31 days with only 4 days of hotel nights to break the routine, or to politely say, to restore my civilized ways of using the bathroom.
How do we exactly use the bathroom, as any other campers do. Ask them the next time you meet them, we all have devised our ways of dealing outdoor life. Ask middle school girls and they are more upfront, “After three days, you start not caring anymore. You start enjoying nature and what it can offer. Then, you just look around.” They have more uncommon sense than this writer.
As we walked up the Watchman trail, this uphill climb is for strenuous serious climbers, whose calves have been pre-conditioned to take the wear and tear of climbing and walking. As we climbed, I was huffing and puffing, catching my breath. I wish I were home. But not quite, as it is described as “the Watchman Peak Trail in Crater Lake National Park, Oregon is a moderately steep 1.6 mile out and back climb to a 360 degree view on the west side above Crater Lake from a historic fire lookout. This key vantage point offers spectacular views of the lake and Wizard Island, especially in the afternoon. Also night hikes with a ranger are available for some awesome star gazing,”AllTrails.com wrote.
But as the sunset glow disappeared, a canopy of twinkling stars appeared. With a roaring fire, a glass of red wine, the crackling sounds coupled with fragrant smell of cedar logs gave a balm to my tired spirit, my weariness became contentment and happiness that we, seniors, are still able to do this.
The canopy shrouded the trees as if Christmas lights, which instantly brought me joy: Jupiter, Mars, Procyon, Rigel.
I reflected on the lessons I learned:
1. Convenience is not the easy route. Taking a short cut on the trails can prolong your walk and can take you to the mountains that you must climb to get you back. Nature is meant to be enjoyed at a leisurely pace, to be still, to absorb what it brings, and not to hurry to reach the end of the trail.
2. Struggle through your inner demons. In doing so, you find your characteristic strength and somehow you realize you have acquired endurance.
3. Gourmet cooking of nutritious meals is so doable, so is juicing. Planning is key and when unplanned, creativity makes you develop new recipes. Like I did not have meat to go with my okra, eggplant and bittermelon, so I made my soul dish, pinakbet using mushrooms, as if meat. Husband raved about the dish as he likes to eat mostly vegetables.
4. Essential sanitizing and personal grooming can be sustained by creative means – the essential tabo, a makeshift shower stall, and taking your shower at 2pm, the peak of the afternoon, allowing your water basin to heat the water the natural solar way. The key is to respect your present capacity to endure nature’s burdens and rewards. The rewards are to be appreciated and the burdens are to be endured without complaints, but with creativity.
5. Remember to pray, start your day with prayers, keep praying all the time, as in prayers, you are connected with the Divine, and surprise miracles come your way. Like meeting good folks, fellow campers, who live in Washington and share their secrets of going to Mount Rainier, bypassing the 2 mile long traffic and getting the last camping space. That is when you know God is reserving that spot for you, a miracle for that season.
6. Listen to your instincts. Road guides are good, but smarts and instincts are much better than google maps. My husband has saved us being lost by following his radar about direction. On the other hand, google maps located repair shops and hotels for us.
7. Connect with praying to the spirits of the place for eternal protection and guidance, it is always there for the asking, whatever country you find yourself in. It protects you and it guides you to meet positive adventurous folks.
8. Cultivate your friendship circles, they are your safety net, ones you text to while on the road, they provide you easy routes known only to locals, they steer you away from long waits that tourists go through, and they give you local tidbit of news that you could not get from newsletters, books or newspapers.
9. Trust your common sense, your uncommon wisdom that you have derived all these decades.
10.Teamwork is essential. We got tested in our patience with one another only once. I quickly behaved as I wanted my showers, he behaved too as he wanted his hot meals. Camping in the outdoors can make you rely on one another.
11.Strange, spontaneous norms of locals is okay – honey bucket for toilets, road names, beach numbers and forest service roads. Learn the culture of the place and you will be accommodated well.
12.Accept kindness and be kind to others as well. Karma is a full circle. Plant honesty and later, you harvest honesty. I received a book of poetry written by a woman survivor of cancer and I excerpted a quote from her book and sent the essay to her by email. I also took a picture of soldiers climbing Mount Rainier, summitting it as antidote to suicides. I learned that soldiers after duty service in war zones suffer post traumatic distress. Without their soldier buddies, recovering is difficult and they resort to suicide. Now, psychological services are available to them and folks stay connected and do summit trails together.
You can be the tree that shoots upward, breaking a wedge on the limestone, growing upright to the sky. All you need is patience to receive God’s miracles, resilience, openness to the challenges and accepting them as lessons to be learned and guidance from divine teachers you meet, in the form of strangers.
Thanks be to the core
For you helped me
Be in touch with my inner core
And to hear my husband say
Prosy, you found your rhyme within
To get a big hug from my 20yo
Daughter
Mom, you entered our world
To have the space to write
To have the space to be
Thanks be to the core
You helped me grow myself once more!
Happy Thanksgiving to you all! My profound gratitude to Asian Journal’s readers for your letters and dialogues on facebook and reading Rhizomes. A profound thanks to Christina (my editor) who inspires me, and to Roger and Cora for trusting me with this column space, now on its 10th year. My profound thanks to my husband, Enrique who drove us one summer, from LA to British Columbia, for 31 days, August to Sept. 2013.
