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Finding my own 'Edens' in nature
near the headwaters of Germany Creek above Henry Justus’s home. Actually, on the maps of Rabun County, Georgia, it is Timpson Creek, but it birthed in our valley – so it is Germany Creek to us. With a cane pole and Prince Albert can full of plump red worms dug below the barn, I hiked up the gravel road to Henry’s driveway and then fished upstream, wading against the swift, cold current.
The stream rippled over colored stones between banks fringed with ferns, roots, and brush. Above the fields and gardens I entered the forest, often stooping under rhododendron, alder and birch boughs that arched over the narrowing stream. Small pools formed under overhanging banks and below logs over which the water flowed. I began to catch small but feisty trout that rose to take my juicy worms. Soon I had five or six of the colorful spotted trout on a stringer trailing from my belt.
My feet got cold and I stepped out of the creek where a small stream entered it from a cove formed among the roots of Big Face Mountain. A few yards from the creek I entered a small glade between tall poplar and oak trees. Clustered at the end nearest the creek were ferns as tall as my head. A narrow sandy shore edged the upper half of the stream where it crossed the glade. Sunlight poured down like a celestial spotlight, gleaming on motes suspended in air.
My approach startled a host of white butterflies that fluttered up from the sandbar and swarmed around the glade. I stood transfixed, stirred by emotion upon seeing the glorious sight. It was as if I had stepped through an invisible door into a spot of Eden.
Much later in Korea I dreamed of that sunlit glade and those butterflies. The dream never recurred until years later in Vietnam, when one night it came again, like a lush oasis in the desert. On a visit with folks back home one day I decided to go see the glade. As I neared the spot I saw the trees had been cleared and a new home built by summer visitors sat there. I turned away, feeling a loss.
Over my later years I found bits of Eden on trips out west. In Idaho, west of Leadore, on a stream coming off the Lemhi Range, Brother Dick and I separated and I wandered alone up a stream rippling with colors and lights winding through a natural meadow. Fat rainbow trout struck my small flashing spoons. Flowers of many colors grew on the mossy, willow-clumped banks of the stream and all across the open land dotted with sage and grasses. Terraces littered with stones, formed by glaciers or great snow-melts of the past, were decorated by blossoms of yellow, crimson, blue and other colors hard to define. I stopped Fishing and just wandered about, feasting my eyes and taking photos.
But this spot was just one of countless others I found in Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and other western states. In places it was still possible to spend a day alone surrounded by light, vibrant life and colors. In these spots I became myself and opened my mind and soul to drink in lovely, peaceful scenes. At such times it was easy to hear voices in the muttering stream or whispers borne on the fragrant breeze. Here eagles and hawks screamed overhead, ravens squawked and magpies trailing long tails flashed black and white as they flew between tree clumps.
These “Edens” become more appealing after a diet of daily news covering war, disease and crime, and after driving far on teeming highways through crowded cities, and then across arid lands of sagebrush and mesquite, dry washes and layered cliffs. In “Eden,” surrounded by lovely scenes filled with light and colors and lulled by a stream’s flow, I relax in mind and body and feel blessed. I recall days when a bright sun beamed from a vivid blue sky and redwing blackbirds sang among willows on a rippling stream. I saw bald eagles sitting like judges on dead snags along the Salmon River. On the North Platte at twilight, thousands of bullbats (night hawks) and bats dipped and swirled above the rippling flow, feeding on gnats and insects. These scenes warm my soul in dry times or during periods of illness.
On a wooded knoll overlooking our camp on Wiggins Fork, as a large owl on a high perch stared solemnly at me, I sat on a log to rest my aching back and listened to the river’s rushing passage far below. In this setting I felt the flow of history on the sighing breeze. Here the Amerindians lived long years and here their age passed with the coming of explorers and trappers. In turn, their age also passed. I, too, am in a passing age and time is fleeting, but I feel blessed by finding along my swift passage bits of Eden.
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