Welcome to Oregon

It felt like entering the promised land when we drove past this sign on Friday, March 14, 2014. 

Oregon looks like I imagine Ireland looks.  Lush.  Green.  The further north we moved, the lower my anxiety became.  I'd been anxious all the way through California, scared.  Of what, you might ask?  I have no idea. It was just a constant sense of the possibility of things going terribly wrong.  Part of my lifelong wrestling match with depression/anxiety. 

We visited a couple of bookstores in Medford and Roseburg and pulled into Eugene just around sunset.  We had no idea where we were going to camp, but a little internet research via the smartphone found the Eugene Mobile Village on Franklin Blvd.  In the dark, of course, we had no idea of the actual surroundings, but we found the place.

The office was closed, but we picked out a spot near the office and put our payment in the slot.  A few days later, we moved to a longer-term location. 

 

Our first spot at Eugene Mobile Village.

One of the first things I discovered on our new spot was a green stone that looked like jade.  I didn't see this particular kind of stone anywhere else, just in our lot.  Over the course of a couple of weeks, these green stones would just appear out of nowhere.  One day the yard was perfectly clear, the usual gravel, dirt and moss and hours later, there would be this big chunk of this green stone.

Our long-term location.

The green stones kept surfacing here beneath the trees.  Notice the orbs.

 Within the first couple of weeks, we had signed up for Piccadilly Flea Market and attended one Saturday Market. We attended a couple of pagan gatherings at the Unitarian Church and a shamanic healing journey at a private home.  I was lucky enough to get a scholarship / barter agreement with a local shamanic teacher for entrance into a year-long shamanic apprenticeship. 

The first weekend of my apprenticeship training  I returned home and we had new neighbors.  A long old tan RV was parked behind us and the couple that owned quickly became our fast friends.  Christie and Abijah and Abijah's son, Seth are delightful, open, honest, genuine young hippies.  Both had birthdays a couple of days apart in April and the three of us celebrated our birthdays (mine is April 19).

I later learned that the stone that kept mysteriously appearing was serpentine--very similar to jade, but associated with spiritual healing.  The signs just keep coming. 

Struggles in Shasta

Mount Shasta brought its own challenges.  We had planned to stay for three days or so, drink in the mountain air, connect with the spirit of the mountain and rest before we pushed forward into Oregon.
But the Universe had other plans and as usual, I was not given a memo.

We went to town to visit the bookstores, and stop at the auto parts store to get some brake fluid.  But too late!  Our brakes failed to stop us at the auto parts store, and if it hadn't been for the metal post, we might have landed IN the auto parts store.  Fortunately, other than bending the pole a little, no serious damage was done.  But there we were in a mountainous town with absolutely no brakes at all. 

We called AAA (again!) and while Rick waited for the tow truck, I visited my bookstores.  Luckily, Mount Shasta is a small enough town that all stores were within a couple of blocks of one another. When I got back, the tow truck had just arrived.

The repair shop was less than a mile from the KOA campground, but we were grounded, for sure.

A desperate call to rich relations obtained the needed funding for repairs, but we had to cut our stay short.  The campground hosts were very nice about refunding our camping fees and as soon as the truck was fixed, we gassed up and headed north.

But I didn't waste the rest of the day--I went for a walk around the campground, took some nice pictures and set and meditated in the "shadow" of the mountain. 

Here we are at Mt. Shasta KOA Campground.

I loved the tall, tall trees.

And of course, that magnificent mountain.

Gotta love my zoom lens!

One day, perhaps, I will have a chance to go back to Mount Shasta and drive up closer to the mountain and walk its trails.  I would love to feel the land itself right on the mountain, to feel its Lemurian connections, its magical place in the Dreamtime.