The Western Quarter

There is a wooded hill directly behind my house occupying about twenty acres and rising a hundred feet or so above the valley floor. The slopes are covered in trees. Three paths lead to the top; one on the north, one on the south and one on the east. The center of the hill is grassy, open and park-like. To have access to such a place, which is bigger than many urban parks and far more secluded is a good dream. I moved here to get my family out of the crowded, spiritually sterile and criminally overpriced suburbs of New England. Nineteen years ago, after having lived on this land for a year, my sons helped me begin tracing a circular path through the woods around the crown of the hill. At first they just followed me as we shuffled our feet and kicked leaves out of the way. Then we raked and set up rough little altars that were generally oriented in the cardinal directions and sat a little metal Buddha statue on each one.

Four years later, after a lightning bolt struck the northern altar and burnt it to the ground, my good neighbor Rigdzin replaced the old stumps with a simple slab of sweet cedar laid across cedar posts. The ladies sewed altar cloths in bright solid colors, one for each of the four directions. These cover the wood and are replaced about once a year. Gradually, each altar was outfitted with an incense burner, a bell and dorje, prayer flags, a conch, flowers, a turtle shell, a bench and many other offerings.

According to the Vajrayana mandala, spring is associated with twilight and the western direction so today I sat on the bench before the fire altar at sundown. Two tall oaks, one red and one white, frame the seat. A small mossy circle around the altar and bench has been raked free of leaves, but we are in the woods. A fair mixture of oak, hickory, poplar, and tupelo with white flowering dogwoods illuminating the understory. The land falls steeply away into a dark valley toward the creek before quickly rising again. Another heavily wooded hill of the same height rises a few hundred yards to the west with trees so tall that even here on the crest of the hill, I feel as if I am still in a valley; the density of the wood and spring foliage conspire to raise the horizon so that everyday fewer beads of orange solar fire bleed through the new growth.

The bench I sit upon features a large blood red triangle bordered by a two small disks, one red and one white, symbolizing sun and moon. The western altar is associated with the element of heat and illumination, so the fading cloth and tattered prayer flags between the trees are all shades of red. Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light holds a bowl of immortality nectar and Guru Padmasambhava sits before him, brandishing a dorje vertically before his chest, the Diamond Axis which does not change or die. A chubby Hwa Shang lounges and laughs.

Offerings include two perfect flint arrowheads possibly fashioned by Chickasaw hunters discovered in local fields which echo the triangle shape. A shiney black core of obsidian from the highlands of Guatemala , a dense igneous stone from the top of a 13,000 foot volcano, lava rocks from New Mexico, sandstone from Canyonlands in Utah, a delicate conch with a good sharp tone from the Gulf of Mexico, a clear finger of crystal emerging from a fist of white quartz with a few smooth red stones from the Colorado Rockies, various shells, beads and many crystals.

This is the dimension of the lotus, the blessings of the ever youthful Padmasambhava, who along with Great Silent Shakyamuni, is considered an earthly manifestation (nirmanakaya) of Amitabha. According to Indo-Tibetan lore, the natural beauty of the peacock's tail is a result of her ability to consume poisons. During this dusk of transition from cold of longest night to heat of longest day, things are seen in an ever new light. The heat and energy of desire is transformed into discriminating awareness wisdom. The true nature of perception is revealed as infinite light.

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Along with the Mahayanist expansion of the buddhist sangha to include layman in the common era, there also evolved an arsenal of upaya (skilfull means) including the use of celestial bodhisattavas such as Avalokitesvara as a devotional focus. The tantric cartography of these principles gave rise to the double-dorje mandala associated with the peaceful deities of the heart center.

One of the earliest forms of such devotional worship and focus in Buddhism was the cult of Amitabha. The Buddha of Infinite Light and his retinue occupy the western quarter of the mandala. Some aspects of Amitabha's qualities may have originated in Iran where prior to the time of the Buddha, the Zoroastrians had developed the HOMA ritual. A sacred barbecue was combined with the use of a vegetable intoxicant. With the coming of the teacher Zarathustra, the use of the sacrament was criticized and associated with moral excesses. His popularity and the politics of the day led to abandoning the psycho-actives at least at public gatherings, but they kept the barbecue ritual central. The energy of the teacher's physical presence and spiritual influence around a communal meal was to replace what in some circles, had degenerated into the obscuring stupor of mundane intoxication. The terms homa and the soma (of the rishis), are cognate.

If not earlier, the Zoroastrian strain of the fire puja practice eventually migrated across the Hindu-Kush with the Parsis around the same time that Padmasambhava was visiting Tibet. It is likely that both he and they were fleeing Islamic oppression. India has had contact with 'lands beyond the Indus' since the times of the Mahabharata (5th c. BCE) and fire rituals were old hat, and were even performed by Brahman priests at the time of Sakyamuni. The Buddha taught his listeners the inner meaning of such ancient practices and openly criticized the superstitious, corrupt and spiritually inefficient rites of the old tradition and the caste system in which it operated.

The Western Pureland tradition blossomed on China's Mount Lushan in 402 and the mantra of Avalokitesvara, a bodhisattva in Amitabha's retinue, was chanted by the Tibetan King, fifty years before Padmasambhava came to Tibet Over the centuries since the Buddha's passing, various sacred forms had evolved to help practitioners recall the teachings and to invoke the spiritual presence of the teacher. But it seems that the actual practice of buddhist fire pujas began after Padmasambhava began working on the construction of Samye, the first monastery in Tibet. Originally, it was the smoke from burnt offerings which carried the essences to the host. The fire puja was intended to pacify demons both internal and external, obstructing worthy efforts. Padmasambhava had very likely been exposed to both Zoroastrian and Manichaean (with its legions of devils) teachings in his homeland and possibly adapted elements from indigenous Bon shamans as well.

An interesting note on the possible geographic location of Oddiyana, long assumed to be in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, although supportive archaeological evidence does not yet exist;

According to the late H.V. Guenther in Wholeness Lost, Wholeness Regained, "There is no evidence for either Alexander Cunningham's or Giuseppe Tucci's identification of Uddiyana with the Swat Valley in Pakistan. On the contrary, all the evidence points to Central Asia south of the Aral Sea. What they overlook or deliberately ignore is the unanimously accepted tradition of Padmasambhava's birthplace being associated with a lake and the overwhelming frequency of the ending, -ana in Central Asian place names, for instance, Sogdhiana, Drangiana, Ferghana, and so on, and even the name Urgensch (see Edgar Knobloch, Beyond the Oxus, p. 73). It therefore seems to be more reasonable to connect his birthplace with Sogdhiana, situated around Lake Aral, and to take note of the fact that the Sogdhians were highly educated people whose religion "was a synthesis of many creeds and currents, incorporating elements of Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Buddhism, and Christianity, together with Greek and Indian mythology. Trade with China was entirely in their hands and their outposts and settlements were scattered practically all over Chinese Turkestan" (Edgar Knobloch, Beyond the Oxus, p. 54). This synthesis, if not so say, syncretism is quite evident in Padmasambhava's own writings. It is more than likely that, when the Sogdhian civilization was crushed by the Arabs, he came as a "refugee" to Tibet and, in order to protect his relatives, who were left behind, declared himself to have neither a father nor a mother.

The Retreat Cabin

It has been a busy interval.

On Friday afternoon, a steady stream of visitors began passing through the hollow. My eldest son Isaiah and his wife left Durham NC and drove over the Smokies before dawn to spend some time with us. Zoe joined the three of us for a sunny afternoon walk out to the extreme northwest corner of the property, where we sat surrounded by leafless woods on the weathered porch of what we refer to as the 'retreat cabin'. Here we caught up on recent events. Isaiah and April work at a printing press in Durham. A few months ago he invited his brother Isa to move in and begin working in the same business. Later that evening, after the ladies returned from work, we all enjoyed an excellent meal of curried gluten and rice.

In the Tibetan tradition of time-keeping, we are approaching the first full moon of the year (Wednesday). In relation to the day, early morning is universally considered a good time for meditation. In the same way, the first weeks of a buddhist new year are considered an important time for retreat and spiritual practice. Saturday was the tenth day after the new moon, a day noted for strong masculine energy. In the Nyingma tradition, each tenth of the lunar month is associated with a different aspect of Padmasambhava. This month, in keeping with the emphasis on one-pointed practice we contemplate his supreme qualities as the thunder yogi Santirakshita ('guardian of peace') devoted to ascetic disciplines while dwelling on the extreme fringes of the civilized world.

Saturday morning, I woke to dark skies, high winds and torrential rainfall. So far this year there have been 291 reports of tornadoes, which marks an increase of nearly 500% for this time of year. A peek out the kitchen window reveals a few sparrows picking through seeds spread on the walkway.

Amazingly enough, the skies were soon clear. Zoe and Scott appeared to join us all for coffee and whatnot, neighbor Patty, her son Jeff and his kids showed up at noon as did Dechen's mom and niece Jade. Jeff erected a small platform for bird seed and bread crumbs in the front yard and it has been fairly busy out there since. One rufous-sided towhee seems to favor working the grass, a lady cardinal, a dozen house sparrows, and a few titmice flit between the concrete and the platform. Around sunset, Tenkar, Dechen, Jade and I walked up to One Heart Rise to feel the wind and watch the light play on the underside of the dark clouds. Jade (9) lives in town and doesn't get to do this kind of thing very often.

Soon after the ladies left this morning, Brother Ralph, the self-styled preacher who sold us this house twenty years ago, drove up on his 4x4. I invited him to come in and set a spell. As always, he asked about my 'outlook on the spiritual universe', and told me he wished Huckabee would win the nomination.

Then at last, this afternoon, I began formulating my thoughts and working on this post.

Over the years, I have initiated various forms attempting to provide the sangha with opportunities for creative expression and meaningful interaction. For over a decade we maintained an intense schedule of formal practices, both as individuals and as a group. Rasayana journeys, sweat-lodge ceremonies, ngondro and Vajrayana sadhanas, public rituals, dharma crafts, astronomy class, Tibetan language studies, posting forums, a community website, reading and discussion groups. In the latter half of the 1990's, there were countless opportunities to go backpacking for days and sometimes weeks at a stretch both here in the southeast and in the deserts and mountains of the southwest. The last seven years have seen an emphasis on making devotional music. All of these forms have had their limitations while also serving as primary vehicles to focus interest and available energy in a manner which has virtually defined the sangha at any given moment.

Now the days pass ever more quickly. What have we accomplished here? Years ago when there was more fire and activity in these parts, Khenchen Palden pulled me aside to warn me not to be distracted or sidetracked by the bustle of community and that he could tell me about scenes much bigger than ours which had completely dissolved and are no longer able to introduce anyone to the Dharma because their personal commitment to practice and awakening was weak or secondary.

At this point, we are once again in a sector of the labyrinth where samsaric distractions dominate and there is not very much holding us together as an active spiritual community. At times, it seems my interest is the primary connection of this group to the teachings of the Buddha. This impoverishes us all and should be recognized as a challenge to both our individual and collective well-being. In considering this, I feel an urgent need to finish up the retreat cabin.

Eight long years have passed since the structure began to take form. In spite of our talk and ideals and plans, it remains a dusty shed and sits unused and isolated in the woods. I have often said that I think we would all hassle less and evolve more rapidly if we each spent a few days out there alone every so often. Apparently, not everyone agrees with me about this. Even though we regularly suffer through familiar patterns of discord, there must still be faith that there are more direct and practical ways to move beyond these difficulties than by increasing the frequency of time spent in solo retreat.

We have made good use of the porch across the years as a place to spend Sunday afternoons, a quiet place to share tea and read Longchenpa and a bug-free destination for a day hike but the building itself is not finished. Nobody has spent a single night out there yet. This Year of the Rat we must work to finish the interior and make serious use of it. And considering the benefits that we have gotten from the porch alone, I am equally inspired to make this the year that we construct sitting platforms on both Turtle Hill and Easter Ridge.

Emaho!

Firewood

The other morning a thin coat of ice covered the porches and car windshields, a light dusting of snow melted on the ground but remained for most of the day throughout the woods on the top layer of last autumn's dried, curled leaves only because they are exposed to a layer of cool air between their underside and the slightly warmer earth.

A few surprisingly fat bluebirds landed on the mulberry out front of the kitchen window as if to say how 'bout it? They are regulars in these parts but this is the first I have seen them this year. A very cold morning and having been well-treated here in years past, they were looking for a handout.

After stoking the woodstove, I went next door where the ladies were sharing an early breakfast, getting ready to head off to work. We have no bird seed, they say, but there is some old bread and tortillas that I could throw to them. I break it up and spread it on the narrow strip of concrete leading from our front porch to the parking lot. Cracked and lifted by the roots of a nearby hybrid poplar, this twenty foot walkway was one of the only places our kids could use chalk when they were younger. Now, all of a sudden, those days are long gone and I am feeding birds instead of children.

Around noon, an old friend stops by, dropping off a loaf of day-old sourdough from a Nashville bakery, a copy of the Drive By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera for me to sample, a package of lemon cookies and reminding me that I need to order more Tibetan incense, which he has been buying from me for the last 15 years. Before he left, my daughters (ages 27 and 15) passed through to say goodbye and grab a road atlas, en route to Kentucky to see some friends. As the weather is less than ideal, I tell them to bring blankets and wear long-johns. The elder says good idea while the younger rolls her eyes.

Cold weather means burning more wood; the pile on the porch is almost gone. After shaking down the ashes, I wheelbarrow the ashpan to the far side of the parking lot and dump it on the compost. Nearby is the woodpile. Most of what we burn is slab, the rounded outer layers and bark from logs rough cut into squared timbers at the local Amish mill. This is usually a mixture of green and seasoned, hard and softwoods cut into stove length sections. If the price is right, we may also buy a small amount of hardwood rounds for the coldest weather. So far, we have spent less than $100 on firewood this year.

If you have to split your own wood, some things quickly become obvious. For one, no matter how macho you are, you simply cannot split rounds from a gum tree. Gum barely accepts the imprint made by the edge of an axe blade before bouncing it back at you without initiating even a hair-line crack in the grain. Further experience reveals the difficulty of splitting significant knots or branch junctures. In many cases, this is not altogether impossible, but invariably requires more energy.

Come mid-February, depending on the groundhog, the ratio of remaining slab to rounds becomes a concern. Looking around the pile my eyes are drawn to one big knotty piece that will never fit in the stove as it is, but would provide a bed of live coals for six or eight hours when split. Checking closer, marks indicate that it has previously been tested by my axe. Perhaps it was still green and tough at the time and will now yield easier. No such luck. I shift plans and instead of attacking the center, decide to work the edges. After a few well-placed strokes, the chunk is just narrow enough to slip through the mouth of the stove.

A few wheelbarrows worth are rolled to the porch, I replace the ashpan, shut down the stove and tailed by both dogs, set out on a path along the creek to ask if my neighbor has any bird seed. Past the old sweat lodge site, across a footbridge, up a mossy bank and in the back door. Warmth, the smell of food, bright with electricity and people noise. Four friends sit around the kitchen table, four kids watch a show on Alaska. Mary offers tea. Silas points out a half-bucket of bird seed on a nearby porch. The television narrator compares the changeability of a certain Alaskan river to a woman's moods. I would never get away with saying anything like that, but Dave explains that this guy is alone in the wilderness or he might not either and everyone laughs.

We share breaking news. The youngest son of our local mechanic was in a bad car accident and will need every bone in his face reconstructed but he will live. A small trailer has recently been moved out into Skymetal field to accommodate the rowdy nephew of the man who used to own all this land, although no one is living in it presently. Patty and her son Jeff both have their homes out on the edge of Skymetal, an open stretch of grassy ridgetops hosting a few ponds defining the high ground to the east. To discourage further development, Patty will not grant access to her electricity. I thank Jeff for putting up a no hunting sign accompanied by a prayer flag on Easter Ridge. And everyone concurs; it is a good place to watch the sun rise and set and we should probably build a small platform for sitting out there. Anticipating the coming spring, Jeff said he was surprised the other morning when he saw what appeared to be a bush in full bloom which quickly transformed into a family of goldfinches huddling in the early light. The circle soon broke as darkness fell and we wished each other a pleasant evening before I followed the dogs home, lugging a bucket of seed.

37: Family

Yesterday afternoon, Jack and I walked up Easter Ridge, a thousand meter long finger of higher ground covered in young oak and hickory, slowing to kick down some of the branches that had fallen across the mossy path along the way. We looked for a log to sit on, but it seemed like they were all either too rotten, too close to the ground, or angled away from the sun. Instead, we settled in a patch of sun on some dry leaves with a young white oak to lean upon. Light plays on the wispy webs stretched a few inches off the ground between saplings. Off to the west, a pair of Barred Owls were hooting. This is the first time I have heard them this year.

A dozen vultures circle effortlessly high in the sky to the south. A hawk passes below them.

Nala appears over the rise with nose to the ground. She has followed our trail from the house. Jack hears her coming and jumps up running to greet her but Nala does not recognize him. She stops, startled at Jack's approach and prepares to turn and run before she recognizes the little dog she sleeps with every night. Much jumping and tail chasing before they settle down.

I walk to get out of the house and enjoy what this part of the universe offers up for free everyday. People spend so much time doing things they don't want to do so that they might be able to do some of those things they would like to do. And far from a just reward, they are often underpaid, taxed unfairly, exhausted and dehumanized by jobs that may be outsourced, ultimately looting the middle class and further enriching those who are already criminally wealthy. The other day, I saw a chart indicating my family's income level is among the lowest 10% of the national average. Still, we live comfortably, eat well and want for nothing. And like so many other people across the earth, we have no stocks or insurance. Oh the great reckoning will surely come! In the meanwhile, you could kill yourself trying to get adequately insured.

Developing a taste for simplicity and meditation generates great personal wealth. In particular, the magic quality that transforms the mundane into its deeper, luminous context is appreciation.1 Exhausted by news of a world descending into madness, I head out to spend more time in the little wilderness that remains. The other day, I was saying to a loved one that I have always been of the opinion that a litltle ganja, a holy book, a patch of woods to get lost in and friends to share it with are the essence of a good time. What else do you need? Culturally, we seem to have lost any meaningful context to understand ourselves. Considering what we are up against in these latter days, it sometimes feels like man is a very small, impermanent thing. I don't always feel that way. Letting go of such concerns for the moment, I take refuge in the three kayas and light the bowl, look around and listen to the distant wind. A waxing crescent moon floats in the empty blue above the sun. Both are visible in one field of vision.

Climbed the ridge onto Turtle Hill. Late afternoon shadows stretch across the crown, the lone cedar appears black. Rows of prayer flags flutter in the wind. The paths and central clearing are covered in leaves. All the altars are intact, the Buddha is snug in his dark blue robe. The long flag on the central cedar pole has been ripped to shreds in the recent storms, the bench in the southern quarter was poured with bad cement and needs to be replaced. Nobody has blown a conch or performed a fire puja up here in months. It feels like an old abandoned ship. The hill has been through periods of neglect like this before. Will she ever sail again? In the trees overhead, a pileated woodpecker flies determinedly toward his nest. He has lived upon on the edge of Skymetal field for years.

I follow the path clockwise toward the red altar and set my shoulder bag between myself and the cold bench. I spent some time with the yidam as the last crimson rays of the primordial blaze bled through the winter tangle of trunks and branches on the western horizon. I have always been enthralled by this particular experience but it was not until today that i could put any words on it. As a clear phenomenal display of the symbolism of elements outlined in the hexagrams of the I-Ching, this is the natural sign of unqualified awareness radiating through the jungle of sentient channel and wind systems.

om ami dewa hri
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1. from Latin, appretiat, appretiare, 'set at a price', 'appraise'. Also, Latin 'pretiosus', of great value. Tibetan, 'rinpoche', great precious one.

an unremarkable place

The past few days have been beautiful; crystal blue skies like you only see in the winter, amber sunsets and a pink glow on the eastern horizon at days end. You would never suspect that earlier in the week, a thousand homes were destroyed in Tennessee and over fifty people were killed by the descent of 69 tornadoes, terrifying in their raw power and arriving in the dark.

Let the stove die down, turn off the screen; it is time to get out there. Winter time in these woods means no bugs. I rolled one, grabbed my mala and denim coat and headed off into the hills, followed by an insecure black mutt named Nala. To give you some idea of the setting, the local version of starbucks is named Siberia, and at 35 miles away, it may as well be there. To be able to disappear into the woods without getting into a car, passing a neighbors house or even crossing a road is one of the many blessings of living out here.

So we walked on the mossy path under the dormant redbuds and came to the junction where three drainages meet and sat on crispy brown oak leaves in full sun on the southern slope of Turtle Hill for an hour. Jack, a second dog, joined us here after a typically cautious approach.

A normally dry creek cuts through the bottom, hidden under honeysuckle and brambles. When it rains hard enough, springs and runoff from Sky Metal Field, Resistance and Easter Ridge(s) wash over the gravel and fallen trees in the defile between ridges until the waters are forced into a narrow stream quickly descending a few feet into a log lined gully. An unremarkable place, wild and overgrown, but when it rains enough, the surface water must go somewhere and this is the way it runs down off the hills. Around the base of Resistance Ridge and through a zinc pipe under the road before joining the year-round creek draining the hollow, down past the old shack and behind Zoe's trailer, under the main road before meeting the Saw running west. Under TVA lines, past vacant farms, behind the old churchyard and down through deeper woods and beaver dams into the Buffalo River. After flowing circuitously over thirty miles west, the Buffalo angles north at Flatwood, merging with the Duck forty miles down stream as the crow flies. Both soon empty into the Tennessee, a disturbingly unnatural 'lake' at this point, 184 miles long. Twenty two miles past the Kentucky dam, the Tennessee merges with the Ohio as things really start picking up. West through Lock and Dam nos. 52 & 53, past Cairo and 'Paddle' is finally moving south on the Mississippi. The descent is long and obvious. Here is an energy pathway that connects me directly to the oceans of the world. And doesn't it flow the other way as well? The return in seasonal rainfall has been a growing concern over the past few years. For the first time ever, our spring dried up for a month last summer. This touches on the topic of nagas, but I will save that for another post. Let me take you back to where i am sitting.

At one point, an old school bus was towed back here, set up on a little shelf between Turtle Hill and the dry gully. We ran long waterlines from my spring and buried a phone line and it was home for a few different folks over the years. This came to an end one stormy Saturday morning in 1996 when the trunk of a big red oak was ripped off the slope of Resistance Ridge by straight-line winds and tossed into the air like a dried corn stalk. Fortunately, Silas was laying on the bed and merely got sprayed with rain and shattered safety glass as the roof was crushed in. All that remains now are a few old concrete blocks, and a stump of white pvc where the phone line surfaced.

Looking across the hollow and up through the woods of Resistance Ridge, a thick stand of tall green bamboo marks the home of my neighbor James. We have known each other for nearly forty years, having first met in a small private high school on Long Island. As fate would have it, we were both expelled and ended up in the same public school. Over the years we have farmed local ridgetops, lived in Guatemala and Cape Cod, played uncle to each others kids, and worked together as roofers and chimney sweeps for years. Many seasons have passed and we don't see very much of each other these days, but it is still nice to have neighbors you know who you are at ease with.

The dogs nap in the stillness of the day. People find nothing of interest in this 'in-between' place. I could wait here for six months and never see anyone pass by. An old logging road winds up the valley disappearing into the shade between Easter Ridge and Turtle Hill. After an hour or so of sitting silent in the mid-day sun, we decided to continue our walk.

Turtle Hill

A few notes about place

The state of Tennessee can be geologically divided into three adjacent regions. The eastern mountains, the central plateau and the western plains. During the Paleozoic, from 570 to 240 million years ago, a shallow tropical sea dominated the region. Life flourished in these waters. Forests of crinoids or sea-lillies, animals that looks plants, dominated the sea floor. Every hundred million years or so, the marine environment would yield to a phase of mountain building. As relentless as the convergence, faulting and skyward thrust, rainfall and streams continually worked to reduce peaks to lowlands so that most of the time the area remained underwater. The muds, silts, sands and river gravel eroding off the slopes spread out in the basins, eventually covering the primordial bedrock with a nine-mile thick layer of sediment.

On the plateau and mountains to the east, the tectonic-powered see-saw between terrestrial and submarine environments ended around 300 million years ago, when the dense rocks of Gondwana rammed into the ancient North American plate. In the east, massive sedimentary beds faulted and tilted skyward as the leading edge of Gondwana was driven under the lighter rocks of the continent where great heat and pressure catalyzed volcanic activity along plate boundaries. Unlike the radical angles of uplift still found in the Smokies, the deep sedimentary beds of the central plateau were gradually raised thousands of feet above sea level in a manner that maintained the original horizontal bedding. This was the third major orogeny in the past 250 million years. As South America rammed north from the Gulf, the horn of Africa smashed westward, creating a mountain range with peaks taller than today’s Rockies stretching from Maine to Texas. Time and water would slowly sculpt and soften the heights while the Cumberland, Harpeth and Duck Rivers and their tributaries worked through soft limestones in the heart of the plateau, hollowing out a central basin, encircled by a cuesta of resistant, crystalline sandstones. Where the escarpment is steep, there are waterfalls.

Previous orogenies had aggregated the proto-continent and erosion provided deltas and coastal plains. What distinguishes the Alleghanian Orogeny is being the first major uplift in the heart of the new supercontinent, Pangea. The Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morroco, the Appalachians, and the Ouachita Range in Arkansas are all relics from that time.

What is called the Cumberland or better yet, the Great Eastern Plateau of North America, is bordered to the east, south and west by the Tennessee River Valley and is geologically contiguous with the profiles of sedimentary beds found to the north in the 'Pennyroyal' area of Kentucky.

To the south, the highland rim is bisected into east and west by the Elk River, a major waterway draining the central plateau into the Tennessee valley in northern Alabama. After skirting the extreme southern rim of the central basin, the westernmost remnant of Elk Ridge extends one last highland across southern middle Tennessee. The dendritic drainage patterns on the western highland are as intensively lobed as those found throughout the plateau, although in more moderate relief. On a topographic map, the visual effect is like a mosaic of white oak leaves. In this sea of broken land, forested ridges and dark hollows, the rounded back of Turtle Hill rises in silence, overlooking a narrow valley tending south.

And where are you friend?