BY GAYLORD GUENIN
ON THE WAY BACK TO MY CABIN I WOULD STOP BY THE SPRING AND TOSS A PENNY OR TWO INTO THE TINY RIVULET THAT RUNS NEXT TO THE ROAD. I DIDN’T DO IT IN ORDER TO MAKE A WISH, BUT IN SOME SILLY STATE I GOT INTO MY HEAD THAT THIS WAS A NICE WAY TO SHOW MY APPRECIATION TO LENADO FOR ALLOWING ME TO BE HERE
Animism is “the belief that natural objects, natural phenomena, and the universe itself possess souls,” according to the Random House Dictionary. The longer I live in Lenado, the more I sense that I am drawn toward animism. This place is alive — the rocks, the trees, the stream, even the dirt under my feet seem to exude a life force that I can almost feel. No, I have not ingested any LSD in years, so if I am hallucinating, it is coming from with-in me. Perhaps I do have a screw loose, so to speak, which is just fine with me. I enjoy my sense of oneness with where I live, the strange feeling that I may be connected to Lenado by some mystical and invisible umbilical cord.
Many indigenous people practice a form of animism in that they take care to thank any wild game they kill for food. I gave up hunting years ago, but I still do a reasonable amount of fishing, mostly in Woody Creek, and somewhere along the line I began “thanking” any fish I caught for allowing me to have a delicious dinner.
Lenado sits in a rather cramped valley, allowing us no grand vistas of the surrounding world. We receive hm1ted sun-shine in the winter, too much snow on occasion, and a continuous breeze t~at travels up our valley with aggravating consistency, yet Lenado is my home and I Jove it. Now and again an outsider will stop at my cabin, usually searching for directions, and more often than not I am asked this question: “Do you live up here all year?” An amazing number of these individuals seem incredulous when I answer, “Yes.” It is as if we were teetering on the brink of some boiling abyss and could not survive an entire year in such a precarious situation. For those unaccustomed to “rural” living, Lenado must appear to be a rather fragile place. It has only twelve modest dwellings that are occupied. And we have none of those gargantuan second homes that have attacked our valley since the 1980s like some mutant outbreak of a very aggressive form of pox.
One might look at Lenado as being authentically “retro.” We rather prefer it that way. Aspen is welcome to its glitz and time-share condos and its tourist tsunamis and the abundance of credit cards they bring. If it works for you, hang with it! Lenado is a quiet little backwater, and that works quite nicely for me.
But how to say “thank you” to a place you love? I scold those who throw trash out of their cars, and use the most dis-gusting and vile language I can think of on those who speed through Lena-do, completely disregarding the fact that we are a tiny community and there is a speed limit on our road. I do take a gentle approach to the surrounding land, and will take the time to pick up the cups and bottles discarded alongside the road. It is a simple matter of trying to have respect for where I live. And then about three years ago, I began doing something that might qualify me as an animist.
Approximately one mile down the read to Woody Creek is a delightfully little natural feature that I have always referred to as the “Lenado Grotto.” It is a tranquil spot, a place covered with moss and lichen and stained by years of minerals flowing out with the spring water. The individual colors are subdued but the end result is brilliant. The spring flows throughout the winter, and for years a mound of ice would build up on the road making a trip by the spring a somewhat uncomfortable adventure.
I love that spring, and I have always slowed down going by it in order to check things out. I can’t explain why, but a few years ago I began carrying pennies in my car and on the way back to my cabin I would stop by the spring and toss a penny or two into the tiny rivulet that runs next to the road. I didn’t do it in order to make a wish, but in some silly state I got It into my head that this was a nice way to show my appreciation to Lenado for allowing me to be here. I still toss pennies in regularly. I suppose, as we grow older, we can do such foolish things, and while our friends may not understand, they are kind enough not to comment on our strange behavior.
