Heart Math

In my dreamscapes, the big elegant homes in Bar Harbor are mostly closed up. Raccoons and skunks, along with my half wild dog Keetna, roam the quiet streets. Mt. Desert Island http://www.acadiamagic.com/MountDesert.html is ours, a place where we walk on the leaf littered carriage roads and sit on granite outcroppings next to ancient lakes. I am an exchange student from Huxley College http://www.wwu.edu/huxley/ in Bellingham to the College of the Atlantic http://www.coa.edu/index.htm as both institutions burst with innovation and energy.

That’s the way it was in the seventies. The first time I ever saw the Atlantic Ocean from the Maine coastline, it was so beautiful, I burst into tears. My Pacific roots were deep and would always call me home but I fell in love with that landscape and have carried it in my heart ever since.

I should have remembered the absolute insanity of the place before the season shuts down. My memories were in multi colored fall colors and stark winter hues. We were met with the heat of summer and the press of human visitors gobbling up scenery with digital snapshots, a line of cars on the narrow roads, two cruise ships in the harbor. I took Steve and Jack along the shore path and told him stories while Jack happily supplied the cruise ship passengers with a dog fix. Then we got the hell out.

Of course, we couldn’t leave without lobster. We went to Southwest Harbor, away from the crowds and watched the boats come in. Oh yes, I had all of my usual ambivalence. Eating a creature that took the ocean twenty plus years to make should give a person pause. But in the end, we bought two and headed north through the twilight to central Maine, past miles of small towns.

We arrived at the gate of Bore Stone Mountain Maine Audubon Sanctuary http://www.maineaudubon.org/explore/centers/borestone/index.shtml in the dark. Our friends Alexandra and Kermit were there to greet us. Leaving the van, we climbed another couple of miles over a stony road in their truck, and then piled into the waiting boat. Star strewn sky, the hulk of the mountain more felt than seen as we skimmed along the lake. We then entered the warmth and light of the boat house, where the first of three magic nights ensued.

This was the first time we stopped on our journey. Nights of the sweetest music, as the voices and instruments of Alexandra and Kermit blended. Banquets of lobster, venison, fiddleheads and veggies, wonderful walks seeking mushrooms and feasting on beauty, a heritage wooden canoe to explore the lake and conversations so deep and rich they will feed the soul for years. With the deepest gratitude for nearly 40 years of sustained friendship that led us to this special spot, we have bid them adieu and continued on today through fabulous foliage to New Hampshire.