A few weeks agp, I started my 6th annual drive to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, about 300 miles northeast of Portland. It takes just about 6/7 hours depending on how much I stop with my usual ones being the Deschutes River boat ramp in Madras, just outside the Warm Springs Reservation, where wild horses and ospreys can be seen on the other side of the river (that includes reservation land).
Next is Brothers rest stop, which is just a couple of vault toilets with a sagebrush habitat backdrop, the beginning of the North Basin and Range Ecoregion. There is like one tree at this rest stop that they hang a bird feeder from, and on the way back I saw horned larks and a vesper sparrow here! It’s always the most unnatural areas that attract the rare birds.
Sage Hen rest stop is the last true rest stop before getting onto the refuge, and on the way in I ran into Chris and Sandy! Sweetest sweeties! We got to see some lark sparrows and mountain bluebirds together. I left them and continued on my journey, stopping in Burns to fill up on gas.
Getting into the refuge I stopped at the Narrows. The narrows is both a location and a place (those are different things to me) First its a bridge that kinda separates Harney Lake from Mud lake even though they are kinda the same thing, and the other is a store/restaurant/RV camp/gas station (kinda a lifeline in the area). The narrows (location) has some pull offs so birders can pull off safely and observe. There were sooooo many birds! Western and Clarke’s Grebes, Eared grebes! Grebe babies! Ruddy ducks! Black-Crowned Night Herons! Just a really special place. So much water and life in the hot high desert
Birdhers rents a field station, which is kinda like a giant camp bunk, with rooms lined with weird old hospital beds. We love bunk A cause we know where everything is :)
On the first night, after dinner, we gathered around and shared our intentions for the trip. Mine were to be present, and really soak in the experience, and being with people. At times, this is the only trip I take all year. It feels like every year my capacity becomes less and less. Which is why I wanted to soak in the trip as much as possible. Not that I haven’t in other years, but maybe not as much.
Over the next 3 days I woke up with the sun or just before it, thanks to the starlings and western king birds nesting by my window.
The birding was incredible, the landscape was breathtaking, and still I felt tugs at my heart for the things I have lost. The beauty and rawness of the desert seeps into you, deepening anything it touches. I had dreams of loss and betrayal, only to wake to abundance and unimaginable beauty and grace. The desert reminds me that both have always existed together. Wildflowers blooming and a carcass decaying. They are one in the same, and we could not have one without the other.The desert means more to me than maybe I even understand. There is a feeling of reverence when I am there. Like I am with something older and wiser. Something ancient. And it is. Geologically and anthropically. Something that connects you to who you have always been. It feels like my souls home, where I belong.
In the desert everything is in extremes. Hot hot sun, cold cold nights, clear clear skies.
It feels hectic, but it also feels like time slows down. Time feels different out there, stretched out. Maybe that’s just the high desert for you.
The desert reminds me that beauty and pain must always be in balance. That the pain is what makes the beauty, and the beauty is what heals the pain.
On Monday morning, I woke up around 5am and went for a walk around the field station. I got to hear coyotes howling across the buttes as the sun rose. Bunnies scurrying through the sagebrush. That place feels like home more than I have really ever felt at home. A sense of understanding and belonging, partly attributed to the beautiful I get to spend the weekend with, but also to a landscape that is slow and unforgiving, where there is balance.
On my way out of that beloved space, I asked myself to always let the pain of love break me open, and to let the joy of it keep me open. The more open I stay, the more love I can let into my life. And that love is healing, and life giving. Love is the only thing.
While at the refuge headquarters, I stopped by one of my favorite gift shops (the others include the one at the Field Station, and the one at John Day Fossil Beds) and I asked if I could drop off some coloring zines. To be honest I was very scared to do this, so I just offered to leave a few and my email.
I was so pleased on Tuesday when I got an email from the store manager saying they would be interested in me becoming a vendor! I am still tingling with excitement. I get to be a part of my favorite place, I get to be there even when I’m not there. And that feels very electrifying. It’s not something that has ever happened to me, so I am still processing and feeling it all.
If you’ve read this far, thanks!
If you want a copy of the coloring book, you can get a copy here!