Saturday, August 5, 2017

Into the womb...

“We are not meant to spend the rest of our lives underground. We need to go home and tell a strange story that no one will believe.” 
― Courtney M. PrivettCavelost

I have had a long and sometimes tense relationship with caves.

My first vivid memory of a cave experience was when I was about 10 or 11 and we were on vacation in Sequoia National Park-there is a cave there that is open to tourists.

It's down a descending path of almost a mile as I remember it and at the end of the path you are facing a reasonably sized indentation, a true mouth of the cave in a cliff face.

At some point a person of some style and whimsical cant filled the opening with a huge iron spider web fashioned into a barricade that opens like a gate in the center-this if the cave is "closed" according to some rangers whim, the spider wed will keep would be spelunkers out.



The web lends a somehow artificial, amusement park, roadside attraction aura to the cave and the cave deserved better-it's not the entrance to cave-land, there are no plastic cavemen battling audio animatronic dinos inside-its a genuine cave.

I'm not sure what separates a cave from a cavern perhaps one is the same as the other or one can be either or both.

This one is called a cave, Crystal Cave.

When I visited there was one tour-the cave was lit with coloured lights and was of a size that didn't make one feel either overwhelmed or claustrophobic.

Scientists, some of them anyway, will tell you that we, humans, love caves because we came from caves-we were at some point cave creatures.

I think that may be true of some of us and I think there are others who lived on plains where everything was flat and grassy and you could see Mastodons and other critters coming from far away.

Still others were water people living near streams and beaches, fishing.

My feeling about caves is that they are places of power, they wre where we go to reevaluate our place in the scheme of things...to put ourselves through some sort of reverse birth where we go from the light into the dark.

I am drawn to caves in a way but it's a Disney, Knott's Berry Farm way-they both had caves-remember the glow in the dark water of Rainbow caverns? The mine train at Knott's has an organ pipe cavern that equates the shapes of the formations with a holy place, a cathedral and pipes in organ music to push the point.



These artificial caves were very well done, convincing.

Pacific Ocean Park-the now gone seaside attraction in Santa Monica had a wonderful man made cave that held Neptune's Kingdom complete with Neptune and slowly swimming plastic fishes-eternally circling overhead.

To the boy me-the differences between the manufactured caves and the nature made version were subtle and perhaps the fact that this one would prove to be colder and much larger would be the most outstanding feature.

With my Mother and Dad and Little Sister close by me we explored the cave with a park ranger-tall and with a dull nerdy voice but behind that an honest excitement and fascination with the subject he was sharing despite the fact that he had done this spiel a million and six times before and may be still doing it even today.

I didn't find any strong feeling within myself that made me want to line an alcove with furs and settle in for the winter, nothing that spoke to my inner Neanderthal urging me to take up residence.

The next cave we visited some time later was a great roofless sea cave with the surf pounding through the entrance-not a labyrinth and singular experience and one that I didn't like-I wanted to be out of it and quickly.

We spent a late afternoon in the underground gardens in Fresno.

For some reason eccentric Italian men came to California and built even stranger things-that Watt's Towers in Los Angeles and these catacombs carved from the hard-pan of the central valley and re-purposed to grow exotic plants and produce.

Virgin Tear Grapes-an actual grape in a tear shape that when ripe is almost transparent and you can see the seed suspended inside-this man knew something about plants-he had grafted trees that bore several kinds of fruits and vines that ran rampant across the walls and overhead.

He had lived in his cage-his dream to have a restaurant down in the cool of his underground home away from the angry summers of Fresno.

As an adult I began to have panic attacks often connected with caves and tight spaces so I stopped going to real caves-I had seen all I wanted to see of them-I failed to see the uniqueness of caves I saw the sameness.

There came a day when I was driving across the USA in my brand new Plymoth Voyager-seeing the sights, headed for Walt Disney World which was still newish-only 2 parks and the promise of a third.

Carlsbad Caverns is in New Mexico...it is also a National Park, is never referred to as a cave and has no iron spider web across the natural entrance-it actually has several entrances.

My Mother was along on that trip and she had been there before a number of years before with my Dad-but she was eager to see it again since, as she explained, they had taken the elevator down which is sort of like going to "cave land" you emerge in the "big Room" where they sell souvenirs, food, have restrooms...its like, well, Disneyland or Knott's-BUT-you have another choice-the natural entrance...

It's HUGE...you don't realize how huge the opening is till you start down the switch backs that lead you always downward for over a mile into the earth-down 750 feet to the bottom of the cavern where the big room is.

Very shortly you notice birds fluttering about the entrance and darting in and out and a strange smell that gets stronger and stronger till you no longer smell it however hours later you will notice it again as you leave the park and find it clinging to your clothes.

Bat Guano-once a valuable by-product of bat infested caves-a valuable fertilizer that was mined like gold.

You walk down and in and towards a great dark place thats the entrance to the bar cave-you aren't allowed to go there-instead you turn back and continue down, under the entrance you came in and away from the sunlight-into the earth.




The first view of the trail down, switch back upon switch back stacked down a sloping cliff is daunting-not for the faint hearted-only made possible by being downhill-having to walk up that slope would be too much for most people.

Like a little boy, I took my Mother's hand and we walked down together, chatting about anything and everything other than our descent into, for me, the unknown.

Later we sat in the amphitheatre above the natural entrance and viewed the spectacular BAT FLIGHT at dusk as all those little Guano makers leaves their cozy home to find bugs in the night-you are warned to not look up with your mouth open since bats like humans share a common ritual upon arising.

Years later I would repeat this descent with a friend and at the point where they have a wooden sign that tells you how amazingly tall the room is from top to bottom and how you have room to bring in the Queen Mary and then turn her around-I had the Mother of all panic attacks.

Because of the temperature and humidity one is always clammy in a cave (cavern) I was pouring sweat like oily cold beads from every pore---you can't turn around and go back the only way is down.

I didn't ask for permission-I found a rock and sat down and started slow breathing and meditation and prayers-had I had incense I would have lit it.

My friend, Richard was concerned but had no idea what to do other than be calm and wait...



As I sat there contemplating my possible death in a famous National Monument, "do they have to bury you if you die in a CAVE?" and with another part of my mind I was trying to count my racing pulse....

We had passed numerous large...well, burly...Park Rangers...all women.

The kind of woman you want with you if you are faced by a mountain lion, Grizzly Bear or rabid tourist from New Jersey.

Women with names like DEL, SAM and DUSTY...androgynous leaning towards masculine...humorless, efficient and all business-they would know what to do.

As I ran the mind film of the coming events in my head I heard ":Fat Boy down on the blue tour trail bring a litter and 3 rangers and we will get him out of here so he can be someone else's problem."

That fantasy was enough to galvanize me into motion-I stood up said a low gruff "come on" and looking down at the path and my feet I power walked the remaining 40 minutes or so to the bottom.

Once there I had a diet coke and a Xanax (or two) and would have liked a blankie and a nap, maybe some soft harp music...but alas the 1.25 self guided trail around the big room and adjacent chambers awaited.



I was fine till I had to enter the crowded elevator to go UP to the surface-the elevator is the only choice-in my condition I saw cables snapping, electricity failing, gravity brakes disappearing.

"Of course they ate the Fat boy it was their only chance luckily DUSTY knows how to cook tourist-they used a bad of Cheetos for seasoning."

I have been through Carlsbad Caverns twice-I will not be doing it again-I do recommend it to others as a matter of fact I almost insist-as recently as earlier this year I virtually forced poor Monique and her husband Eelko from The Netherlands to walk down, smell the bat shit and all the rest-they liked it but they visit caves in Germany and I would expect that American caves are superior and larger so there you are.

I am not, myself, Bat Shit crazy-I don't think that the sturdy employees of the National Park Service would have eaten me nor do I think they would have embarrassed me in any way- MALE park rangers would do that not women.

I suppose I have inferred they were at least semi-lesbonic and I assure you I don't have a problem with that-finding myself alone on the street at 2 am in a bad part of town I would take a couple of really butch lesbians over a whole bunch of other choices.

If a lesbian is your friend she will die protecting you whatever your gender-or at least that is my fantasy-I could be luxuriating in my comfortable erroneous zone.

So in a way I have proved that CAVES and wombs are connected in some ways and having had many experiences with them I think I will now abstain in my old age.

You can figure out which one I am referring to.


2 comments:

  1. We loved the caverns. It's the biggest cave we have ever seen and the bat flight is spectacular too. So thanks for "forcing" us to go there.

    You can only experience how huge it is by walking down yourself, it seems you never get to the bottom and have to keep walking down forever. It's dark inside and all of the beautiful rock formations are well lit by some spotlights to make them look the best they can look. Ofcourse you wouldn't be abke to see them at all without light. And that is when I start thinking how it must have been for the first people to explore caves.... no electricity...no elevator going up...no nice paved path down with fences at the edges so you won't drop down. It was quite comforting to know my cell phone (nope it doesn't work down there. And guess what no wifi either lol)has a flashlight in it and I carry a back- up battery that will last for another 2 days, so if for whatever reason the lights would go out I still would have have my flashlight.

    Anyway I can understand the panic attack, at sime points the path gets very narrow in you have to go through some rocky tunnel like paths.

    We were there at memorial weekend and it was crowded going in. So there were people walking in front of us and behind us going down, but we also encountered people going up, out of breath with red faces and sweaty (they say it's cold inside but it really isn't..it's warm enough going down in a t shirt and like most caves it is humid). Anyway the peeps going up were doing so because it was so busy there were big queues to go up by elevator, an hour waiting time, which is about the time it takes to walk out the cave going up the steep trail (when going down I doubt that info was correct..well I know I couldn't do it in an hour without having a heartattack lol).
    I know this is turning into a long story for a comment, but just to illustrate the bigness (is that even a word?) Of the cave....when we got in the big room...and that is not even the bottom of the cave...you can walk a trail inside the bigroom. We did the big loop and all of a sudden we were almost alone in the cave. Most of the crowd took the short tour. Pictures do not show the cave well, it is just impossible to see how big it is from a picture.
    It's the most beautiful cave I ever saw, totally worth the batshit smell and the swallow shit smell.

    Going down into the dark hole in the ground seeing rock sculptures that look like whalesmouth or people shapes or monster shapes(lol they are like clouds if you look at them long enough you see all kinds of things)

    And just when you think you have seen it all you pass the bottomless pitt.....


    :-) in my top 10 of things to do in usa






    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

How the HELL did we get HERE???

 2020 - it's already November, where did this year go? I have been busy campaigning against the right wing on Facebook-I forgot I have a...