Mt. Diablo

When the Spanish sailed into the bay they saw a mighty mountain in the east and decided to go climb it, to see what they could seeof this new land from up on high. So they trekked across the Carquinez Straits to the hills and up and down towards the mountain. It took five days. Then their reactions to the poison oak erupted. They were bedeviled by the itching, turned back, and never climbed the mountain, thus missing the sight of the mighty Central Valley.

Jen told several of us this story as we hiked around Mt. Diablo. I’d heard another story that it was near the mountain that the Spanish had rounded up a bunch of native peoples who escaped so mysteriously in the night that the Spanish thought it was the work of the devil, and cursed the place with the name. Both are good stories, and feeling the energies of the place, I can believe that the elements conspired to confound, confuse, and downright irritate the Spanish invaders. Mt. Diablo is hopping with spirit.

After what seems like months of rainy weekends, today was a glorious spring day, clear and gently warm, perfect for a good hike. And after this strange spring, even I was up for a hike. The wildflowers were out in profusion, the creeks running clear, and the hills resplendently green. I was walking with friends, some old and some new, and there was lots of easy laughter and expressions of awe and wonder as we figured out the various names of the wildflowers, the names that were in our various books and guides.

Blue Dick, blue witch, fairy lanterns, Indian warrior, globe lily, Chinese houses, shooting star, mules-ears. There is power in knowing the names of things. These are the common names, the ones I can remember, the names that are a bit like the “outer-court” names given to the guardians and deities of Feri. The inner names, the ones of mystery – are those that sound like calahootus balancacus or harobedeles myopofencula. Thank goddess for common names. As I walked in the beauty of the day, I thought about how the common names are just names that somebody started to call the plants, ones that made sense to them, like buttercup, or milk maids. So I started to play with imagining the plant introducing itself to me, giving me a name it wanted to be called by. Fire blossom, sea kiss, cotton head, indigo pentacle, the plants readily supplied me with surprisingly good names.

The land here strongly reminded me of the place in the country I grew up, south of San Jose, in the foothills. It wasn’t so much the terrain, although both have a profusion of oaks, but more the feel, the spirit of the place. There was curve in the creek on our property that surely was a settling place for the Ohlone. An Ohlone stone mortar and pestle I discovered and played with as a child is now in my own backyard, one of many found near the creek. Wherever I go, it needs to be outside. It probably was the Miwok who made Mt. Diablo their home, but I’m pretty darn sure by the feel that it indeed was home to many native peoples. It was nice to remember how this feels, to recognize the spirit/feel of it.

So I’m back home, mulling about the power of names, mulling about a place of power being named after the devil, and mulling on growing up in a place so humming with spirit history. No wonder I feel so at home in this house!