Encounters with elk

Just before the term started, I spent a long weekend by myself in a cabin up in the Olympics. I go there when I really want to get away from stuff. It is fairly isolated, particularly in winter. Late one afternoon, I took a long walk in the rain past waterfall after waterfall, just really enjoying the earth unburdening itself of an overabundance of water, all headed to the lake above which perches the cabin where I stay.

The light was starting to dim a little, a mix of the late afternoon and another squall rolling in, but I really felt drawn to head down to this meadow a couple miles from the cabin. I didn't have a flashlight, which would make my return trip rather precarious if I didn't get out in time, but I decided to take the risk and just kept walking farther, aiming for the meadow.

About 50 yards before I got to the clearing, I saw some movement through the trees at the edge of the meadow. A large elk came into view. Followed by another and another and another. One of them was a baby -- are they called elkettes?

Eventually, a dozen elk were clustered on the road in front of me, the adults in the herd surrounding the smallest of them. A huge buck walked forward and assumed a position like a guard might. They all stood and stared at me, and I slowly walked to within about 30 yards of them and stared back. We were like this for a good five minutes or so before they decided to cross the road completely and head back into the woods.

Below is a cell-phone video of the last member of the herd moseying across the road after the other dozen elk had moved on.



Once, when driving by in my car, I saw some elk on the far off edge of this meadow, but it is the first time that I have encountered them on foot -- and I have never been alone amongst such large wild creatures. It was a beautiful moment, and walking back on the road at twilight, through dense rainforest with all those waterfalls gushing and gurgling through the ferns and mossy rocks, was really marvelous. I am drawn to this place time and again, in any season, year after year, and it never loses its appeal.

Yesterday, I received a mass e-mail from a woman I know and had run into on Monday afternoon. She was announcing some classes she would be teaching and had drawn some cards from a particular form of tarot deck she likes to consult -- for what purpose, I do not know. In either case, this was one of the two cards she picked and what she wrote about it:

"Skillful Perseverance (8 of discs) shows a woman walking alone when a vision of an elk appears. She is wearing a shawl she wove - showing craft, perseverance, skill. The message - don't muscle your way through to your goal because the costs become very high. Rather, step forward with gentleness, pacing, and sensitivity for yourself."

After reading that, I wrote back and told her about my encounter with the elk, saying, I was that woman alone with the elk.

This afternoon, I spent a while baking goodies with HGM over at his place. Over a bite to eat, we talked for a little while about our shared experience of not having significant others -- or significant anybodies, for that matter -- and how we that can sometimes burden one's spirit a bit heavily. (Valentines Day seems particularly repellant to him, for example, while Christmas is a problem for me.) We were talking about cultural distinctions of the term "family," which is one way gays and lesbians have identified themselves to others in the history of our movement.

But the true nature of the conversation had to do with how difficult it can be sometimes to see people paired up when we are single and have been for a while. I'm going on two years without any decent prospects and just a few poorly matched attempts at a date or fix-up. HGM, on the other hand, has plenty of dating options but has never managed to be in a significant relationship. I had some questions about how much our sexual orientations and our age (we're both 39) winnow our statistical possibilities and how much was what HGM referred to as "difficulty in making some vital connection with others."

We also spent a great deal of our time talking about my study of death and dying and the progression of that massive paper I wrote last term, which I must now take up and revise. I have two clients who have very clear issues related to the meaning of life and death. One started talking to me about it last week, while the other announced as our session was coming to an end that she would start talking about it this coming Tuesday.

So with that afternoon's discussion in mind, I returned home this evening and found the following e-mail from the tarot-reading woman:

"I checked 'Animal-Speak' for elk and got: Keynote: strength and nobility. 'If an elk has come into your life it can mean that you are about to hit your stride,' she wrote. "It can teach pacing yourself, not giving up, not overdoing. Elk are Not solitary, they travel with companions, usually their own gender. Herds of elk have watchouts and they teach to live and work with others, not do so much alone."

So if there is any significance to my experience with the herd of elk -- aside from it being a marvelous moment that will always belong only to me (so much better than all those nasty moments I've had alone) -- perhaps it means I'm going to get myself a little posse of girls with whom to travel, live and work.

Perhaps I'm about to get my own harem.

Well, a girl can dream.