where i'm coming from, part 4: into the diseart

so, i got to the river and the river was dry.  actually, i got first to eureka springs, because i forgot whether i wanted highway 23 or 21.  i really wanted 21, but i started walking up 23.  eureka springs, 27 miles, the sign said; why not, the pilgrim-in-no-hurry said.  so, after a cooling swim in war eagle creek, i walked and was given rides to eureka springs.  it was a friday, and i was fasting, and everyone offered me food.  it was delightful.  in the parking lot of the one grocery store in town, i met--of course, it's a small world--an episcopal priest i had known in santa fe, who was now in eureka springs.  so i had a roof over my head for that first night in the ozarks, and the assurance that the buffalo river, which i had thought to paddle in my little red boat, was quite too low for such an adventure.  but said priest would like to buy my boat.  so, lighter in pack and heavy with cash, i made a bag of cinnamon-raisin bread and a jar of peanut butter into a bag of sandwiches, and started for the river.  i would hike.  the cash proved to be a good addition, helping me to avoid another roof over my head, this time a jail roof.  i stopped on the edge of berryville to adjust my pack and a woman in the house across the street, whose children had spoken to me, called the police.  policeman says, 'you know the laws about hitch-hiking, don't you?'  'no, says i, nor am i hitch-hiking.  just walking.'  'identify yourself,' says policeman. when i pull out the cards the policeman thinks know who i am better than i do, the law sees the authority:  i have money; i must be telling the truth.  so i wander on to ponca, stopping for a cigarette at every creek for a while, and then i stop just for big creeks, so i won't become a  chain smoker, and for a bag of blue corn chips with sesame seeds that i always buy on arrival in ponca.

then i walk under the bridge that crosses the nearly-dry buffalo and about 150 yards down the trail i find it:  the dessert.  i pompously call it s. chad's diseart.  i make it my place of retreat.  a little creek, nearly entirely dry, drops about 90 feet into the river below.  across the river there is a large bluff just upstream, and a sloping mountain directly across where, i will discover next morning, elk come down to drink and sing matins. (actually, elk don't sing matins:  they play in on a theremin.)  there i stay, mostly sitting on the world's most beautiful cube of limestone, until the sandwiches run out.  there i read, from the northumbrian community's celtic daily prayer these words:
'and this was brendan's mountain prayer:
shall i abandon the comforts and benefits of my home,
seeking the island of promise our fathers knew long ago,
sail on the face of the deep where no riches or fame
or weapons protect you, and nobody honours your name?
shall i take leave of my friends
and my beautiful native land,
tears in my eyes
as my knees mark my final prayer in the sand?
king of mysteries, will you set watch over me?
christ of the mysteries, can i trust you on the sea?''

i, however, read these words a bit backwards.  i had found i could trust the christ of the mysteries on the sea, and i had adopted the pacific northwest as my born-again native land.  could i trust the christ of the mysteries on the land?

i ate all the sandwiches.  i went to fayetteville to buy a ticket back to the sea.  my body would not go to the bus station.  i decided i would stay amongst the limestone a while longer.  i started back towards eureka springs, where i had stashed my bag.  now i was a hitch-hiker.  i knew it was only illegal in town.  a woman going the other way on a four-lane highway with a median saw me and turned around.  she opened the door and said, 'when god speaks, it's best to listen.' i'm not making this up.

i did go back to the northwest for several visits, but i had found the place of my resurrection.  i knew where i was.  i was in the dessert, or diseart as the celts wrote it.  s. chad's diseart.  but it took me a while to figure out what i was.  at first i called myself, because i lived first in a little tent and then in a slightly-less-little hut on the edge of the property of my episcopal priest friend, a semi-ornamental--stretching belief a bit--semi-hermit.  but solitary monk seems a better description.  i don't avoid visitors.  sometimes i visit.  i go to the library, and sit in public parks.  it all seemed very neo-monastic.  i was part of the new monasticism.  i called my youtube channel urbanmonk13.  i had a lot to learn.