{"id":3631,"date":"2015-05-25T15:20:06","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T21:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=3631"},"modified":"2015-05-25T15:20:06","modified_gmt":"2015-05-25T21:20:06","slug":"a-pagan-at-donner-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/a-pagan-at-donner-pass.html","title":{"rendered":"A Pagan at Donner Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Pioneer<\/a>
Pioneer Monument \u2013 Donner Memorial State Park \u2013 California<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

All land is sacred.\u00a0 Forest and river, mountain and desert, city and suburb; all are part of the interconnected web of Life in which we live, move, and have our being.\u00a0 In the Industrial Era, humanity has forgotten the land and our connections to it.\u00a0 Modern Paganism is in large part a remembering of those sacred connections.<\/p>\n

But we also recognize that some places are especially sacred.\u00a0 Some are places of great natural beauty and power, while others are places that have been sacralized by human activity.\u00a0 Today is Memorial Day in the United States, and we intuitively recognize that places like battlefields and cemeteries have been hallowed by great human struggles and our remembrance of them.<\/p>\n

Last week I visited Donner Memorial State Park in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.\u00a0 In the winter of 1846-47 it was the site of a memorable and tragic episode of human activity.<\/p>\n

In April of 1846 the Donner party left Illinois for California in ox-drawn wagons.\u00a0 Following the advice of a guidebook written by someone who had never traveled the route, they attempted to take a shortcut that ended up costing them both time and supplies.\u00a0 They tried to cross the mountains in late October, but snow was already on the ground, and after three failed attempts they made camp at what is now Donner Lake to wait for spring.\u00a0 Supplies ran low, hunting and fishing attempts were unsuccessful, and members of the party began to die of starvation, cold, and disease.\u00a0 The living ate\u00a0the dead in order to survive.\u00a0 Four separate rescue attempts were made between February and April.\u00a0 90 people were in the Donner party \u2013 48 lived and 42 died.<\/p>\n

Today Donner Lake is a very nice recreational area.\u00a0 We saw numerous birds, squirrels, and chipmunks, and the constant mountain warnings to keep food away from bears. \u00a0A new visitor\u2019s center will open in a few weeks.\u00a0 There are markers where some of the cabins stood, and there is a monument \u201cdedicated to all the pioneers who came overland to California.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"05<\/a>As I try to do whenever I visit a new place, I poured an offering of water to the spirits of the place, and I listened to what they had to say.\u00a0 I heard two voices (no, my non-theistic friends, not audible voices).\u00a0 My first impulse is to say that one was the voice of the local land spirits and the other was the voice of the emigrants who died there.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s that simple, or that simplistic.<\/p>\n

The first was a hard voice.\u00a0 It spoke of thin air \u2013 Donner Lake sits at 5914 feet, while Donner Pass is at 7057 feet.\u00a0 It spoke of steep, rocky terrain where there is no path.\u00a0 It spoke of winters that can last for eight months, and of snow measured in feet, not inches.\u00a0 Even with modern road construction and snow removal equipment, Interstate 80 is occasionally closed due to blizzards.<\/p>\n

It spoke of lying promoters and ill-prepared leaders.<\/p>\n

It spoke of dishonest dealings with the Washoe people, who lived in the area long before white settlers arrived.<\/p>\n

The second voice was softer, but every bit as strong as the first.\u00a0 It spoke of a burning desire for a better life.\u00a0 It spoke of the willingness to take risks, to labor constantly, and to endure great hardships.\u00a0 It spoke of the commitment to do what must be done, whatever that may be.<\/p>\n

It spoke of unquenchable determination.<\/p>\n

My response to these voices was one word:\u00a0 respect.\u00a0 Respect for the power of Nature that is beautiful and terrible, life-giving and life-taking.\u00a0 Respect for the power of the human spirit that will not be denied, no matter the odds.<\/p>\n

When I began thinking about my experience at the Donner Pass, I understood those two voices had one source.\u00a0 The same natural forces that produced mountains, blizzards, and bears also produced us.\u00a0 The mountain endures \u2013 so do humans.\u00a0 The blizzard moves where it will \u2013 so do humans.\u00a0 The bear takes what it needs \u2013 so do humans.<\/p>\n

We have forgotten our place in Nature.\u00a0 We treat Nature as something other<\/em>, something to be conquered and exploited, never remembering that like the Donner Party, our ill-informed actions have very real consequences.\u00a0 Unlike the Donner Party, though, our consequences<\/a> will neither come with the first snow nor be gone in spring.<\/p>\n

But we will survive, and eventually we will thrive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are no more Californias.\u00a0 There is no land of plenty on the other side of a mountain range ready to be claimed.\u00a0 There is only here, and now, and us.<\/p>\n

And the human spirit that will not be denied, no matter the odds.<\/p>\n

\"05<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We treat Nature as something other, something to be conquered and exploited, never remembering that like the Donner Party, our ill-informed actions have very real consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":3636,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[689,688,64,4,5],"class_list":["post-3631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-donner-party","tag-donner-pass","tag-nature-2","tag-pagan","tag-paganism"],"yoast_head":"\nA Pagan at Donner Pass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We treat Nature as something other, something to be conquered and exploited, never remembering that like the Donner Party, our ill-informed actions have very real consequences.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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