Rafting the Rolling Thunder:Satori screaming your lungs out

 By Frosty Wooldridge

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed…if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence.”

                                                                                      Wallace Stegner

            Dawn breaks with effortless quiet over this ancient canyon.  It pushes away the darkness with the coming of the sun’s rays creeping across the sky.  The first hint looms on the eastern horizon with a faint glow invading the blackness above me.  The looming profiles of the canyon change from meaninglessness to color and form.  I change from sleep to awakeness.  I hear a few voices as my mates slog their way to the ‘Groover’.  Chirping birds break the silence along the river.

Gary invited me to sleep on his boat last night.  He’s a river man.  He’s given me an incredible gift by taking me on this trip with him.  It was Brenda’s permit though and she invited me.  It took her eight years for the permit.  I’ll always be indebted to her.   Now, it takes ten to fifteen years to get onto the Grand Canyon. 

Gary and I stretched out across the two bench seats on both ends of the raft.  We had rolled out our air mattresses, sleeping bags and used the life vests for pillows.  Falling asleep under a starlit sky with shooting stars slicing through the blackness as the water quietly curled around the raft beneath us was a most tranquil way to fall asleep last night.

Pancakes made a hot breakfast along with steaming coffee and tea.

            We maneuvered the rafts into fast moving multiple rapids from mile marker 90.  We hit one rapid and then another.   I had to bail water like a madman with each rapid as they repeatedly pounded gallons of water into the boat on each run. 

We passed Trinity Creek and later, Salt Creek.  It amazed me to be traveling through this rocky, hot desert (100 degrees), with nothing growing except bushes on the banks of the river, and suddenly see a clear creek pouring its sparkling water out of some nameless canyon.

By now, I was pretty well versed in the power of the river.  One slip could upend us in a heartbeat.   From having fun, we could be sucked into the jaws of danger and even death in milliseconds.

Gary handed the oars over to me.

“Time to test your skills,” he said.

“Piece of cake,” I said.

I had been working through smaller rapids the day before.  Each rapid had a lesson to teach.  They were ‘river left’ or ‘river right’ when the main flow of the river worked a pathway left of center or right in the riverbed.  The key was to get into the ‘tongue’ or the main flow of the water.  From there, I had to swing the boat, like an arrow, straight down the middle.  Even the slightest deviation from dead center could swing the boat sideways where it would flip from the hydro pressure built up in each wave.

With the first rapid, a six-foot roller awaited.   It wasn’t hard to thread the needle of the first one, but as a rookie, the boat got away from me and ‘flew’ out of the water, which gave my oars the appearance of bony wings.  Except, they weren’t meant to oar the ‘air’.  They needed to be in the water.  The raft took off to the left 45 degrees.  Gary pointed at a large boulder just under the surface.  It could rip the bottom of the raft to shreds.   “TURN US!” he yelled.   I dug the oars deep and pulled.  The boat straightened out just in time to hit the second seven-foot wall of water head on.  The nose smashed through a ton of liquid ice that exploded all over the bow and into Gary. 

The next roller was the Godzilla of waves–deep green and thick, like the tongue of a T-Rex.   It was heavy, like the movie “Perfect Storm” and growing more ominous as the boat rushed down the back side of the wave and headed into the next tempest.

I lowered both oars into the water to steady the raft.  For a moment, as big as the wave was, a shot of fear ripped through my body like someone had stuck my hand into a campfire and held it there.  Just as quickly, my attention pointed to that one single monster in front of me. 

It’s called, ‘satori’, a moment of perfect living—where all your mind, 

body and spirit are defined by your challenge.  You’re in the ‘here and now’.  It matters little what the challenge is.  Richard Bach with Jonathan Livingston Seagull called it, “The perfect speed.”  Sometimes, when you’re in the middle of ‘it’, you’re scared shitless.  At other moments, you’re screaming at the top of your lungs with wild abandonment.   It can be joy or it can be fear.  It WILL move you in ways you never expect.  It can be cowardice and it can become courage.

Is that what life is all about?  Do we get a smooth roll on the front end

of a wave?  On the front end of our lives?  But soon after, life throws big, honking, saber rattling, horrific obstacles into our paths?  What do we do when that happens?  Many of us go into denial or run like crazy, but in the end, we are forced by life to meet the challenge.  If we try to turn away, life will simply turn and step in front of us.  Sooner or later, reality catches up.  For many, we shove our lives right into the face of death almost asking for a consequence, i.e., drugs, booze, over eating, et al.  For others, it’s endless TV or other forms of non-involvement.  It’s tricky to find a balance.

          As with these monster waves on the Grand Canyon, life does not disappoint.  I gulped my fear and moved the raft into position.  Moments later, a wall of water bashed Gary and poured 20 gallons into the boat.  With that much water, our raft was ‘becoming’ the river.

            The next roller lessened until we hit roiling, boiling water.  Gary grabbed a bucket and began heaving water overboard.  He looked back with a grin, “Good job.”  My reaction on that point was a big smile.  “Thanks.” 

You know, we all need to be praised and appreciated no matter what our tasks.  The older I become, I am convinced that we’re all a bunch of little kids in ‘grown up’ clothing.  Remember when you said, “Look at me Mommy…look at me Daddy.” 

            It’s no different as we get older.  The nicest way to make a fellow human being’s day is to pay them a compliment.  I do it all the time.  Each time, it blows me away at the reactions I get.   When I compliment the K-Mart cashier by saying, “Gosh, those ear rings are beautiful on you.”  Sometimes it looks like they just won the million-dollar lottery.  Their smiles are worth a million dollars to my spirit.  Go out and try it. You’ll be delighted.

            That night, we camped on a sandbar.  Everyone ate dinner, but I was too exhausted to shovel any food into my mouth.  I climbed into my tent and passed out. 

            Thankfully, the other two Dish Fairies gave me the night off.