I had just entered the North Cascades. Newhalem, Washington is the first little town I came to as I enter the park from the west along SR-20, the North Cascades Scenic Highway. I decided to start my weekend in the park by hiking the Trail of the Cedars, a short and intimate little trail with the convenience of a trailhead in the center in town.
Just starting off on my hike, less than a quarter of a mile in, I came across a middle-aged woman. She had on well worn pants and rubber galoshes, a long floral apron with an unbuttoned fall coat overtop. She had on small glasses and a large rimmed canvas hat. She carried a basket with a few mushrooms and leaves in it. It appeared that she was foraging.
“Hey, there!” I said.
“Hi!” she said. “What a perfect day!”
“I know, right?” I replied.
“Do you know anything about mushrooms?” she asked.
“All I know is that you should not eat them if you have any doubt if they are poisonous. And never eat the ones that look like they are from the Mario video game, the ones with red tops with the white dots.” I said.
“Good thing I have a friend who knows these things. I can just text him a picture of this one.” she said, as she held up a small white one, which most people would assume is a button mushroom.
We exchanged a laugh. Then her face suddenly turned serious.
“I must show you something! Do you have time?”
“Sure,” I said, only slightly concerned at the severity of her abrupt change of tone and her use of the word, “must.”
She lead me back down the trail from where I came. She ducked underneath some branches off trail, and we came to a view of the water. We walked over some of the larger rocks and made it to the edge of the river.
“Do you know what this is?” she asked.
“The Skagit River?” I responded, almost inquiring. I knew it was the Skagit River, but her question implied something deeper than just it’s name.
She nodded yes, almost solemnly, and then said nothing. We both looked out into the river for some time. She was looking for something she knew; I was looking for something I knew she knew, unsure of just what that something was.
“There!” she said and pointed towards a little splash in the water. “The salmon are spawning! It’s beautiful. You must watch. Here, sit on this rock.” She pointed down at a large, dry rock amidst a river bottom of smaller ones.
So I sat.
“Life, then death, then life again.” She spoke softly now. One hand still clung to her basket full of foraged finds, the other was now outstretched and pointing back and forth between the direction of the splashes and down at two dead fish, washed up on the shore about 20 feet upstream of us.
“This is meditation. I will leave you here,” she said as she started to walk away.
“What’s your name?” I asked, calling after her.
“Malong,” she smiled.
“Thank you, Malong.”
So I sat. And watched. I saw another ripple in the river. A minute later, a splash. Then another splash. This time, after the splash, I saw a fin. And another fin. More ripples, more splashes, more fins.
The longer I sat, the more my eyes adjusted. More and more details were gradually coming in to view. I eventually made out a fish’s whole body under the water. It was facing upstream yet moving so subtly it seemed to be still. My eyes stayed on that fish for a couple of minutes until it swam away. I saw another fish and did the same thing, keeping my eyes on it and only it until it too swam away. With the next fish I saw, I made out another fish next it, and then another! Three fish all in a row, seemingly synchronized in their swimming.
And then suddenly, like a page out of a Magic Eye optical illusion book, I saw ten, then 30, then….all of them, too many to count. The whole run came into view at once! The river was full of spawning salmon. They all faced upstream, all in a row, tightly gathered in the shallowest parts of the river. Some were just a couple yards from me, others, across the river in the light blue shades of the opposite bank.
I sat there on that rock and stared, for how long, I am not sure. I found myself just taking it all in, mesmerized by the enormity of it all. Lost in the movement of their dance, I was the only human on earth. I was witnessing the entirety of their existence right there in that river; life, then death, then life again. I was lost in Malong’s meditation. And I am forever changed.