Travels with Kizzen

Here comes Wikipedia, hitting some primary nails on the head:

The Town of Crestone is a Statutory Town in Saguache County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 127 at the 2010 United States Census. It is a small village at the foot of the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo Range, in the northern part of the San Luis Valley. Crestone was a small mining town, but little paying ore was discovered. The area, which includes the Baca Grande, a former ranch now subdivided and inhabited by close to 1,700 people, is a spiritual center with several world religions represented, including a Hindu temple, a Zen center, a co-ed Carmelite monastery, several Tibetan Buddhist centers, and miscellaneous New Age happenings.

It also includes Janet and Kizzen, our friends who live on a narrow unpaved lane in a one bedroom log cabin, warmed in November by a large wood stove, many wise books and two significant dogs. They publish the Crestone Eagle, a highly progressive yet not divisive community newspaper which asks pertinent questions, such as: Why do elk bugle? and: Colorado: Red, purple—now blue? They also lend their talents to local projects which require perseverance, ingenuity and hope.

Hope? Indeed: in spite of every damaging political news splitting our country into hostile chunks breathing fear and loathing, they seem to believe that our better angels will eventually raise on their pointy toes and pull us above all we fear and loath. Good luck, good luck....

The pointy toes idea brings me to John's still mending leg, clad in a striped merino wool sock with a large letter R stitched on his big toe. This is to make sure he knows which leg was actually broken. And since he still cannot walk and Janet has a pile of chores to chase, Kizzen loads me and her golden lab into her SUV and we drive to mail some stuff from the PO in the village. We will be black soon, we say.

How soon is soon? Kizzen decides I need to see the new health food store -- enormous, with tons of items -- but Crestone is small, so where do the customers come from? do they bugle as they arrive? It turns out the back of the store shelters a cafe, already full of locals (it is 11 am) and a small band of musicians showering the place with tunes and tunelets.

We leave and follow the main drag, passing a grand municipal building which also shelters a food bank and since Kizzen is one of the mighty pillars of the community, we stop often, roll down our windows and greet whoever needs to be greeted (remember these better angels? they dwell here in large and unruly numbers...)

So much humanity at 11:15 am!  I am not used to it, so I turn my eyes to the lichen eyes on a nearby aspen trunk and feel safer: the trunk and I do not talk but just meet on these western slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Range and this is good. I am not fully domesticated these days and need my tree friends to hold me up and tell me what to do.

But Kizzen is not adverse to trees, either, and shows me the tree house her 12-year old son built many years ago with a little help of his friends. The structure is no longer sound but if I were to find a new adventurous dwelling I may consider renovating it for our private use. Yes, the Big Right Foot could join me here if he wishes.  The dog sitting by Kizzen is Peggy Sue, and she can open any closed doors in Kizzen's and Janet's cabin.

Back to the main drag and its joys of murals.

I am trying to pry deeper into the life of this community and ask Kizzen about a local cemetery. She says; ah yes!  and drives me across a lovely sage and juniper valley. We turn into a small gravel road and here it is: the only outdoor human cremation facility in the United States which -- I learn -- will perform a funeral pyre for anyone, regardless of their religion. The funeral pyre is a simple concrete-brick-hearth with a steel grate, and a body is usually wrapped in a simple cloth, surrounded by juniper logs and covered with branches. Then anything may happen -- music? words? tears? -- and the pyre goes ablaze. Kizzen says that during the dead of winter --  with deep Colorado frost and cold cold winds blowing from the icy ridges -- many mourners come close to the fire and turn their backs to warm their living bodies.

  

I learn that Kizzen's close friends were cremated here as well. Some recently, and her eyes tear up. I feel my own tears coming up, too: a companionable grief, a shared sadness.  But to her and to me this is a great place to bid farewell to people we loved, away from everything but the mountain range now wrapped in fog and the desert breathing in and out. Small copper plaques are the only markers measuring the passage of time, and Kizzen touches them one by one. I see a Polish name, and below a Danish one. They are world travelers even now, in this great Colorado valley

And the desert plant life? it folds its feathery wings before first snow comes.

Lured by a nearby stream, I walk into the forest and discover an aspen trunk blazing with lichens, something I have not seen anywhere else. Not even on aspen rich slopes of Boulder Mountain in Utah, or in the Rockies. Usually, lichens live on rocks and leave aspens alone, but here they climb the trunks as if to get higher and have a better view of all things.

 And at the end of the road I see another white and golden stupa, surrounded by prayer flags and sheltered by the sea of boiling clouds. The space. The sky. Oh...

Kizzen is happy here. We traveled together for hours now and listened to the running water and our silent memories, and even bought some bread in the ashram.  She says we have been gone for a long time and they -- Janet and John -- may be wondering what happened to us.  I say: "Tell them the post office lines were long today," and we drive home.

Janet meets us in front of the cabin and asks: "What happened to you two? We were getting concerned" and Kizzen, as cool as a ripe cucumber after a cold rain, says: "The post office lines were awfully long today" and we leave it at that.

©Yva Momatiuk