Healing the Wounds of Abuse Through Nature Meditations: A Walk By Smith and Bybee Lakes
by Virginia Pickles I find metaphors for healing all around me. Walking in nature slows me down and gives me time to contemplate and meditate. The beauty of the place and the moment soothe me and uplift me. One of the most inspiring places I love to walk near Portland, Oregon, is Smith and Bybee Lakes. More than two hundred years ago when Lewis and Clark and the Corp of Discovery paddled canoes by here on the Columbia River, there were no levies, no roads, no warehouses, no electrical lines -- just acres and acres of wetland. The Columbia River flooded the seasonal lakes in winter. By September, sun and summer drought left behind swaths of cracked mud along their edges. Fish and Tree Frogs and the Western Painted Pond Turtles thrived in the virgin landscape. Native grasses grew around the shores. Rushes and sedges grew in the shallows. Mule Deer and Pronghorn Antelope came to browse the grasses and brush and to sip water a...