October 10, 2023 • 21 mins
With Lori Erickson, author of Every Step is Home, we uncover the sacred essence within natural wonders in the U.S. -- each linked to an element such as air, water, and stone. From the Marching Bears Iowa mounds to the hallowed dirt of El Santuaro in New Mexico, to the spiritual stones at the Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota, Lori leads us on these and other journeys of discovery.
Our talk includes the mesmerizing Northern Lights, the astronomical marvels of New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, and the destructive and regenerative power of fire at Hawaii's Volcanoes National Park.
Lori ends with the Sandhill Crane migration in Nebraska. You'll see that the sacred is all around us, waiting to be discovered, as you join us in this captivating conversation.
_____
Lori Erickson's newest book is Every Step is Home: A Spiritual Journey from Appalachia to Alaska. She is one of the foremost writers of sacred and spiritual travel in the U.S.
_____
Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, and has written nine books, including the award-winning Places I Remember (Kirkus Reviews star rating, and 'one of the top 100 Indie books' of the year). She has contributed to many guidebooks and has written thousands of travel articles.
Contact Lea- she loves hearing from you! @lealane on Twitter; PlacesIRememberLeaLane on Insta; Places I Remember with Lea Lane on Facebook; Website: placesirememberlealane.com.
New episodes drop every other Tuesday, wherever you listen. Please consider sharing, following, rating and reviewing this award-winning travel podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lea Lane (00:00):
As we travel near and far.
here are sacred elements andexperiences to be discovered all
around us, the extraordinaryand the seemingly ordinary,
anywhere and everywhere.
Our guest is Lori Erickson,author of Every Step is Home, a
Spiritual Geography fromAppalachia to Alaska.
Lori was our guest once before,in episode 30, when she talked
(00:21):
about other spiritual journeysaround the world.
Welcome again, to Places IRemember.
(I'm delighted to be back withyou, l.
Well, we're delighted to haveyou.
You took off with your husband,Bob, who's a photographer, and
you towed a camper and you wentabout the United States
researching and then writingabout spiritual discoveries that
(00:42):
you found.
You divide your book intochapters focusing on basic
natural elements.
How did you come up with thatpremise?
Lori Erickson (00:50):
Well, I knew when I started this book I wanted to
write about the United States,because I've been fortunate to
travel around the worldexploring holy sites.
But I wanted to let people knowthat there are wonderful sites
here in the United States.
And then COVID happened, ofcourse, and that threw a wrench
into everything and in the end Ifelt like that deepened my
experiences, because I reallyhad a sense for how travel is
(01:14):
transformative and that notbeing able to travel for a time
really helped me think about allthat travel has given me and
gives me.
So, anyway, I knew I wanted towrite about the United States.
I knew I was traveling duringCOVID, and so the idea of doing
a book that was primarily aboutsort of out of the way, lesser
known places, places that wecould explore almost all of them
(01:37):
by driving became sort of anecessity.
That became, I think, a realasset in the end.
Lea Lane (01:45):
Well, you start with the Marching Bears of Iowa.
How did that inspire you, T ?
Lori Erickson (01:49):
The bears of Iowa are a set of effigy mounds at
Effigy Mounds National Monumentin Northeast Iowa.
Effigy means that is a moundthat's in the shape of an animal
, and Effigy Mounds is full ofhundreds of mounds, but the most
remarkable is a set of 10 bearsthat appear to be marching
(02:10):
across a high bluff over theMississippi River, and it's a
really striking place.
But it is a place where youhave to have a little bit of
imagination.
These really aren't thatvisible from ground level.
You have to see an aerial viewof them and I really decided on
the marching bears as a kind ofmetaphor for the ways in which
(02:30):
seeking out holy sites reallyrequires a shift in perspective,
and also that some of thesesites are more subtle.
You know they're not.
It's not the great pyramids tthey're They're Places laces
that are a often have a kind ofsubtlety about them and a kind
of beauty that you need to sinkinto . (Absolutely
They don't knock t off perhapsat the beginning, but then, the
(02:52):
more you know about them, themore impressive they are.
Lea Lane (02:54):
Well, it's so impressive because you divide
the chapters into elements, andthe first one is dirt.
Even dirt is holy.
Tell us more.
Lori Erickson (03:04):
Uh huh.
So each of my chapters is botha description of a trip and then
also a meditation on adifferent theme or element- -
sacred water, sacred air, etc.
And we'll get into those.
So the first chapter is aboutdirt.
I thought what is more homelythan dirt?
And the place that's associatedwith that is the El Santuaro,
the Chimayo in New Mexico Mostpeople call it Chimayo which is
(03:27):
a Spanish mission church inrural New Mexico that is
renowned for its holy dirt,which is said to have healing
properties.
It was a sacred indigenous sitebefore it became a Catholic
holy site and I thought it was aperfect place to start off my
book.
Lea Lane (03:45):
Yeah, well, I know many people go to get mud baths.
That's kind of dirt and theyfeel very spiritual after having
one of those baths.
Lori Erickson (03:52):
I've had them.
Lea Lane (03:53):
You look horrible, but you feel good.
Yep, yep, right.
How about stone?
Stone is the oldest thing wecan carry, and stone is an
element that you discover at thePipestone National Monument in
Minnesota.
Tell us more.
Lori Erickson (04:08):
So Pipestone National Monument has been a
holy site for tribal nations inthe United States for many
centuries.
It's a place where stone isquarried, it's made into
ceremonial pipes.
It's a beautiful red stonethat's relatively easy to carve.
I mean, it's still a lot ofwork to quarry it.
All the quarrying is done byhand and I love the idea of
(04:30):
exploring how, again, like dirt,stone is not something that we
immediately think of as holy,but once you start thinking
about it, I think there are alot of entry points for people
For example, the number ofpeople who travel and who pick
up stones as a kind of talismanof their trip.
The cairns that people createas they're walking on paths.
(04:52):
The ways in which massivestones like Stonehenge have been
a source of fascination forpeople.
Pipestone was a place toreflect on all of those things.
Lea Lane (05:03):
You mentioned that stones move.
We think of them as immutable,but they're moving all the time,
including with tourists.
We move them around as well.
Lori Erickson (05:11):
Well, that's right, and during the course of
the research for that trip, Iimmersed myself in sort of a
mini course in geology, which isnot a subject that I was all
that interested in before, Ihave to admit.
I thought it was fascinating to.
If you look at the earth from alonger time frame, it is an
incredibly dynamic place ofvolcanoes and earthquakes and
(05:33):
massive tectonic plates torquingeach other and pushing up
mountains, and so it was amusingto me to sort of shift
perspective and realize, well,stones in one sense are
sedentary, but in another sensethey've always been on the move.
Lea Lane (05:47):
One of my most treasured possessions is a stone
that I found in the CatskillMountains many years ago.
I just picked it up.
It was pretty, but I looked atit and there was a sea fossil in
it and I understood then that,yes, this was the sea, this was
what's the sea.
It was so amazing.
I have it on my shelf and Ilook at it very often.
So, yes, stone is spiritual forsure.
(06:07):
(Perfect example, yeah,whatever you mean.
) Well rees, trees is anothersection and of course, they're
among the oldest living thingsand many of us can feel their
spirituality, especially thelarge ones.
I know forest bathing is a bigthing now, where people go into
the forest and feel thatspirituality.
I know when I visited theRedwoods and Kauori the trees
Howery Trees in New Zealand andother places.
(06:30):
There's tremendous spiritualityinvolved with it.
Tell us about your visit toRedwood National Monument in
California.
Lori Erickson (06:38):
Well, it wasn't hard to decide where to find
sacred trees, because I thinkalmost everyone has a sense that
the redwoods are anextraordinarily precious,
precious ecosystem, and I wentthere to celebrate my 60th
birthday.
I wanted to sleep under theredwoods on my birthday and it
was everything that I haddreamed of, and more.
(06:59):
And so the redwoods became thena jumping off point for talking
about trees in general, becausein each of these chapters I
wanted to make it clear thatwhile I was writing about a
particular place, I hope thatpeople will take what I write
and extrapolate it to their ownlives, and so in that chapter,
that people might think of theirown connections to trees as
(07:20):
sacred.
I think many people have asense for that, especially if
you own a home.
You know if you have trees inyour yard, when one of them is
damaged or you have to have itcut down, there's an incredible
sense of loss, often gets tomore than just sort of the
utilitarian value of them, thatwe feel a connection to trees.
They are a symbol, I think, ofcontinuity, of beauty, of deep
(07:44):
rootedness, and so, reflectingamong them amid the redwoods,
it's one of my favoriteexperiences that.
Lea Lane (07:52):
I had Absolutely and we've learned, of course,
through science and throughnovels and other writings, that
trees communicate underground,they become communities.
We have no idea if we put onetree down and the other trees
are aware of it.
So it's amazing what we don'tknow, but what we feel for them.
Well, more than 70% of theearth is covered with water and
(08:13):
about 40% of the earth'spopulation lives within 60 miles
of a coastline.
So you figured, water has morespiritual devotees than most any
other natural element.
Talk about your experience withthe hot springs of our guide.
Lori Erickson (08:25):
So the water chapter is my favorite chapter
in the book, and part of thereason is that I realized during
the course of the research andwriting that I am a water person
in a way that I had notrecognized before, and of course
, water is a part of all of ourlives in all sorts of ways.
But for the water chapter Iwanted to do something that was
(08:45):
special and unusual for me.
So I went to the hot springs ofOregon, which are a chance to
experience water, I think, inits most enjoyable form.
You know, hot springs aren'tgoing to kill you, unless, of
course, you get into a really,really hot springs.
They're gentle, they'rebeautiful, they're womb-like in
all sorts of ways, and in thatchapter, unlike many of the
(09:07):
places, I don't identify exactlywhere I went, because part of
the ethic of hot springs is thatyou know you sort of want to
discover them on your own.
You don't want them to beoverwhelmed with people.
Well, you don't want a jacuzziexperience with sick people in a
beer right, yes, yeah, and soif you're searching for hot
(09:29):
springs, though, in Oregon youcan find hundreds of them, and
so I figured people could theycould get the experience on
their own, even if they didn'tvisit exactly the places, right?
Lea Lane (09:37):
Well, even in Iceland, of course, when you go to the
springs, there are thousands ofpeople and it's another kind of
experience.
It's fun and it's also a typeof spirituality with others,
which I did enjoy.
Now in Dunbar Cave in Tennessee, you found some interesting
things, and one of them wasthere were swastikas in the cave
.
That was something that struckme.
(09:58):
Tell me about that.
Lori Erickson (10:00):
The chapter on sacred caves made me realize
that worship in caves isprobably the oldest form of
religious worship in humanity.
Probably humans worshiped incaves for 20,000 years.
The Lascaux cave art in Franceis an example of ritual art that
is many, many thousands ofyears old.
In the United States there aremany places that have rock art,
(10:24):
pictographs and such, especiallyin the Southwest, but there are
very few places where there istrue dark zone cave art, and by
that it means in the real depthof caves, and the Appalachian
plateau is the only place thatwhere these have been found.
Dunbar Cave is the only publiccave that you can tour that has
(10:44):
them.
The swastika symbol is one ofthe early symbols used by well
many ancient cultures.
Unfortunately it was co-optedby the Nazis, but it is an
ancient symbol and it's one ofthe symbols that's deep in
Dunbar Cave.
Lea Lane (11:00):
Right Interesting.
I love going to caves.
It's beautiful.
They light them up, sometimesso dramatically, and you walk
along and you hear the waterdripping and it's just a magical
experience all over the world.
Lori Erickson (11:13):
But I think people either love caves or they
dislike caves.
Yeah, one of the environmentsthat people are not neutral on.
Lea Lane (11:20):
Exactly.
Well, we've all used the termor we've heard the term, spirit
animals and describing people weadmire, but tell us about the
spirituality that you found atthe Buffalo Roundup in South
Dakota.
Lori Erickson (11:34):
So Buffalo, who are more accurately termed bison
but the terms areinterchangeable in the United
States.
They've been a sacred animalfor indigenous tribes in the
United States and North America,and so I thought, well, that
would be fascinating to go tothe annual Roundup in Custer
State Park when more than athousand of these animals are
brought into corrals for theirannual that check up and they
(11:57):
also separate out some of thecalves that will be for sale.
My father-in-law, years andyears ago, was the one of the
state veterinarians for thestate of South Dakota, and so
for many years I heard hisstories and became fascinated by
bison as a result of that, andso the chance to see the Roundup
, to feel the power of more thana thousand of these magnificent
(12:22):
creatures pounding by as theyare brought into the corrals at
the final event, it was anelemental, archetypal experience
.
You just felt the sense thatpeople have been hearing that
sound for thousands of years,and what a privilege it is to
hear it today.
We so nearly lost the Buffalo Iwas going to say they're coming
(12:44):
back, right, they're coming backand they were down to just a
few hundred, and it's aremarkable environmental success
story that they are now nolonger endangered and we can
enjoy them once again.
Lea Lane (12:56):
Right, that's wonderful.
One of your chapters is lightsand of course, nowadays
especially, people want to seethe Northern Lights.
It's one of those bucket listitems.
On episode 16 on Alaska, authorMidgie Moore gives a beautiful
description of seeing theNorthern Lights for the first
time, and I remember seeing themfor the first time as well, and
(13:16):
I hope people try to do that intheir lifetime.
You mentioned your experiencein Fairbanks.
Tell us about it.
Lori Erickson (13:24):
We talked about dirt as an example of something
very, very humble, and maybeit's sort of hard to get your
thoughts around that it's holy.
I think the Northern Lights areat the opposite end of the
spectrum.
You cannot see the NorthernLights, I think, and be just
transported by their beauty andtheir mystery.
So I went to Fairbanks, whichis one of the best places in the
(13:45):
world to see the NorthernLights.
I also reconnected with acousin of mine there and that
becomes part of the story.
People would have to read thebook to find out.
But the Northern Lights, I mean, you have to work to do it,
though.
It's cold, it's dark.
In order to see the lights youhave to be up in the middle of
the night and they're prettycreatures.
(14:06):
You don't know when they'regoing to appear, and so during
our week there, I was sleepdeprived and sort of groggy and
fueled with multiple cups ofcoffee throughout the day, but
it was so worth it.
Lea Lane (14:18):
It is worth it.
I mean, you stand out there andsometimes it doesn't come for a
long while.
You say, well, maybe I shouldgo to bed.
And you say, well, wait, maybenot.
And then if you go to bed, ofcourse everyone says, oh, did
you see them?
Last night it was super.
So it is a really a catch ascatch can.
But I will say about FairbanksI don't know what it is there,
but they have purple lights aswell as green.
It's a certain area that'sspecial.
(14:38):
So I would say, if you reallywant to see them, it's a sure
thing if you stay there a fewdays in the winter, or even in
the fall, it's one of the greatexperiences.
Of course, the sky has so manybeautiful things in it the dark
skies with the stars, therainbows.
We should look up a little bitmore for spirituality.
Yes, now fire.
Well, earth alone has fire.
(15:00):
There's a quote from your book.
Tell us more about Hawaii'sVolcanoes National Park.
Lori Erickson (15:05):
So my chapter on Hawaii's sacred fire became even
more poignant because, ofcourse, the recent terrible fire
disasters in Hawaii.
I went to see into the lavalake of a volcano, which is it's
not easy to do that VolcanoesNational Park is one of the few
places in the world you can dothat if you are not a
volcanologist.
And to experience thatelemental power, to feel the
(15:28):
ways in which fire is bothdestructive and regenerative,
was a place to reflect upon theways in which destruction is
really necessary for life.
Looking back on that chapternow, it would have been a
different chapter If I wrote itnow, you know, given what has
happened in Hawaii, but I thinkmy general points are still
valid.
Hawaii as a place of incrediblebeauty and greenery, but it is
(15:53):
also a place that has beenshaped by fire and by
destruction.
That's how it was born andafter fire destroys and it can
take many, many centuries,millennia for it to come back.
But Hawaii is the place that itis because of fire.
Lea Lane (16:11):
Right, and it's one of the few places on earth where
you can see it being created,being formed, yes, well,
fascination with the skies hasalways been with us and you have
a chapter called astronomy.
Tell us why and what thefascination has been.
It's pretty obvious.
We've been talking about thesky, so go into it.
Lori Erickson (16:32):
So the last chapter in the book and the
place I chose to end my journeyis Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
Chaco Canyon is a remote,historical and sacred site.
You have to work to get toChaco.
It's a horrible road to getthere, very rough and washboard,
but it's worth it, and part ofwhy it's worth it is that so few
(16:54):
people go there.
I must say Chaco Canyon has Ithink it's about a dozen great
houses, they're called, whichare houses that were constructed
about a thousand years ago,with hundreds of rooms.
One of the great houses has 600rooms, and it's not clear why.
One theory is that they werepilgrimage destinations.
(17:14):
But what is clear is that thehouses have many astronomical
alignments built into them, notonly the houses but also the
roads leading up to them.
And so clearly the Chaco people, the ancestral Pueblan people,
as they're called now they usedto be called the Anasazi, but
now that's no longer used it'sclear that they spent a lot of
time watching the heavens, andwhen you're in Chaco Canyon you
(17:37):
can see why because it's one ofthe best places in the world to
see stars.
It's so remote, the air is sodry and clear, it's high desert
and there's so few people there,and so it was a place where it
seemed like heaven and earthreally does intertwine.
You could see why the Chaco andpeople would try to, in a sense
, recreate on earth the symmetrythat they had seen in the
(18:00):
heavens.
Lea Lane (18:01):
So it's a beautiful ending to a really beautiful
book.
I have to say I loved your book, thank you.
The name of the podcast isPlaces I Remember, where you've
already described so manynatural wonders.
But could you please end theepisode with one special memory
of yours.
Lori Erickson (18:18):
But we haven't talked about this sacred air
chapter, which is again one ofmy favorites For sacred air.
It was a bit of a struggle totry to figure out.
Well, how do you talk aboutsacred air?
And then a friend suggested tome that I write about birds, and
when I thought of birds Iimmediately thought of the
Sandhill Crane migration inCentral Nebraska along the
(18:40):
Platte River every March, duringwhich about a half a million
Sandhill cranes are there forabout four weeks on their way
north.
They stop in Nebraska and gainweight and eat a lot the rest of
their epic journey north.
It is amazing birdwatching,especially in the morning and in
the evening when great flocksof cranes fly overhead to their
(19:04):
roosting places in the river.
And one experience inparticular Bob and I on our last
morning we got up early youalways have to get up early in
order to see the birds and wewere perched with our binoculars
looking out at the river and afew birds are starting to take
off, and then a few more.
And then something startled thebirds, not clear what, maybe a
(19:24):
coyote, or maybe a human movingsomewhere, and suddenly it was
probably 200,000 cranes.
Oh, my.
This guy all at once within thespace of a minute, and the sound
was overwhelming.
It was like a freight traingoing through my mind.
You could just feel the beat oftheir wings and it was this
(19:48):
enormous rush of air and anelemental power that I mean.
Both Bob and I just had tearsstreaming down our eyes.
It was so powerful.
It lasted only about a minute,but it was a wonderful example,
I think, of the ways in whichbeing in nature can be a
profoundly spiritual experienceif you're open to it.
(20:10):
That's beautiful.
Lea Lane (20:13):
Thank you, Lori Erickson, for coming to join us
again and for your wonderful newbook Every Step is Home, a
Spiritual Geography fromAppalachia to Alaska.
You remind us that there aresacred elements and experiences
to be discovered, and even thesimplest and most familiar
elements of our world.
By sharing some of yourdiscoveries, you encourage us to
(20:34):
find our own.
Thank, you.
Lori Erickson (20:37):
Thank you so much for having me, Leah.
As we travel near and far.
here are sacred elements andexperiences to be discovered all
around us, the extraordinaryand the seemingly ordinary,
anywhere and everywhere.
Our guest is Lori Erickson,author of Every Step is Home, a
Spiritual Geography fromAppalachia to Alaska.
Lori was our guest once before,in episode 30, when she talked
(00:21):
about other spiritual journeysaround the world.
Welcome again, to Places IRemember.
(I'm delighted to be back withyou, l.
Well, we're delighted to haveyou.
You took off with your husband,Bob, who's a photographer, and
you towed a camper and you wentabout the United States
researching and then writingabout spiritual discoveries that
(00:42):
you found.
You divide your book intochapters focusing on basic
natural elements.
How did you come up with thatpremise?
Lori Erickson (00:50):
Well, I knew when I started this book I wanted to
write about the United States,because I've been fortunate to
travel around the worldexploring holy sites.
But I wanted to let people knowthat there are wonderful sites
here in the United States.
And then COVID happened, ofcourse, and that threw a wrench
into everything and in the end Ifelt like that deepened my
experiences, because I reallyhad a sense for how travel is
(01:14):
transformative and that notbeing able to travel for a time
really helped me think about allthat travel has given me and
gives me.
So, anyway, I knew I wanted towrite about the United States.
I knew I was traveling duringCOVID, and so the idea of doing
a book that was primarily aboutsort of out of the way, lesser
known places, places that wecould explore almost all of them
(01:37):
by driving became sort of anecessity.
That became, I think, a realasset in the end.
Lea Lane (01:45):
Well, you start with the Marching Bears of Iowa.
How did that inspire you, T ?
Lori Erickson (01:49):
The bears of Iowa are a set of effigy mounds at
Effigy Mounds National Monumentin Northeast Iowa.
Effigy means that is a moundthat's in the shape of an animal
, and Effigy Mounds is full ofhundreds of mounds, but the most
remarkable is a set of 10 bearsthat appear to be marching
(02:10):
across a high bluff over theMississippi River, and it's a
really striking place.
But it is a place where youhave to have a little bit of
imagination.
These really aren't thatvisible from ground level.
You have to see an aerial viewof them and I really decided on
the marching bears as a kind ofmetaphor for the ways in which
(02:30):
seeking out holy sites reallyrequires a shift in perspective,
and also that some of thesesites are more subtle.
You know they're not.
It's not the great pyramids tthey're They're Places laces
that are a often have a kind ofsubtlety about them and a kind
of beauty that you need to sinkinto . (Absolutely
They don't knock t off perhapsat the beginning, but then, the
(02:52):
more you know about them, themore impressive they are.
Lea Lane (02:54):
Well, it's so impressive because you divide
the chapters into elements, andthe first one is dirt.
Even dirt is holy.
Tell us more.
Lori Erickson (03:04):
Uh huh.
So each of my chapters is botha description of a trip and then
also a meditation on adifferent theme or element- -
sacred water, sacred air, etc.
And we'll get into those.
So the first chapter is aboutdirt.
I thought what is more homelythan dirt?
And the place that's associatedwith that is the El Santuaro,
the Chimayo in New Mexico Mostpeople call it Chimayo which is
(03:27):
a Spanish mission church inrural New Mexico that is
renowned for its holy dirt,which is said to have healing
properties.
It was a sacred indigenous sitebefore it became a Catholic
holy site and I thought it was aperfect place to start off my
book.
Lea Lane (03:45):
Yeah, well, I know many people go to get mud baths.
That's kind of dirt and theyfeel very spiritual after having
one of those baths.
Lori Erickson (03:52):
I've had them.
Lea Lane (03:53):
You look horrible, but you feel good.
Yep, yep, right.
How about stone?
Stone is the oldest thing wecan carry, and stone is an
element that you discover at thePipestone National Monument in
Minnesota.
Tell us more.
Lori Erickson (04:08):
So Pipestone National Monument has been a
holy site for tribal nations inthe United States for many
centuries.
It's a place where stone isquarried, it's made into
ceremonial pipes.
It's a beautiful red stonethat's relatively easy to carve.
I mean, it's still a lot ofwork to quarry it.
All the quarrying is done byhand and I love the idea of
(04:30):
exploring how, again, like dirt,stone is not something that we
immediately think of as holy,but once you start thinking
about it, I think there are alot of entry points for people
For example, the number ofpeople who travel and who pick
up stones as a kind of talismanof their trip.
The cairns that people createas they're walking on paths.
(04:52):
The ways in which massivestones like Stonehenge have been
a source of fascination forpeople.
Pipestone was a place toreflect on all of those things.
Lea Lane (05:03):
You mentioned that stones move.
We think of them as immutable,but they're moving all the time,
including with tourists.
We move them around as well.
Lori Erickson (05:11):
Well, that's right, and during the course of
the research for that trip, Iimmersed myself in sort of a
mini course in geology, which isnot a subject that I was all
that interested in before, Ihave to admit.
I thought it was fascinating to.
If you look at the earth from alonger time frame, it is an
incredibly dynamic place ofvolcanoes and earthquakes and
(05:33):
massive tectonic plates torquingeach other and pushing up
mountains, and so it was amusingto me to sort of shift
perspective and realize, well,stones in one sense are
sedentary, but in another sensethey've always been on the move.
Lea Lane (05:47):
One of my most treasured possessions is a stone
that I found in the CatskillMountains many years ago.
I just picked it up.
It was pretty, but I looked atit and there was a sea fossil in
it and I understood then that,yes, this was the sea, this was
what's the sea.
It was so amazing.
I have it on my shelf and Ilook at it very often.
So, yes, stone is spiritual forsure.
(06:07):
(Perfect example, yeah,whatever you mean.
) Well rees, trees is anothersection and of course, they're
among the oldest living thingsand many of us can feel their
spirituality, especially thelarge ones.
I know forest bathing is a bigthing now, where people go into
the forest and feel thatspirituality.
I know when I visited theRedwoods and Kauori the trees
Howery Trees in New Zealand andother places.
(06:30):
There's tremendous spiritualityinvolved with it.
Tell us about your visit toRedwood National Monument in
California.
Lori Erickson (06:38):
Well, it wasn't hard to decide where to find
sacred trees, because I thinkalmost everyone has a sense that
the redwoods are anextraordinarily precious,
precious ecosystem, and I wentthere to celebrate my 60th
birthday.
I wanted to sleep under theredwoods on my birthday and it
was everything that I haddreamed of, and more.
(06:59):
And so the redwoods became thena jumping off point for talking
about trees in general, becausein each of these chapters I
wanted to make it clear thatwhile I was writing about a
particular place, I hope thatpeople will take what I write
and extrapolate it to their ownlives, and so in that chapter,
that people might think of theirown connections to trees as
(07:20):
sacred.
I think many people have asense for that, especially if
you own a home.
You know if you have trees inyour yard, when one of them is
damaged or you have to have itcut down, there's an incredible
sense of loss, often gets tomore than just sort of the
utilitarian value of them, thatwe feel a connection to trees.
They are a symbol, I think, ofcontinuity, of beauty, of deep
(07:44):
rootedness, and so, reflectingamong them amid the redwoods,
it's one of my favoriteexperiences that.
Lea Lane (07:52):
I had Absolutely and we've learned, of course,
through science and throughnovels and other writings, that
trees communicate underground,they become communities.
We have no idea if we put onetree down and the other trees
are aware of it.
So it's amazing what we don'tknow, but what we feel for them.
Well, more than 70% of theearth is covered with water and
(08:13):
about 40% of the earth'spopulation lives within 60 miles
of a coastline.
So you figured, water has morespiritual devotees than most any
other natural element.
Talk about your experience withthe hot springs of our guide.
Lori Erickson (08:25):
So the water chapter is my favorite chapter
in the book, and part of thereason is that I realized during
the course of the research andwriting that I am a water person
in a way that I had notrecognized before, and of course
, water is a part of all of ourlives in all sorts of ways.
But for the water chapter Iwanted to do something that was
(08:45):
special and unusual for me.
So I went to the hot springs ofOregon, which are a chance to
experience water, I think, inits most enjoyable form.
You know, hot springs aren'tgoing to kill you, unless, of
course, you get into a really,really hot springs.
They're gentle, they'rebeautiful, they're womb-like in
all sorts of ways, and in thatchapter, unlike many of the
(09:07):
places, I don't identify exactlywhere I went, because part of
the ethic of hot springs is thatyou know you sort of want to
discover them on your own.
You don't want them to beoverwhelmed with people.
Well, you don't want a jacuzziexperience with sick people in a
beer right, yes, yeah, and soif you're searching for hot
(09:29):
springs, though, in Oregon youcan find hundreds of them, and
so I figured people could theycould get the experience on
their own, even if they didn'tvisit exactly the places, right?
Lea Lane (09:37):
Well, even in Iceland, of course, when you go to the
springs, there are thousands ofpeople and it's another kind of
experience.
It's fun and it's also a typeof spirituality with others,
which I did enjoy.
Now in Dunbar Cave in Tennessee, you found some interesting
things, and one of them wasthere were swastikas in the cave
.
That was something that struckme.
(09:58):
Tell me about that.
Lori Erickson (10:00):
The chapter on sacred caves made me realize
that worship in caves isprobably the oldest form of
religious worship in humanity.
Probably humans worshiped incaves for 20,000 years.
The Lascaux cave art in Franceis an example of ritual art that
is many, many thousands ofyears old.
In the United States there aremany places that have rock art,
(10:24):
pictographs and such, especiallyin the Southwest, but there are
very few places where there istrue dark zone cave art, and by
that it means in the real depthof caves, and the Appalachian
plateau is the only place thatwhere these have been found.
Dunbar Cave is the only publiccave that you can tour that has
(10:44):
them.
The swastika symbol is one ofthe early symbols used by well
many ancient cultures.
Unfortunately it was co-optedby the Nazis, but it is an
ancient symbol and it's one ofthe symbols that's deep in
Dunbar Cave.
Lea Lane (11:00):
Right Interesting.
I love going to caves.
It's beautiful.
They light them up, sometimesso dramatically, and you walk
along and you hear the waterdripping and it's just a magical
experience all over the world.
Lori Erickson (11:13):
But I think people either love caves or they
dislike caves.
Yeah, one of the environmentsthat people are not neutral on.
Lea Lane (11:20):
Exactly.
Well, we've all used the termor we've heard the term, spirit
animals and describing people weadmire, but tell us about the
spirituality that you found atthe Buffalo Roundup in South
Dakota.
Lori Erickson (11:34):
So Buffalo, who are more accurately termed bison
but the terms areinterchangeable in the United
States.
They've been a sacred animalfor indigenous tribes in the
United States and North America,and so I thought, well, that
would be fascinating to go tothe annual Roundup in Custer
State Park when more than athousand of these animals are
brought into corrals for theirannual that check up and they
(11:57):
also separate out some of thecalves that will be for sale.
My father-in-law, years andyears ago, was the one of the
state veterinarians for thestate of South Dakota, and so
for many years I heard hisstories and became fascinated by
bison as a result of that, andso the chance to see the Roundup
, to feel the power of more thana thousand of these magnificent
(12:22):
creatures pounding by as theyare brought into the corrals at
the final event, it was anelemental, archetypal experience
.
You just felt the sense thatpeople have been hearing that
sound for thousands of years,and what a privilege it is to
hear it today.
We so nearly lost the Buffalo Iwas going to say they're coming
(12:44):
back, right, they're coming backand they were down to just a
few hundred, and it's aremarkable environmental success
story that they are now nolonger endangered and we can
enjoy them once again.
Lea Lane (12:56):
Right, that's wonderful.
One of your chapters is lightsand of course, nowadays
especially, people want to seethe Northern Lights.
It's one of those bucket listitems.
On episode 16 on Alaska, authorMidgie Moore gives a beautiful
description of seeing theNorthern Lights for the first
time, and I remember seeing themfor the first time as well, and
(13:16):
I hope people try to do that intheir lifetime.
You mentioned your experiencein Fairbanks.
Tell us about it.
Lori Erickson (13:24):
We talked about dirt as an example of something
very, very humble, and maybeit's sort of hard to get your
thoughts around that it's holy.
I think the Northern Lights areat the opposite end of the
spectrum.
You cannot see the NorthernLights, I think, and be just
transported by their beauty andtheir mystery.
So I went to Fairbanks, whichis one of the best places in the
(13:45):
world to see the NorthernLights.
I also reconnected with acousin of mine there and that
becomes part of the story.
People would have to read thebook to find out.
But the Northern Lights, I mean, you have to work to do it,
though.
It's cold, it's dark.
In order to see the lights youhave to be up in the middle of
the night and they're prettycreatures.
(14:06):
You don't know when they'regoing to appear, and so during
our week there, I was sleepdeprived and sort of groggy and
fueled with multiple cups ofcoffee throughout the day, but
it was so worth it.
Lea Lane (14:18):
It is worth it.
I mean, you stand out there andsometimes it doesn't come for a
long while.
You say, well, maybe I shouldgo to bed.
And you say, well, wait, maybenot.
And then if you go to bed, ofcourse everyone says, oh, did
you see them?
Last night it was super.
So it is a really a catch ascatch can.
But I will say about FairbanksI don't know what it is there,
but they have purple lights aswell as green.
It's a certain area that'sspecial.
(14:38):
So I would say, if you reallywant to see them, it's a sure
thing if you stay there a fewdays in the winter, or even in
the fall, it's one of the greatexperiences.
Of course, the sky has so manybeautiful things in it the dark
skies with the stars, therainbows.
We should look up a little bitmore for spirituality.
Yes, now fire.
Well, earth alone has fire.
(15:00):
There's a quote from your book.
Tell us more about Hawaii'sVolcanoes National Park.
Lori Erickson (15:05):
So my chapter on Hawaii's sacred fire became even
more poignant because, ofcourse, the recent terrible fire
disasters in Hawaii.
I went to see into the lavalake of a volcano, which is it's
not easy to do that VolcanoesNational Park is one of the few
places in the world you can dothat if you are not a
volcanologist.
And to experience thatelemental power, to feel the
(15:28):
ways in which fire is bothdestructive and regenerative,
was a place to reflect upon theways in which destruction is
really necessary for life.
Looking back on that chapternow, it would have been a
different chapter If I wrote itnow, you know, given what has
happened in Hawaii, but I thinkmy general points are still
valid.
Hawaii as a place of incrediblebeauty and greenery, but it is
(15:53):
also a place that has beenshaped by fire and by
destruction.
That's how it was born andafter fire destroys and it can
take many, many centuries,millennia for it to come back.
But Hawaii is the place that itis because of fire.
Lea Lane (16:11):
Right, and it's one of the few places on earth where
you can see it being created,being formed, yes, well,
fascination with the skies hasalways been with us and you have
a chapter called astronomy.
Tell us why and what thefascination has been.
It's pretty obvious.
We've been talking about thesky, so go into it.
Lori Erickson (16:32):
So the last chapter in the book and the
place I chose to end my journeyis Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
Chaco Canyon is a remote,historical and sacred site.
You have to work to get toChaco.
It's a horrible road to getthere, very rough and washboard,
but it's worth it, and part ofwhy it's worth it is that so few
(16:54):
people go there.
I must say Chaco Canyon has Ithink it's about a dozen great
houses, they're called, whichare houses that were constructed
about a thousand years ago,with hundreds of rooms.
One of the great houses has 600rooms, and it's not clear why.
One theory is that they werepilgrimage destinations.
(17:14):
But what is clear is that thehouses have many astronomical
alignments built into them, notonly the houses but also the
roads leading up to them.
And so clearly the Chaco people, the ancestral Pueblan people,
as they're called now they usedto be called the Anasazi, but
now that's no longer used it'sclear that they spent a lot of
time watching the heavens, andwhen you're in Chaco Canyon you
(17:37):
can see why because it's one ofthe best places in the world to
see stars.
It's so remote, the air is sodry and clear, it's high desert
and there's so few people there,and so it was a place where it
seemed like heaven and earthreally does intertwine.
You could see why the Chaco andpeople would try to, in a sense
, recreate on earth the symmetrythat they had seen in the
(18:00):
heavens.
Lea Lane (18:01):
So it's a beautiful ending to a really beautiful
book.
I have to say I loved your book, thank you.
The name of the podcast isPlaces I Remember, where you've
already described so manynatural wonders.
But could you please end theepisode with one special memory
of yours.
Lori Erickson (18:18):
But we haven't talked about this sacred air
chapter, which is again one ofmy favorites For sacred air.
It was a bit of a struggle totry to figure out.
Well, how do you talk aboutsacred air?
And then a friend suggested tome that I write about birds, and
when I thought of birds Iimmediately thought of the
Sandhill Crane migration inCentral Nebraska along the
(18:40):
Platte River every March, duringwhich about a half a million
Sandhill cranes are there forabout four weeks on their way
north.
They stop in Nebraska and gainweight and eat a lot the rest of
their epic journey north.
It is amazing birdwatching,especially in the morning and in
the evening when great flocksof cranes fly overhead to their
(19:04):
roosting places in the river.
And one experience inparticular Bob and I on our last
morning we got up early youalways have to get up early in
order to see the birds and wewere perched with our binoculars
looking out at the river and afew birds are starting to take
off, and then a few more.
And then something startled thebirds, not clear what, maybe a
(19:24):
coyote, or maybe a human movingsomewhere, and suddenly it was
probably 200,000 cranes.
Oh, my.
This guy all at once within thespace of a minute, and the sound
was overwhelming.
It was like a freight traingoing through my mind.
You could just feel the beat oftheir wings and it was this
(19:48):
enormous rush of air and anelemental power that I mean.
Both Bob and I just had tearsstreaming down our eyes.
It was so powerful.
It lasted only about a minute,but it was a wonderful example,
I think, of the ways in whichbeing in nature can be a
profoundly spiritual experienceif you're open to it.
(20:10):
That's beautiful.
Lea Lane (20:13):
Thank you, Lori Erickson, for coming to join us
again and for your wonderful newbook Every Step is Home, a
Spiritual Geography fromAppalachia to Alaska.
You remind us that there aresacred elements and experiences
to be discovered, and even thesimplest and most familiar
elements of our world.
By sharing some of yourdiscoveries, you encourage us to
(20:34):
find our own.
Thank, you.
Lori Erickson (20:37):
Thank you so much for having me, Leah.
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