November 17, 2007
Saturday
Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night
And wouldn’t you love to love her . . .
. . . a woman
Taken by the sky . . .
                      — Stevie Nicks, b. 1948
                          American singer-songwriter
I arrived in Wyoming in the late afternoon on Thursday It was after five o’clock before I was headed out of town to Jentel’s Thousand Acres, dark before I unpacked some of my materials and equipment and took them out to my studio. I wrote Thursday night about beholding the night sky. For the first time I understood the terms “dazzle,” “stardust,” and “billions and billions of stars.”
Here’s what I saw when I got up Friday morning:
When I first looked out, there was an antelope trotting across the bridge. That’s Cloud Peak in the distance, the high point of the Big Horn Range and a Wyoming landmark. I took the picture from the private patio off my bedroom. (The antelope did not wait while I got my camera.) The view from my writing studio is the same, at a slightly different angle. This is what I will be looking at for the next month. I brought a 500-page academic study of grief and mourning and a book about the history of cremation to read for research while I am here. Any guesses how far I’ll get?
I took a walk before lunch. I do believe the sky is bigger here. As I crossed the bridge over Lower Piney Creek, a prairie falcon glided over the water. I watched it rise until it had cleared the roof of the house. The turquoise sky studded with white clouds was almost too brilliant for me to look at.
For many years I’ve given my Gallivants titles, like rock groups’ concert tours. I called my 2005 sojourn in Wyoming Taken by the Wind. Today I found the title for this magical time out west. Rhiannon is the Welsh goddess of change and movement. Accompanied by three birds that symbolize strength, sexuality, and the overcoming of doubt, she comforts those in crisis and restores laughter to those who mourn. She is Taken by the Sky.
And so am I.
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