On the Water –
Recharging the Creative Batteries
Faith Hunter
I've talked about paddling before. I've even talked about this one
major paddling experience before. But some things bear repeating, revisiting,
reshaping, and resharing, changing through the strainer of time and experience
and storytelling.
I am an avid whitewater paddler. I love nothing better than to
charge down a full, juicy river, heavy with rain and rain runoff—not flood
stage, of course. I'm not hair head (a term meaning a crazy in the head paddler
who'd run a river wild enough to frazzle your hair.). I'm not one, however to
bomb a river (run it straight through without stopping). I'm more the "stop at
every rapid and work back up into every feature" type of paddler. I can stop
and play at any rapid and have the best time staying in one spot, testing
myself and my boat skills until exhaustion forces me out and on down to the
next rapid. Or I get spilled from my boat into the water for a hard swim, and
have to regroup and get back in the boat.
Yes. This is fun. Trust me.
My most memorable recharge excursion had the hubs and the dogs and
me traveling into the North Carolina Mountains, in the RV, with friends, to the
Nantahala Gorge, to run the river – the Nante in paddler-speak. This jaunt started
out adventurous, went to mystical, and became almost spiritual.
I had been paddling only a few summers and the Nante was still a
huge challenge—a great, intermediate-level river, a Class II with nice big,
continuous two and three feet high wavetrains that make running it a lot like an
eight mile rollercoaster. But water of the Nante is a cold forty-five degrees, and
that day the weather was a chilly sixty degrees.
The cold spell had set in early, September, with the trees in the
gorge still green and full-leaved. There was a constant cold rain with lowering
clouds that hung on the tops of the gorge and then fell down the walls in long
misty runnels. The fog pooled on the fast water and billowed up in mystical
trails.
Our little group was alone on the river, five or six of us decked
out in cold weather gear.
It was like paddling beneath the icy tears of the world. I turned
my eyes to the sky and let its tears bathe my face. The icy water and the wet air
met, the heavy mist dancing before it settled on the water. Raindrops beat down
and pebbled the surface of the river with rings. It was cold and beautiful and
the fog isolated each of us from the other, leaving us a ghostly images, fading
and reappearing.
Birds were everywhere, energized by the unexpected chill. Kingfishers
were darting and diving. Earth/mother/river carried me through the rain and the
mist.
At one section of the run, we had bunched up enough to see one
another in a long line of paddlers. I was out front of the group, at point, yet
feeling alone on the river, watching the rare sunbeam bounce off the wave-tops,
glorying in the solitude.
I looked back to check the other boaters. And spotted this raven flying
along the length of the river, between the boaters. Straight downstream at me. When
it reached me, it slowed and glided along with my boat, looking me in the eye
the whole way. It soared within three feet of my boat, fluttered its feathers,
and landed just in front of me on a branch. It turned and looked at me with one
golden-brown eye. And stared. Time did a little twitch-and-pause. My boat
seemed to slow and sit still in the rushing water. The bird and I stared. Apprehension
raced down my spine like a trickle of ice water as I considered what I know of
such things, and as the bird stared at me. And something happened.
I still don't know quite what it was. If I have to say, I'd state
that some, strange, nameless, fearful part of me slid away on the water,
drowned, and left a more peaceful me in its wake. But that is in retrospect. At
the time, I just felt a sense of dislocation.
And then… then I passed the raven, carried by the water. The Hubs
paddled up next to me, worried. He had seen the odd interplay between the bird
and me and he'd felt something happen between us to. He knew how weird it was.
Hubs knows as much about portents and omens as I do. He knows what the raven
can mean – death for the next moon phase. We talked about it. I wasn't afraid,
mind you. Not at all. Merely cautious. All of us survived the next moon, and even
the next years. So I have no idea what the raven was telling me.
But I'll never forget that moment, when the raven and I stared at
each other. Never, ever. And that encounter has become distilled in my memory as a mystical experience, one that
I draw upon when I write the Jane Yellowrock series and new, most especially
the Nell Ingram Soulwood series. Nature, wild and uncaring and introspective
and casually cruel, spoke to me that day. Became part of me and infused itself
into my stories.
Flame In The Dark will be out soon. I hope you'll take a change
on Nell Ingram. She knows a lot more about Mother Nature and Mother Earth than
I ever will.
Set in the same world as Faith Hunter's New York Times bestselling Jane Yellowrock novels, the third, thrilling Soulwood novel stars Nell Ingram, who draws her powers from deep within the earth.
Nell Ingram has always known she was different. Since she was a child, she's been able to feel and channel ancient powers from deep within the earth. When she met Jane Yellowrock, her entire life changed, and she was recruited into PsyLED—the Homeland Security division that polices paranormals. But now her newly formed unit is about to take on its toughest case yet.
A powerful senator barely survives an assassination attempt that leaves many others dead—and the house he was visiting burns to the ground. Invisible to security cameras, the assassin literally disappears, and Nell's team is called in. As they track a killer they know is more—or less—than human, they unravel a web of dark intrigue and malevolent motives that tests them to their limits and beyond.
Bio:
New York Times Bestselling author Faith Hunter writes three series: the Jane Yellowrock series, dark urban fantasy novels featuring Jane, a Cherokee Skinwalker; the Rogue Mage novels, a dark, urban fantasy / post apocalyptic series and role playing game featuring Thorn St. Croix; and the Soulwood Series featuring Nell Nicholson Ingram.
Visit Faith online at www.faithhunter.net, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
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