I am nothing without my friends supporting me. I am nothing without the love and backing of my wonderful wife, Gayln. She is my inspiration and my backbone. I just want to thank all of you for every encouraging little comment on an email or anytime you read one of my stories or buy one of my books. I create art and I write stories to paint with words to entertain, to stimulate your imagination. I don't do it for myself. I don't do it to get rich...if i did-it's not working. I do it to share with others my appreciation of nature and the wonder of human emotions. I want you to FEEL something when you look at my art. i want you to FEEL something when you read my words.
I want you to all become voracious readers and lovers of art. That's all--thanks for being my friends! Doug Hiser
Fly Free
Doug Hiser
Trees and rocks are cousins of the Earth. Rocks never die. They can shatter into bits and pieces but each tiny granule keeps the spirit of the solidity that makes up the planet. The trees are the chroniclers of time. They share stories and secrets, tease and come and go like ancient priests guarding the last Holy scrolls of some archaic church. My mother told me about their world. She shared her stories before she passed. I carry the truth within my cells like a tiny leather black book of clandestine revelations hidden in a safe behind a landscape painting.
When I was three years old my grandmother and my mother took me on a walk. We hiked into the wilderness of
Vancouver Island
, known as the Sooke. We found our way to a cliff that overlooked the
Pacific Ocean
. I overheard my grandmother tell my mother that this is where she wanted her ashes thrown. She wanted to drift like particles of dust down into that vast powerful ocean from these rocky cliffs. I didn’t understand any of that conversation then, but when the time came and we had returned with the urn, the trees of the forest along the way whispered sensations to me and everything was made clear.
The hike through the Sooke wilderness took over an hour. This Northwestern forest was populated by massive prehistoric trees and covered in thick soft moss and smooth dark boulders. I remember the way the sunlight could barely filter through the gargantuan ancient Douglas Firs. I was on this hike again, carrying my mother.
She resided in a clay container of blue glazed ceramic. I was alone this time. No family anymore, just me and the residue of her, like flakes of dark burnt pages from a valuable memoir. I had walked through this mysterious forest many times and now I walked even more slowly, listening to every murmur from wood and each silent song from every rock.
Out of the shadows, suddenly, and without any resonance or break in the breeze, an obscure large owl glided above me and swooped into the branches of a primordial Fir tree. The great Barred Owl blinked black eyes and watched me walk beneath the branches. Those eyes were like bottomless twin pits, portals into the surreptitious lore that my mother had taught me. As I journeyed through the dim hallways of the forest the owl would let me walk ahead, thirty or more yards, and then flap quietly, following my mother and me on our journey to the sea. Each time the huge gray owl caught up I could feel a cool rush of air on the back of my neck. The owl would land heavily on branches above me, blinking black eyes. The trees observed our passage and the rocks sang like a forgotten choir, haunting and uplifting.
When I finally emerged from the depths of the mysterious forest the owl flew into the open air above the rocky coastline and sailed out across the deep blue water. I watched him fly to distant islands until he was gone from my view. The blasts of wind from the sea felt pleasurable as I carried my mother towards the cliffs. I cradled her in my hands, not as a ceramic container, but as if she were manifested as a fragile soul, almost weightless like a hummingbird and made of polished quartz and pyrite. I carefully clambered over the rocks of the cliffs until I had reached the place where she had instructed me to release her into the air above the crashing waves.
The blue-violet cold water smashed the jagged rocks below with tremendous force and the droplets of spray rained upon my face and shoulders. I could see a lagoon down the coastline and the horizon was dotted with many small islands, some with only one or two trees blotting their silhouettes. The sun was low in the smooth sky. My mother felt warm in my hands. The trees were whispering soothing sounds and the boulders barely hummed a solemn resonance. I was almost alone. Her soul would soon depart.
I took my shirt off and tied it around my waist. Opening the ceramic container, I poured the dust of my mother into my hand. The weight was different now and still warm. Tears stung my eyes like salt moisture from the ocean’s mist. I extended my hands out before me and opened my palms, letting my mother fly free.
She painted the invisible wind with her substance, creating wafting beautiful tendrils as she glided away and then down towards the water. I could hear her calling my name as if from a distance or an echo from a long tunnel. I stood there until my hands were washed clean by the water’s spray. She was gone.
The sun eventually kissed the water in the distance as I sat on the rocky cliff. I had put my shirt back on as the air succumbed to an eerie chill. I tried to picture my mother’s face the first time we came to this place. It was like trying to catch a forgotten dream with an artist’s brush. Gulls flew by like white ghosts in the dusk. I wiped my eyes as tears still bled down my cheeks. The trees were silent and their cousins, the rocks, barely sighed.
