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Jemez Bliss
Now as I have gotten older, I have been thinking about these things being, consciousness, bliss. And I don’t know what being is. And I don’t know what consciousness is. But I do know what bliss is, that deep sense of being present, of doing what you absolutely must do to be yourself. If you can hang on to that, you are on the edge of the transcendent already." - Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss
Last night I drifted off to sleep with tales of fish and rivers swirling in my head. My morning’s portage to consciousness, aided by coffee, included a philosopher’s musings on bliss.
As backdrop to this fish tale: I took up fly-fishing eight years ago and am admittedly spoiled by northern New Mexico’s azure skies, mild winter days, and active fish. This winter, though, the arctic laid siege, overwhelming the state with the coldest temperatures in thirty years. Even with every layer of clothing in my closet between me and the water, standing in a river of late could best be described as "bone-chilling." I studied enough college biology to know that cold-blooded creatures like trout don’t really shiver, but still I imagine them shivering, or some piscine equivalent, as they battle the frigid waters. All through December and January, the rivers I frequent the most, the Jemez and the Pecos, have been largely iced over and the portions still flowing have been generally fishless. Winter-hardened, the trout apparently had taken refuge in the deepest spots, sheltered by the ice.
On the bright side, the glacial waters and the snow pack are welcome news in a world that daily hears the woes of global warming. But, it is hard to take a cosmic perspective when your cherished rivers are iced over and your trout shivering.
When I cannot fish, I do what many home-bound fly fishers do - I read John Gierach. Last night’s reading came from Dances with Trout. He and four other fly-fishing journalists travel to Scotland for a week of Atlantic salmon fishing with a photographer in tow to immortalize their triumphs. They fish hard for five days but catch only one salmon between them. The fishing is so tedious that the bored photographer resorts to a grandfather clock, a bagpiper, and a castle in the background to spice up the story. Gierach intimates that there is a certain contrarian resignation to the kind of bragging that Atlantic salmon fishers practice: not the typical "I caught twenty trout, can you top that?" but, "I have not caught a salmon in three years, and I am still giving it a go, can you top that?" Bragging rights are based on suffering and deprivation and the will to fish on.
I am headed for Scotland later this spring on a sabbatical from my work and Gierach has almost talked me out of salmon fishing while there. But, gratefully, his essay provided some comfort in this stretch of desert cold and dearth of fish. After all, it has only been a month since I caught a trout, not three years! These were the tales of fish and rivers that carried me off to sleep.
John Gierach's works certainly do not lack in philosophical discourse, as he spins out all manner of wisdom, but I needed to start the new day with a dose of strong mythic medicine. I cracked open Joseph Campbell’s Pathways to Bliss to the pages where he puzzles about being, consciousness, and bliss.
It was the nexus of the consolation of Gierach, the promptings of Campbell, the dawn of a radiant sun warming a February morning, a month of hard work with little recreation, and a touch of desperation that propelled me from my office at noon for an afternoon of fishing bliss on the Jemez River. The desperation might have been triggered by a visit to the local fly-shop the day before. Rumor had it that a nineteen-inch brown had been pulled out of the Jemez, earlier in the week, but I was skeptical. The drought of the last few years had severely stressed the river and large Jemez browns were hard to come by. However, my doubt was not enough to ignore the siren call of what sounded like a fish of mythic proportions in this winter of my discontent.
Hoping to get away before my advanced Protestant work ethic forced me to turn back, I packed the car quickly. Winter days are all too brief, and the first fishable turnout on the river is about an hour away from Albuquerque. The drive to the river is a journey through some of the fascinating paradoxes that make New Mexico so unique.
When my work brought me to Albuquerque eight years and a half years ago, one of the guide books that eased my entry described it as "a city with wild edges." The jagged Sandia Mountains to the east and a series of volcanic ruins to the west do make it quite a bit wilder than my city of origin, Dallas. Nevertheless, Albuquerque is growing at such a breakneck pace that the wild edges are threatened. If not for the Native American pueblos and the public lands near the foothills, houses would fill all the open spaces between the Bosque (Spanish for woods) of the Rio Grande and the Sandias.
After driving about sixteen miles north of downtown Albuquerque on Interstate 25, the Jemez adventurer exits west into Bernalillo, which a few decades ago was a sleepy New Mexico hamlet, but is now the gateway to unbridled suburbia. Highway 550 passes a McDonald’s, a Home Depot, the Santa Ana Pueblo’s casino and luxury golf course, as well as the entrance to the Coronado Monument. The Spanish conquistador made his way along this road, before it was paved, looking for the seven lost cities of Cibola and the gold they promised. Maybe a casino is an ironic fulfillment of that desire, with the Native people getting the last laugh.
The highway traverses the Rio Grande, which is not particularly grand at the bridge after losing its wildness in the Cochiti Reservoir to the north. In its heyday, however, this was one of the great rivers of the west, rich in legend, and integral to the development of the Native American pueblos and Hispanic outposts that flourished in the Chihuahuan Desert near the water’s edge. After navigating the boxy subdivisions and strip malls that mark the collision of Bernalillo with Rio Rancho, one begins a climb to the west. As this elevation gain hints, the road is climbing out of a rift valley. The tectonic plates under this desert have been separating for millions of years and the gap has been filled by the Rio Grande. The road crests a hill and the city gives way to reservations, mesas, and the gentle land forms of the Jemez Mountains to the northwest.
At the still sleepy hamlet of San Isidro, one makes a turn north onto the two lane Highway 4 that heads into the heart of the Jemez Valley. On towards the river, the road passes through the Jemez Pueblo, a traditional Native American village, a patchwork of adobe homes and small working farms sloping down to the west. Soon after the pueblo proper, one passes through an up-thrust of sedimentary rock so impossibly red that, contrasted against the blue sky and the green pinon pines, it almost hurts the eyes. Not too much farther, a side road heads off to the Gilman Tunnels and the wild, brown trout-rich waters of Guadalupe River, which empties into the Jemez nearby.
This junction, called La Junta, is the first turnoff with river access. Just seeing the first Santa Fe National Forest signage here, knowing what lies beyond, is temptation enough to slam on the brakes and jump into my waders. Here lies the demarcation between a road trip and a fishing adventure, the welcomed point of no return. Though my life in the built environment of the city is meaningful enough, there is some deeper, ancestral layer in my own existence that hungers for the intoxicants of creation. Even a pint of red ale from my favorite Irish pub pales in comparison to a deep draught of this river-moistened breeze. At least I tell myself that, having given up handcrafted beer for Lent!
The Jemez Valley gets deeper as the mesas gather stature above. The faces of the bluffs blend into a vivid tapestry of colors - reds, yellows, grays, creams. They reveal, layer upon layer, the history of the land - once a shallow sea, then a volcanic cauldron, and now a picturesque river valley. Along the meandering river there is a rich riparian landscape of towering cottonwoods and persistent willows.
My first fishing stop is the last Forest Service turnout just south of the village of Jemez Springs. Stopping here is more nostalgic than strategic. I have enjoyed limited success in the last couple of seasons in this spot, but it holds a cherished place in my fishing evolution. My fly-fishing apprenticeship took place under the tutelage of a good friend and colleague, David Poole, and for the first year or so I fished with him almost exclusively. There came a point when enough confidence had accumulated, and skills matured, to venture forth on my own.
When I did, my first solo winter excursion was to this very destination. To my great amazement and delight I pulled out nine or ten rainbows, pan-sized and colorful, from a deep, swirling hole beneath one of those impossibly red boulders. I drifted a bead head hare’s ear nymph below a strike indicator through the run. Since I had heard from a fisherman downstream that the fish were taking egg patterns, I dropped a small
peach-colored ball of fuzz below the nymph. I remember the exhilaration of fishing a new place, under my own tutelage and the river’s invitation, and figuring out what the fish were disposed to feasting on that day. My satisfaction was not even dampened when I was slightly scolded by my mentor for resorting to egg patterns. He even made a disparaging comparison to fishing with worms!
The first lesson of this day was that very few things in life stay the same. Rivers in soft, red mud like the Jemez are especially malleable. Where a nice fishing hole had been just the year before was now a gravel bar. Apparently the run-off had been strong enough to reshape the river in just a few months. There was another run upstream that looked potentially fishy, but today no luck, even with the contraband egg pattern. Though no fish were evident, the conditions were far better than anything I had experienced in the last few weeks – more water, less snow on the bank, no ice on the margins, and warmer temperatures. The rust-colored mud even squished beneath my wading boots.
The bliss that accompanies fishing is not just about catching trout, though that is a thrill and a half; it is that these fish choose to shiver in such remarkable beauty. Standing in this river, humbled by the sweep of a God-created mesa, is sheer gift. Catching a fish is not even necessary. Now I’m starting to sound like an Atlantic salmon fisherman!
The next stop is the village of Jemez Springs, a rustic collection of one-of-a-kind bed and breakfasts, small restaurants, and an authentic western/biker bar that makes for a great detour before heading home…that is, after Lent is over. I found a spot to access the river near town and fished through a portion that is warmed by a series of hot springs. The smell of sulfur agitated my nose and the steam rising from the confluences of rivulets of warm spring water with the still cold river fogged my sunglasses.
The fishing was not easy, but there were enough small rainbows hiding in deeper holes and underneath trees to make it enjoyable. The go-to rig on these New Mexican freestone rivers much of the year is a stimulator with a dropper. In this case, it was two droppers - a Copper John and a fly developed by Taos guide Taylor Streit called a "shit fly." It is a drabber-looking version of a hare’s ear nymph. The fish were not big, eight to twelve inches, but the way they hungrily darted out from such difficult lies to snag the nymphs more than made up for their lack of size.
It took some time to work off the rustiness of not angling much of late. I lost several flies in low-hanging trees, by paying too much attention to the upstream opportunities, and not enough to the overhead obstacles. On those days when I am a bit off center, the root cause is usually my attachment to things best left behind. Fortunately, like basketball, the momentum can change often in the course of a day's fishing. So, there comes a stretch where you enter completely into the present, open to all of the river’s unfolding rhythms, and you uncouple from chronological time. The casting becomes effortless and the entanglements rare. This reconnecting with the natural order of things, with a river's sense of time and space, this anamnesis or remembering, laid hold of me about an hour into the fishing.
The sun dropped behind the mesa, and, in the thinness of the altitude, the ambient temperature followed course. My body temperature received a shock when I reached into deep water to free my nymph-tandem, stubbornly refusing to lose two more flies, and soaked both sleeves past the elbows. Shivering myself now, I coveted a brown trout before leaving the river. A social obligation was calling me back to the city that evening, so fishing to dark was not possible. I started the mental calculus of how long I could possibly fish and only be half an hour late to my appointment.
There was one last deep hole that beckoned upstream. Crossing the river allowed a good cast and a long drift. The currents were pulling my stimulator under often, as maybe it was a little undersized for the two hitchhikers it was bearing up. On the second drift through the deepest part of the run, the dry fly plummeted and when I set the hook, there really was a fish on it. The flash of a yellow underbelly gave away its genus, Salmo Trutti, a nice brown trout, very plump and every bit of seventeen inches. It was not a long struggle, but he was strong and beautiful, vivid red dots and a powerful jaw line. Even though the rumored trout did not materialize, catching this good-sized brown beauty was an absolute delight. I did take a few more casts, knowing I was pushing the clock, in hopes of catching just one more, maybe even the monster. It is so hard to leave a river!
Hurrying back to my car, I struggled out of my waders and into some dry clothes. I looked at my watch and was much relieved. I would only be an hour late to my engagement…excellent planning on my part! The friend I was meeting was also a fly-fisher and could be counted on to understand the time banditry of a river.
The timing for the drive home could not have been more perfect. The late afternoon slant of the winter sun cracked open the orange end of the light spectrum. Already raucous ridges of red and rust were exponentially magnified in the warm colors of the setting sun. There was not a cloud in the sky and the part of the horizon I could see above the mesa became a kaleidoscope of colors.
I got to thinking, as the dusk coursed into darkness and the stars began their own lazy drift across the deep run of the sky, about what Dr. Campbell had contemplated as he, too, got older – being, consciousness, bliss. I agree with the sage mythographer. I don’t know all that much about being…except being late. I don’t know much about consciousness…except I am generally glad to be conscious. But I do know a little something about bliss. Certainly this day on the Jemez contained its fair share.
Campbell observes that "bliss is that deep sense of being present, of doing what you absolutely must do to be yourself. If you can hang on to that, you are on the edge of the transcendent already." Maybe nothing else needs to be said for why one is called to fish. For the long-suffering Atlantic salmon angler or the freestone Rocky Mountain myth chaser, it is just bliss! Standing in a river, the tug of the primordial waters around your feet, the splendor of creation all about, the wonder of a being as beautiful as a trout, there is a sense that one is in what the theologian Paul Tillich calls the "eternal now." If we can hang on to that, we have indeed, as the philosopher suggests, waded our way into the transcendent already. Tight lines are unmerited grace.
Revised 3-12-08