Table of Contents
NOVELS
River of Light
Becoming the Enemy
Duck and Cover
Animal Heart
NON-FICTION
Living by Water
Nature and Other Mothers
Sister Stories
Build Me an Ark: A Life with Animals
Sightings: The Gray Whales Mysterious Journey
Singing to the Sound: Visions of Nature, Animals, and Spirit
Pacific Northwest: Land of Light and Water
ANTHOLOGIES CO-EDITED
Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals
The Sweet Breathing of Plants: Women Writing on the Green World
Between Species: Celebrating the Dolphin-Human Bond
Face to Face: Womens Stories of Faith, Mysticism, and Awakening
For Sarah Jane Freymann,
whose spirit and keen eye helped shape this book
There is another world, and it is this one.
PAUL ELUARD
Prologue
The Trumpet Shall Sound
(1 Corinthians 15:51)
WITH 9/11, THE BLESSED COUNTDOWN FOR THE RAPTURE HAS BEGUN, my neighbor George informed me almost casually.
He caught me off guard. After decades of giddily anticipating the end of the world and getting no response from me, most of my relatives have stopped asking if Im ready to be swept up midair with them. Plus, this was the last place I expected to be proselytized. George and I sat perched on driftwood, keeping watch over a seal pup that had hauled up onto our backyard Salish Sea shore, just south of Alki Beach. Our Seattle community beach is precious to harbor sealsa place where they can give birth, nurse, rest. Late summer through September, mother seals leave their pups here while they fish. We neighbors stay the respectful one hundred yards away from the pups, as advised by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, keeping watch on the vulnerable pups in shifts of usually four hours. Its a startling stretch of time to spend together with people we usually whiz past in our busy lives.
Hmmmmm, I answered in a whisper, hoping that my neighbor would lapse into the companionable silence we usually enjoy together while seal sitting, as we call our beach communion. Hand me the binoculars, will you?
This pup was about two feet long, round and robust, its speckled fur camouflaged against the rocky beach. He was breathing regularly, with no yellow discharge from mouth or noseall good signs. We didnt see any wounds, such as orca bites, propeller gashes, or bullet holes. But he could have suffered some internal injuries. Only careful observation and time would reveal his fate. If the pup is injured or doesnt leave the beach after forty-eight hours, we call our marine mammal stranding expert, Kristin Wilkinson, at NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), who may authorize someone to remove the seal to a rehab shelter for treatment. Though Washington State has a thriving seal population, 50 percent of juveniles do not survive their first year, and every seal season we neighbors witness seal pup deaths.
George and I were sitting second shift, studying the pups body language: can he lift flippers and head in the agile banana position to scan for predators and mother? Our most important job as seal-sitters is to shoo dogs and overly curious people politely away from the pup, partly because diseases are communicable among the three species. We also chat with other neighbors and passersby and educate them in seal etiquette. If the mother returns and finds her pup surrounded by too much human activity, she may abandon her baby.
This pup looks plump and healthy, dont you think? I asked George in a whisper.
I sure hope so, he murmured.
Violet mists floated just above the waves like ghost ships. Suddenly, a foghorn moaned in baritone blasts, and the seal pup shuddered. He lifted his head, his black eyes huge, his tiny ear slits opened wide, listening.
Thats how itll happen, you know, George said quietly. There was a note of triumph in his tone. The trumpets will sound, and well be lifted up far away from here.
For a moment I considered not engaging in this loopy, no-exit dialogue. But because this was my neighbor, not my family, I simply smiled. George and I had a lot of time and a seal pup on our hands. No way out. Listen, George, I began. Why are you so... well... cheerful about the end of the earth?
This gave him a moments pause. Then he said, with some chagrin, You cant blame us born-agains for wanting at last to get our heavenly rewards. Weve waited thousands of years.
His dark eyes flashed a familiar fire Id seen in preachers faces during my Southern Baptist childhood. As I watched the seal pup settle back into his vigilant scanning of the waves, his belly rising and falling in those deep drafts of breath that only the very young of any species seem to enjoy, I persisted. Why would you want this world to end, George? Whats the hurry?
I could see that my neighbor was now studying me as if I were the seal pup, as if he had already passed me in the slow sinners lane on the freeway to the Apocalypse. The hurry is that right now we see signs and wonders proving that the End Times are upon us, George insisted. Weve got holy wars, world financial markets crashing, Israels military power, Islamic terrorists, and even global warming. This last sign he pronounced brightly, as if our global climate was gleefully graduating into a hot time in the old world.
I wanted out of the conversation. I felt claustrophobic in the tight grip of my neighbors End Times intensity. Oddly, I wondered if my restlessness was like the anxiety fundamentalists seem to feel about the whole world, as if they are trapped by the original gravity of their sins. Or perhaps to the Rapture hopefuls, the earths fall into global warming signals that our world has become what they always suspectedhell, the fire next time. Perhaps their Rapture prophecy is a kind of biblical lullaby to calm their environmental terrors. As one relative assured me, There are no drowning polar bears and melting ice caps where Im going.
It struck me that being raptured out of this world trumps the insecurity of living and the surrender of dying. No bodily indignity. No suffering. One will simply be whisked off with the fellowship of the believers, the Rapture gang, to a heavenly and just reward. In the twinkling of an eye, they say, the righteous will ascend, dropping golden dental work, nightgowns, and perhaps some spouses. Unless you count losing the earth and billions of unfortunate sinners who cling to it, getting raptured is a blast. Who wouldnt want to escape the prophesied plagues of locusts, frogs, and killer viruses, an earth overwhelmed by tsunamis, volcanoes, and nomadic legions of the unsaved?
Sandwich, George? I rummaged in my backpack for a pimento cheese sandwich. Though Ive backslid from my mothers Southern Baptist religion, I still carry on her fabulous food rituals.
My neighbor shook his head. His hunger was spiritual. Not to be put off, he told me, Im afraid youll have a rough time of it here during the Tribulations.
Dont you love any of us who will suffer in those Tribulations? I asked. Those of us you leave behind?
George took my arm a little too tightly. But you could come with us to meet Jesus midair in the Rapture. You could escape all the Tribulationsand wait for the Second Coming to return here. Then Christ will defeat the Anti-Christ and establish His kingdom. Then the earth will be pure again.
