Chapter One

"It is the CHILD that sees the primordial secret in nature ..." Lao-Tze

"The youth, who daily farther from the East must travel, still is nature's priest, and by the vision splendid is on his way attended....". William Wordsworth

THE LITTLE PAGAN

Before the wounding occurs, we are immersed in two enchanted worlds. Each has its seasonal ebb and flow. Initially, our mother meets our infant needs and soothes us when we fall. If we are fortunate, beyond the din of urban distraction, we also begin to sense the immense presence of our other mother in our outer world experience. Nature, the mother of mothers, is our abiding place of respite and retreat.

In a world of confusing human conflict, I became Nature's Priest. I recall the sweet aroma of orange blossoms from the groves that embraced our small community. Long before freeways and urban sprawl wove their webs across the southern California landscape, I remember the rolling green hills studded with oak and dancing creeks.

My early recollections seem blessed. Directly after World War II, California was still a natural paradise for a little boy. Warm sandy beaches, the touch of bare feet on moist grass and the taste of a freshly plucked orange from our trees are easily recalled. Nature was the perfect baby sitter for my busy working parents and, when my father built me a tree house, it became a place of daily pilgrimage and secret adventures.

In retrospect, only the poetry of William Wordsworth seems to capture those early feelings of innocent bliss ...

"THE SOUL THAT RISES WITH U