Well, here I am in Yosemite National Park.  And you know me.  I just beg to learn the history of the places I visit.  I am not sure what this is about me…. but I love to find out what has happened here before me.  I like to explore, and consider, and think.

And as it turns out…. a LOT has happened at Yosemite way before I ever set foot on this place.  Before any white people came here, really.  Yosemite’s first residents were Native Americans.  They started to inhabit this place  about 10,000 years ago.  That’s right. Ten thousand.

The Miwok Tribe was sort of the main deal here.  They lived here more than 4,000 years… those old Miwoks.  Which reminds me of Ewoks from Star Wars.  But, as Yoda would say…. To the story get back.  Yes, hmmm.

They named Yosemite Valley “Ahwahnee” or “place of the gaping mouth.”  That is me… the whole time I am here….  “Polly Big-Old-Gaping-Mouth” for a lot of different reasons.   The awesome beauty.  The power of the mountain-scapes.     The equanimity of the energy in the nature here.  And then there are things like those brain-challenged tourists, who try to put their kids on the backs of deer, for a cell-phone-photo.  That causes huge gaping-mouth.

But back to the Native People.   The Miwok.  They called themselves the Ahwahneechee, after the name for this land here, Ahwahnee.

Yet.  They are here no more.  Just a bunch of tourists, like me.  Staying here at the magnificent Ahwahnee Lodge.

It goes both ways, doesn’t it? There are really sad, and disappointing parts of history.  And then there are positive and uplifting points too.  This little corner of the earth, is filled with both.  And it makes you feel, and think, and wonder.  And today, I thought about this:

Everything in the Universe lives by cause and effect.   As you walk through along the paths lined with massive trees, and back-dropped with walls of rock… that reach to the sky.  It all has cause and effect.  And, that is something to remember, I think.  Every action…. all we think, say, and do…. also lives by cause and effect.

From the very small to the very large.   Our causes and effects are everywhere.  They are lasting.  And once again tonight… I epitomize the Ahwahnee name of “gaping mouth.”

Once again.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching.

– Sivananda