The weather was absolutely perfect as I drove into the Coast Range Mountains of Oregon state. I pulled the car onto a gravel turnout and climbed out, grabbing my pack and heading east, a little deeper into the mountains. It wasn't long before I was working my way along the bank of the Nestucca River, looking for a place to cross where the water wasn't too deep nor too fast. Mountain rivers in the Pacific Northwest tend to be crystal clear, deep where the water is calm and very fast where they're moving. The riverbed of the deep sections are generally formed from tiny stones and sand, while the fast sections are normally water-smoothed bedrock and boulders that have caught in folds in the bedrock and piled up.
I found a shallow spot near a small section of rapids and carefully began wading across, making sure that each footstep was secure and braced against the current before taking the next step. By the gods the water was COLD! I eventually made it across to an island of stone in the middle of the river and, with a running leap, flung myself through the air and landed on the opposite bank.
I chose the Nestucca for two reasons. First of all, the area is very spiritually active and I've been told that the Native American's have a handful of legends regarding the area. If there is such a thing as a veil between the worlds, this is a place where it is very thin. The second reason is that the area of mountains will never be logged. While patches around the sacred sites that I maintain south of the Nestucca have been clearcut, this particular area is safe.
The opposite bank was shielded from view by a wall of tree trunk sized logs that had gathered in a flood years before, each stripped of its bark by years of winter high-water and spring melt and bleached white by the sun. Behind the logs, there was a small, three foot wide beach of moss-covered stones and a small area that sloped upward to the high embankment. The area between the beach and embankment was covered in large, three-leafed clover looking plants (I forget what they're called) that are edible and have a tart taste. I brought out my wooden athame, lifted a single small stone and created a small hole in the rich, soft soil. My newborn daughter's umbilical cord was buried, the rite carried out, and tokens of thanks given to the spirits in the area in the form of two rough cut crystals I'd collected years before.
I crossed the river again, found a stone that I could take home which would connect me to the site, and traded the river spirits a seashell I'd found years before in exchange. And with that, I headed home.