This early photo shows Mulleian as a young man rigging a rope to a tree over Chico Creek
in the summer of 1971 while visiting his step-grandmother, Lola Clark.

On his sixth birthday, July 1st 1953, G. Mark Mulleian was taken on a trip with his stepmother Jean Mulleian to visit her mother Lola Clark who lived in a town called Chico, which is nestled in California’s northern Central Valley near the slopes of the Sierra foothills. It was here, as a small child in this timeless place, that the young artist had his first deeply indelible experience with nature, discovering it to be a cornucopia of richness in wonderment. For a child born in the big city, this early childhood idyll had a profound and lasting impact on Mulleian’s sensibilities, indeed, it enveloped his very being. Discoveries in this garden of magical possibilities revealed a priceless knowledge, that of intuition, an innate and subtle function that has since become his strongest ally. This eternal living spirit soon became his guide, compelling him toward a vision of a future
world personified in many of his prophetic paintings.

Gentle Witness To Ineffable Essence

On my sixth birthday, July 1st 1953 in fact, I was taken on a trip by my stepmother, Jean Mulleian, to visit her mother, Lola Clark, who lived in Chico, a lushly wooded town nestled in California’s northern Central Valley near the slopes of the Sierra foothills. This is a timeless place of creeks and tunneling trees, a virtual cradle of nature, were I had my first indelible experience with ethereal forces, discovering a cornucopia of richness in wonderment. This early childhood idyll had a lasting, profound impact on my very being. Discoveries were made, and I would learn of an eternal living spirit that exists in nature and in all living things. It was a discovery that would open a pathway into my future. It would teach, nurture and protect all within its very center; teach, nurture and protect in the powers of humility, offering us a priceless knowledge that becomes our strongest ally in raising human consciousness, awakening unknown powers within us. Further prompted by intuition, that eternal living spirit, those powers become the boulevard by which we are compelled toward a vision of a future world that still could be.

I experienced my first ineffable event in the lushly wooded open lots that dotted the banks of the creek that ran behind my step-grandmother’s magnificent old house, a large, rambling two story building clad in rough, green shingles and canopied over by giant walnut trees. Deep within this tranquil, dappled canopy, shaded from the high noon heat of early July, lived families of large gray squirrels, many busily tending to their work in the limbs above, as others scurry up and down the trunk, forging for nuts and seeds in the wild, rambling growth that covered the land running down to meet the creek behind her home. I had just turned six.

It wasn’t long before I discovered three other kids who lived in the house next door, just down the way. Two of my new friends were the same age as me, but the third was much younger, at the age of four and a half. At any hour through the hot days of July, with the ever-changing direction of the sun, we would always find each other intently absorbed in the warmth of the summer atmosphere, our energetic dreams encapsulated in a timeless innocence, filled with play that went on and on, as it does when you are a child.

It was late one morning, and we decided to go on an adventure.

After coming upon a big discovery floating empty on the surface of the creek below, we scrambled down the steep embankment in great excitement, staring expectantly at this innocent anomaly, a raft that was once a large section of an old fence, floating freely, barge-like, out there on the surface of the water, calling to us! We tried reaching for it with long branches, being extra careful not to step on pollywogs, and finally we did gain a grip, slowly, carefully pulling our treasure to shore. Jumping up and down with joy, and feeling hearts filled with as much desire as any long-abandoned band of castaways, all four of us, including the two dogs, stepped cautiously aboard our raft.

Using two very long, heavy sticks salvaged from parts of the fence as poles, we began in jubilation, pushing the raft away from the embankment, steering it around to face its proper direction. Gradually, we are carried downstream, still in great excitement and cheering all the while. Dreamlike, we gently glide below the mottled arch of tunneled trees, now throwing pebbles into dancing patches of sunlight that glitters, sparkles and flashes across the water’s surface, like laughing diamonds enveloping us in the warmth of their enchanted spell, delighting us with a voyage of dreams that fill our eyes with splendors as we drift, standing. Now pointing. “There!” “Look!” All eyes complete the gesture, to capture sight of two large silver-lit spider webs spotlighted by the sun’s tenacious gaze. And now, prismatic iridescence, rich undulating streaks of gold beneath the water, sunlight glancing, flashing off the sleek curved backs and tessellating scales of stout, round gold fishes, now swimming just beneath the rolling ripples, and now, below our raft!

In time, we pass beneath the patiently waiting craggy arch of an old, gray concrete bridge, great patches of weeping rust the color of dried blood stain the arch’s underside where rebar has broken through, rough rusting surfaces exposed to Nature’s moods, those many varied elements that make the climbers thrive, the rebar rust, but cause concrete to crumble. Everywhere we look are endless varieties of trees and thorny, tangled vines, some which tempt with juicy clusters of plump, ripe blackberries, gliding slowly by us. Preoccupied now, our grip relaxed, we crane our arms precariously to try to reach the berries as we calmly drift along, but as the water deepens and attention wanes, one of us loses his pole. As if in slow motion, the errant oar slips silently into the tranquil current of the creek.

Navigating the water’s depth with our one remaining pole, feet clinging, elbows banging elbows in our close but airy confinement, we try to guess the distance behind us. Serenaded by the early buzzing drone of crickets in the stillness, we breach a tangled cloud of mosquitoes swarming just above the water’s surface, which, by now, had grown a dusty green, motionless in the slowly waning light of the ageing afternoon. Deepening shadows beckon, luring us round an elbow of the creek, widening slightly now into a vestibule of silence.

Distracted, the ardor of our struggle to navigate is presently forgotten as we gaze in wonderment among the giant sunbeams thrusting down in great translucent columns through the tall, unmoving branches. We bask in humid warmth, bathed lightly in an unctuous balm of green and gold, the filtered glow a golden emerald hue inside this living tunnel of vegetation, like stained glass leaves arching to span the creek, while each of us takes charge of our place, working together like little pirates.

Out of this pleroma there appear, dreamlike, sharp, darting shards of light, glancing off the opalescent surface of water and wings, fleeting reflections of a wood spirit masquerading as a dragonfly, a winged river pilot out on reconnoiter in his livery of electric blues and vivid purples, ruby reds and petrol greens, a veritable rainbow of delight. He stops, to our surprise, and there he hovers, just ahead now, as if to catch our eye to follow. Our excited shouts are all he needs, as he darts and dances forward, sharply lurching, pausing, swooping, diving. As if in Neverland, lost boys in tow, he pilots boldly forward.

Into still waters now, which open further to form a vaulted cove, like the nave of a great cathedral, our entry flanked by tall, twin columns of densely tangled vines, suspended and swaying heavily from high above. Like coarse, disheveled pendulums, clustered sinews of variegated lace, the slow, hypnotic rhythm extends an eerie welcome, so that, almost imperceptibly in the slowly waning light, our vaulted twilight cove takes on the nature of a cave.

Like shadows, the water deepens here, deepens and darkens, the current slowing almost to a halt. In the stillness, at first unnoticed, the sun is all but blotted out, stifled by the lushness of the growth above. With a growing sense of alarm we slowly strain our necks and backs to look above, into the partial silhouette of the dark, giant arch of trees above when suddenly we realize, we are about to lose our balance. Arms flailing everywhere, we struggle to look back, seeing that our raft is taking on water, fast. To balance, we try to reposition ourselves, making our fence-turned-makeshift-raft begin to rock, now left, now right, side to side in a rapidly sickening, rolling motion. In panic, we use the one remaining pole to try to stabilize our chaos, to no avail. Unable to stand, the echo of our unheard screams rising through tunneling trees, we begin to jump or fall, one by one, dogs first in feverish panic, disappearing by the number as the raft begins to sink with a languid, burbling flatulence into the green lagoon. Above our frantic panic, a muffling drone of sound descends, a blended choral din of cricket friction and the bullfrog’s bellowed fugue enveloping and subsuming the terrified screams of innocent mariners abandoning ship.

Not knowing how to swim, I try to swim; try to reach the embankment, flailing through clumps of algae and reeds in all directions. My frenzied attempts at finding footing on the bottom fail. The water is too deep here and I sink below the surface, taking on water while choking and gasping for air, all the while frantically grabbing for something to pull me up, my hands vainly grasping the soft, slimy mud and slick, furry roots that reach menacingly up, like greedy black tentacles from the darkness far below. I sink further into the thick depths of the creek, swallowing more water with each new choking inhalation, inducing fresh, electric waves of naked panic. Suddenly a strong hand with a tight grip grabs me and pulls me straight up by the collar of my shirt, lifting me up from the water onto the embankment. I turn to look, and see a little child half my size, releasing his grip from my shirt without saying a word.

Soaking wet and glowing tired from head to toe, our bleary band of castaways, along with our two dogs, begins, in silence the walk back home; weary, daylight dreamers, buoyant and intoxicated now with lingering thoughts of our great adventure under the now shimmering, watchful eye of an early evening star. High above, a dome of lustrous blue, the dark, deep iridescence of an evening sky has come to rest its weightless comfort on surrounding trees. Warm, sedating air still eddies, dreamlike through our cathedral space, enveloping, caressing ruddy faces, making stinging eyelids droop while wrapping all in sweet fatigue, an eight-eyed, half-mast vision of contentment in our weary, twilight trance.

Welling, spring-like, out of this serene embrace, infused with hard won incandescence, there erupts an overflow of fresh sensation, a thick alchemists broth of new impressions swirling round inside our heads. Now, all is a blur of ripe distraction as we amble our separate ways to home, to supper now, and now to bed, to the gentle seduction of dreams. From out of this sublime perfection, heads spindled snugly in our beds, there rise, like herons taking flight, thermal ribbons of sensation soaring upward to the night, the first harmonic strains of a rich symphonic wave, primal distillations of the day. Beneath a canopy of stars, brash recollections reign, as sleeping muscles twitch and eyelids brandish dreams, fresh voyages multiply and victories accrue. With sails unfurled and pillowed waves acresting, in sleep we course uncharted vistas into unformed worlds to be. To the choral roar of crickets and the bullfrog’s bellowed fugue, our primal hearts unite to form a supple wave of feeling, a singing fleet of exultation, our ancient voice, one soaring chorus of the soul, our song, one pure, beguiling tendril binding memory to night, securing ties to quintessential forces fermenting deep within my soul.

From the distance, buoyed forward by a Chico summer breeze, passing now through slumbering window screens, drifts the soulful sound of a passing train, its voice a haunting, knowing sigh of recognition, an ethereal refrain, a melancholic voice of affirmation of a journey just begun. In its purpose lives the force of ineffable presence, the animating, saving essence incarnating through the grip of the hand of a four-and-a-half year old child.