Opening to the Sacred – A Poem

Wupatki - Finding the Open Spaces

Opening to the Sacred © 2014 Bo Mackison

A poem is . . . an act of devotion and holy rebellion; a source of healing and a journey of risk. ~ Edveeje Fairchild

I enter emboldened.

I come in holy rebellion.

Enough groveling at feet of stone-struck statues
incapable of emotions, no welcoming nod,
refusing to utter soothing words as balm to my aching heart
or offer celestial embrace.

You.
Safe behind barred doors,
chain link fences,
security-guards on watch.

From whom do you seek protection?

The penitent, the silenced one, the hesitant seeker?

I rise in holy rebellion.
I will not bow nor cover my face with
a black mantilla and your rules.

I do not come in holy rebellion.

I am Holy Rebellion!

A Lesson in Preparation – Rescue on the Toadstool Trail

Trailhead to Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

Trailhead to Toadstool Trail © 2014 Bo Mackison

Afternoon on Day Two of my unexpected travel adventure.
Rangers at Big Water recommend the Toadstool Trail on my drive to Kanab,
a mile and a half trek through balanced rocks and hoodoos.

“Go past the first toadstool,” one ranger suggests.
“The toadstool garden is quite the thing to see.”
It’s only a few miles down the road. Three pm. Great timing.

Info on Toodstool Trail

All the Details © 2014 Bo Mackison

A line from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument brochure catches my fancy:
“offers…extraordinary insight into what sustains, maintains, and explains our world.”

Sustains. Maintains. Explains.

Trailhead. I check my pack. Standard Sonoran Desert gear works in the high desert, too.
Sign in at the registration stand.
I’m a dozen yards down the level trail when I reconsider,
and go back for my walking stick and extra water.

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National Monument

“No service” on my cell phone.
I can’t phone in my hiking plans to my trail buddy, but I’m on a popular trail. No worries.

The trail follows a sandy wash for the first half mile,
then weaves around sculptured slick rock, flowers bloom in abundance.
Formations of striped red and white make a stunning backdrop.

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National Monument

The First Toadstool © 2014 Bo Mackison

Hikers pass me on their return, marveling at the hoodoos and balanced rocks.
“The toadstools,” they thrill. “They really look like toadstools.”

I reach the first toadstool, a beauty standing in its solitude.
A couple reports the toadstool garden is just beyond the white escarpment,
exactly how the ranger described it.

How’s the trail? I ask.
A little scrambly up a few rocks; the garden’s worth the climb.
I’m good to go, glad I brought my hiking stick.

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National Monument

Cairns mark the trail, winds through narrow channels, crosses benches of rock.
The garden is a sight to behold, hard to photograph due to the shadows, but the scenery to the west is striking.
After hiking the trail a couple of hours, appreciative of the solitude and sights, it’s time to get back on the road.

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National Monument

Formations in Rock © 2014 Bo Mackison

It is solitude that gives us the opportunity to recover a sense of internal order, to develop new self-confidence for the day to come, and to experience the spiritual strength it takes for a person, if necessary, to face tomorrow alone.
~ Joan Chittister

Following the trail, I haven’t seen other hikers since the gardens,
and high in the chalky rock, hiking on the slick rock,
I realize I’ve passed these rock formations before, I’m walking in a circle.

Retracing my steps, I start again at the last cairn.
Again I end up traveling in a wide circle, half hidden in rocky crevices,
slip sliding. The trail disappears a third time.
For the first time on a solo hike, I am lost in a tangle of rock hoodoos.

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National MonumentLife is not meant to be a series of resolutions designed to make us something we’re not. It’s meant to be a series of explorations which, in the end, finally bring us home to ourselves. ~ Joan Chittister

I have time, late afternoon. Again I carefully trace the trail.
I am missing a turn or a step, a switch back. Still, it eludes me.
I am frightened, but at the same time, I am calm.

Deep breaths and I check my pack. Enough water and food, but I don’t have a light.
My mind gets busy searching for options. I pull out my whistle.

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National MonumentHaving the opportunity to be alone is an important dimension of learning to function alone. Having had the time to define our personal positions in life we can then go on with the confidence and certainty it takes to know what we think — and then claim it. ~ Joan Chittister

A plan? Sleep under a ledge for some protection and warmth?
Lean against rocks and stay awake?
It’s only one night, there will be hikers tomorrow.

I’ve never spent the night unprepared in the wilderness,
is this the night?

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National Monument

On the Trail © 2014 Bo Mackison

And then, across a small canyon, two hikers climb along on a bench, high above me.
I whistle three sharp blows. They look up.
Are you on the trail, I ask. They nod.

They have a height advantage, they consider the rocks, the paths.
They point, guide me through narrow ways, around boulders, over a shallow crevice
I can jump using my stick for balance.

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National Monument

This is life’s greatest moment, when the soul unfolds capacities which reach beyond earth’s boundaries. ~ Isaac Hecker

And then I scramble up a rocky wall and I am on the trail.
We walk towards the road. At the first toadstool, they ask me
to take their photo – they are father and son. Their annual visit.

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National Monument

Sego Lilies © 2014 Bo Mackison

It is easy to bounce through life — going here, trying that, tasting this. What is difficult is trying to figure out what we are supposed to do with what we find, or learn from where we go what will make life even richer. For ourselves, of course. But for the rest of the world, as well. ~ Joan Chittister

The trail is in the wash, they go ahead.
I think to myself, I was lost, and now I’m found.

Sustains. Maintains. Explains.

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National Monument

Getting stuck in life — refusing to experiment; being afraid to try something new; becoming cemented in what is, rather than excited by what could be — is the difference between living and being alive. ~ Joan Chittister

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National Monument

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
~ Henry Miller

Toadstool Trail - Grand Staircase escalante National Monument

When we know who we are, when we have confronted the spirits within ourselves against which we vie for dominance, we find ourselves more inclined to be so much kinder to everyone else. ~ Joan Chittister

~~~~~

Most of the quotations are from The Art of Life, Monastic Wisdom for Every Day by Joan Chittister

Cottonwood at Historic Empire Ranch

Cottonwood

Cottonwood at Empire Ranch © 2014 Bo Mackison

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. ~ Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

A tree stands in the spreading grasslands of the Empire Ranch, a thriving ranch from the 1870s to the 1970s.

Empire Ranch was not only a ranch. It was the set for dozens of western styled movies and television shows, filmed from 1946 through 1998.

I imagine many a movie great walked the land under this cottonwood tree.

Just a few of the many movies icons and films shot on this wide open “set” were: John Wayne in Red River, (1948); Gordon McRae, Shirley Jones in Oklahoma!(1955); James Arness, Dennis Weaver, Amanda Blake in Gunsmoke, several shows (1955-75); Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, (1957); Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, several shows of Bonanza (1959-73); Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson in A Star Is Born (1976); and Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Huston in The Furies (1950).

They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. ~ Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

This tree has a history, but the history I imagine for it is a fictional one.

It is easy to imagine a movie crew resting in the shade of this cottonwood between takes filmed under the unforgiving desert sun. It is easy to imagine the children who lived and played on the working ranch bringing a picnic spread to eat under the tress. Perhaps there was a doll party or two. Or even a child’s birthday party.

An argument, a first kiss, a fist fight, a marriage proposal? The tree was near enough the ranch to be a convenient gathering place for all sorts of events.

Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars,

all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow. ~ Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

A solitary tree in the high desert is a mighty thing.

Few trees reach the stature of a cottonwood in this land. The cottonwoods create a sinuous ribbon of life contrasted with the parched white grasses spreading away from the dry creek beds. The trees, with deep roots, can access the deeper water aquifers that other plants cannot.

This tree stand solitary, sacaton grasslands spread from it in all directions for miles. In the harsh light, the light is brighter, the shadows are deeper. The cottonwood is beginning to leaf out, but the brilliant light transforms the individual fluttering leaves into brilliantly lit diamonds.

Empire Ranch offers many opportunities for photographs, but for its introduction, I chose to focus on this one tree. When I combine this stoic tree, leaves rustling, with the distant voices in my imagination, it is enough for an introduction.