Driving to the Desert – Arriving Home

 

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1500 miles in the past, 300 miles yet to come.

Driving towards Alamogordo, New Mexico. Clouds hug the mountain ranges.

The snow from the last hundreds of miles has melted and, except for a few puddles, the desert looks like the desert.

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Ready to be home.

The Organ Mountains, one of the newest National Monuments (2014), rise above the clouds.

Warmer air blew in from the west and trapped the cooler air below it. This caused a cloud inversion which pushed clouds low in the canyons of the mountain ranges and exposes the high peaks.

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It was a late and very dark arrival — and included a bonus! A meteor shower through the front windshield as we drove the final 30 miles. Even a green shooting star! What a welcome!

The morning after the late arrival…the sun had yet risen over the Santa Rita mountain range and the clouds were bright with desert glitter sunlight!

And I am home. Home in the desert.

~~~~~

This is the last of the “every 100 miles” series.

All photos taken using my iPhone and Hipstamatic app with filter set on random. Since time and distance were the priorities, all photos were taken “on the fly” = zipping past at 65-75 miles per hour.

Essence of travel.

To Walk in Solitude, To Listen to Silence

Walking Down Old Baldy

Walking Old Baldy ©2010 Bo Mackison

The more zigzag the way, the deeper the scenery.
The winding path approaches the secluded and peaceful place.
~ Huáng Bīnhóng

Reflecting on what silence looks like. I ponder what a photograph of silence might look like, and then wander (apt word) through a few of my photo catalogs. I’m drawn to the many photos of paths or trails leading into wilderness areas, paths I walked alone in silence. A meditative kind of walking.

Whether I am walking along a sand dune, part worn boardwalk and part shifting sand . . . or through a green forest, thick with green vegetation, towering leafy trees, wildflowers sprinkling pastel colors amidst my feet . . . or tramping on a desert trail, worn deeply into the side of a mountain, stretching through stands of cactus, climbing over piles of tumbled rock . . . or strolling on the smooth pavement in a tended garden, walking further and further away from the crowds, deep into the recesses where few wander, but joy is found . . . or hiking along a snaking path through the wilderness of badlands, a barren maze of eroded land, ridges, peaks, and mesas — all of these I walk in silence.

I listen to the silence, for silence has a sound. I seek answers to questions and perhaps I’ll figure out an answer or two.  Or I simply consider the questions and seek no answers, the easier way to discovery is often simply listening.

Forest Path

Forest Path ©2011 Bo Mackison

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle.
But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air,
but to walk on earth.
Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize:
a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black,
curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes.
All is a miracle.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Cactus, Rock and the Trail

Cactus, Rock, Trail ©2012 Bo Mackison

“Walking is the great adventure,
the first meditation,
a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind.
Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility.”
~ Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild

There Was a Crooked Path

There Was a Crooked Path © 2011 Bo Mackison

“A fact bobbed up from my memory,
that the ancient Egyptians prescribed walking through a garden
as a cure for the mad.
It was a mind-altering drug we took daily.

~ Paul Fleischman, in Seedfolks

Storm Approaching

Organ Pipe Path ©2012 Bo Mackison

Our way is not soft grass,
it’s a mountain path with lots of rocks.
But it goes upward, forward,
towards the hidden sun.
~ Ruth Westheimer

Badlands-Two Trees

Two Trees in the Badlands © 2011 Bo Mackison

That’s the best thing about walking, the journey itself.
It doesn’t matter much whether you get where you’re going or not.
You’ll get there anyway.
Every good hike brings you eventually back home. ~ Edward Abbey

I find my way through the wilderness and eventually back home.

 

Opening to the Sacred – in Holy Rebellion

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 here, emboldened.

I come in holy rebellion.

Enough groveling at the feet of stone struck statues
incapable of emotions, or a welcoming nod,
refusing to utter soothing words as balm to my aching heart,
or offer an angelic flutter of celestial embrace.

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

Guarded from whom?

The penitent, the silenced one, the hesitant seeker.

I come in holy rebellion.
I will not be demure. I will not bow, cover my face
with a black mantilla and your rules.

Wait. I do not come in holy rebellion.

I am Holy Rebellion!

Petroglyphs in a Desert Canyon – Interpreting Ancient Symbols for Personal Insights

Petroglyph Canyon Wall

Petroglyph Cliff in Sonoran Desert Canyon

“Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break….I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.” ~ Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

Deep in a canyon in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, the cliff walls transition from red and gray striated rock to a giant wall of petroglyphs, figures pecked and carved into an ancient layer of the black desert varnish which covers many of the rocky surfaces.

Scientists estimate that many of the petroglyphs were carved from about 300 A.D. until 1300 A.D..

The Hohokam may have pecked these petroglyphs while on hunting and gathering expeditions, or during religious or other ceremonies. Perhaps they are solstice markers, tribe symbols, decorative art, or even an ancient form of graffiti.

 Studying these mysterious symbols, I began to wonder at the message as it was intended, nearly a thousand years ago. A message whose meaning has disappeared just as the Ancient Ones disappeared from these lands almost overnight, back in the 1300s. Some of the markings do align with the solar calendar – one spiral in this canyon is precisely half-illuminated by a slit of light as it shines through a split rock, This happens only twice a year – at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.

I viewed the spiral on the vernal equinox and watched as sunlight illuminated exactly half the spiral. On the March day when it is half light/half dark. Twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night. Halving the spiral into equal parts of light and dark.

Snake Petroglyph

Snake Petroglyph in Desert Canyon

Each thing in its way, when true to its own character, is equally beautiful.”  ~ Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

What messages might you take from symbols as they appear in your daily life?

After researching these petroglyphs, I realized:

  • things are not always as they seem
  • that sometime, in the mystery, lies the unexpected answer
  • that I see/study symbols and may incorporate meaning as I understand it into my life

For example, the snake petroglyph is geometric and prominent amidst the other carvings. There is no way to know what the snake symbol meant to the ancient Hohokam. Yet I can make my own interpretation of the snake and its message, as it pertains to my life, today.

Snakes become dormant in colder months, expending little energy. They are summoned by the lengthening days, by the sun’s longer appearance each day, and they move towards warmth and the life giving powers of the sun. Snakes move in rhythm with the natural cycle, the natural forces of nature. I, too, am drawn to the longer days and tend to slow down as the days shorten. Or I seek places of sunshine, places and spaces that provide warmth.

The snake is of the earth. It crawls upon the earth, burrows into the earth for shelter, warmth, protection. I feel grounded when I stand upon the earth, and focus my energy downward, anchoring deep within the earth.

Snake is ruled by instinct for survival. I, too, live by instincts – some of which I follow, often finding my way; some which I ignore, sometimes to my detriment.

Snake is powerful, often feared, and sometimes is killed or hurt unnecessarily by people who are frightened and do not understand the ways of the snake. How does this relate to me? When I follow my passions, and insticts, take risks, do the unexpected, how do others respond to me? How does this affect my forward movement?

What might snake’s message mean to you?

Patience – A Desert Wisdom Card

Patience © 2014 Bo Mackison

“Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can – working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!  ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Patience. Certainly a wisdom gift of the desert. Certainly a quality required when one is actually walking/living/being in the desert, and for those desert-like times when life feels arid and silent, or overwhelming and fragmented.

I love this photograph, a photo taken at Mission San  Xavier del Bac, a mission church in southern Arizona built in the 1700s. The church took decades to build by hand with primitive tools.

There were no supplies of paint or marble or fabric. Even the wood had to be hauled from a distance of twenty miles.  They built the walls with lime-kiln clay. They carved statues from wood and dyed them brilliant colors using both native dyes and imported gilding. They carved shells, roping, and drapery-like sculptures for windows ornamentation and the choir.  They painted wall murals and patterned arches. They sculpted a baptismal font and painted it to look like marble.

Works of art that required patience and determination, and which are still in use, and honored by the present day parishioners.

“A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.” ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

In the photo, I stand in the shadows.

Waiting. Watching. Questioning.

Listening to the Silence.

Practicing patience.