|
Desert
Light In mountain wilderness, I have a habit of travelling from sunup to sunset. My way of experiencing wild places is by moving through them. Friends hint that I should sit more and absorb the places, that I should "be in" rather than "move through." But in this troubled age, if a meditation serves the spirit, why meddle? Buddhists chant, Dervishes dance, and I hike. So, I keep moving, wearing myself down, letting a sense of place slip in through chips in body's urban armor. But, desert's sun changed my style of mediation. Midday, the washes -- dry, sandy stream beds -- shimmer with heat waves. I tried seeking breezes by climbing the canyon walls to white slick rock shelfs. But, there, as on snow, the sun's rays ricochet and intensify. And, the body, which is wiser than the mind, closes down the senses: eyes, nose, ears and even skin. Then mind's will to be in motion surrenders. And, where friends' platitudes failed, midday's sun has triumphed--movement stops. When the urge to move once again dominates, I travel for short distances from pool to pool. Pools of shade and pools of water. I seek out springs in lusty anticipation and if I find flowing water and a deep pool, I go in. Sensuous meanderings in muddy places shared with tadpoles. If there's but a little water, I wet my neckerchief and search for shade. For, in desert country, the seasons are reversed. Spring slips in each evening after day's burning summer. While all through summer's day mind has nagged about the heat, now, in the last four hours of light, mind's nagging stops and body's senses unfold. And, the slightest breeze is like a lover's touch. In these few hours remaining before winter's night, certain places have become associated with the time remaining for an unhurried return to camp. Six O'clock pass - a twisting sandstone cleft between Squaw and Lost Canyons - leaves just 2 hours of light. At seven O'clock pond, frogs begin to sing. Soon every seep and pothole resonates their welcome to spring. The murmur of bats' wings, an owl's haunting call and a coyote's yip signal the presence of other celebrants. Where dryness prevailed, now the washes offer hints of water-smell. Dead in summer's day, it's now a rich haze of yellows and greens alive with bees and moths. Where only an hour earlier the Junipers sagged like dusty tramps, their turquoise berries now glow like fireflies amid dark green boughs. Now, once lifeless desert grasses pulse with iridescent greens and yellows. And, the setting sun highlights wildflowers amid islands of grey-black cryptogamic soil. And, the trunk of that long dead cottonwood, barely noticed in midday's fire, is resurrected as an ivory tusk aged with twisting ebony cracks. The desert is dancing in color! As I reach camp, the landscape is lost in darkness. I'm ready for companionship, food and drink. I slide in to the campfire and someone mutters,"What a furnace! How you can stay out there so long?" End
|
|
At
4 o'clock, the sun finally begins to break, transforming the harsh, white flatness
to gently contoured pastels. 
As
my eyes relax, I realize that soft light is their natural habitat -- that they
are inherited from a people who evolved in the filtered light of the canopied
forest. 
And
a sweet mist reaches out from the yellow blossoms of a Barberry bush -- still
more than 30 feet away! 
And,
the light from a single Indian Paintbrush casts a wave of flame over a red rock
basin . 
And,
now the alpen glow creeps up sculpted sandstone walls tinting them with golds,
pinks, oranges, and yellows. 
Pushing
through the heat, my friends had made an early return. Like the Junipers, they
look like dusty tramps. 
