Leaving the Grand Canyon, the earth, perhaps due to the land-connectedness of Native American tribes living on reservations, seems to slowly try to close up its open wounds. Or perhaps, continued desert drought cracks open the hardened ground, like overworked hands having dug too long in the dirt. Fissured canyons dot the desert plains along Rt 89 between Cameron and Page as I pass dilapidated roadside shanties advertising buffalo jerky, hand woven rugs, earthen pottery, turquoise jewelry, and scenic views. Maybe on summer weekends, these marketplaces bustle, but mid-week with the season stuffing its warmth down into holes in the ground, only one shack at each pull out opens up to passing drivers.
Zion
Wikipedia:
1. In Kabbalah = there is an esoteric reference made to (T)zion being from the spiritual point from which reality emerges.
2.The Semitic definition=castle.
3.In Hebrew=dry land.
4. In Hurrian= river or brook.
5. In Latter Day Saints=specific location to which members of the millennial church are to be gathered together to live.
6. In Rastafari= utopian movement, place of unity, peace and freedom.
Along Rt 89 just before Kanab, if one looks towards the west, cathedral spires huddle in humility—perhaps an attempt to reach the sky's clearest blue or the sun's warmest rays. 229 square miles of high plateau temples cut by the Virgin River along the edge of the Colorado Plateau. Cream and salmon streaked hill slopes clad in pine and juniper, sage and prickly pear. Rock cliffs layered along the Grand Staircase: Vishnu Schist, Tropic Shale, Navajo Sandstone and others. From the base layer of Chocolate Cliffs, through the Vermillion, White, Gray and Pink Cliffs: Zion National Park.
Entering the Park along Rt 9 from the East Side, the road curls through sandstone frosted mounds cleaved by sandy canyon washes. Pine capped mesas like the "Checkerboard Mesa" shadow the pavement. Big Horn sheep, hoofs clasping rock, gnaw on crevice held rabbitbrush atop the curved one-mile long tunnel blasted through layered rock. Even with vehicle lights on, the unlighted tunnel forces my adjusting eyes towards the reflectors interspersed along the tunnel walls. Eye window openings flood sunlight into sections of the tunnel, but there is no stopping for the views. Once through, I downshift to second gear and coast the steep switchbacks into the dry desert canyon valley with the Virgin River slicing through it, and into the town of Springdale notched into the southern edge of the Park lands.
Temples in the Air/ Zion Landscapes
Slideshow:
The Spiritual Point of Reality
Yin/Yang....the Tao.....what moves must still....before moving again. I come to Springdale for a work exchange—maybe two, maybe three, maybe four weeks. Maybe more. Time is flexible now and I trust the flow. Through the Workaway online community, I receive room and board in exchange for up to 25 hours of help per week. Amidst the towering rockscapes of southern Utah, my hostess S. and I make a list: garden weeding and burying irrigation tubing, pergola roofing of clear plastic, and other general maintenance needs. The practical point of reality brings me here to this place of natural wonder. What moves must still and regroup: finances, sleep, catching up on all fronts. I hunker into the small casita apartment attached to the house and garage two blocks inland from the main Springdale street filled with restaurants, shops, and outdoor outfitters. One mile from the southern Park entrance and Visitor Center. A quarter mile from the public library. Here I sleep in a bed, take showers, and find companionship with S. and her family. I re-center.
1.
The Zion National Park Plein Air Art Invitational celebrates the role art has played in the creation and history of the park by annually hosting 24 landscape artists.
The first full week of November scatters easels along roadsides shadowed from the grieving sun by craggy spires, near foot trails winding through Fremont cottonwoods yellowing into winter, and skirting rivers cutting wilderness from hard beaten tourist tromping.
http://roydencardfineart.com/
2.
Traveling with a small watercolor kit and inspired by the Plein Air demonstrations, I ramble up an East Side unmarked canyon and through the sand wash, then climb up over the horizontal formation layers to a singular Pinyon pine emerging from flat rock. Up to my left is my first Plein Air specimen— a Navajo Sandstone capped mound, with flubby folds dripping all over each other.
Years have slipped away since watercolor brushes were in hand, but I line up my set of brushes along the rock, fill a small cup with water and open the twelve pack of watercolor cubes with palette tray. I've already cut watercolor paper to fit inside the box lid for the kit, so I pull out a sheet, close the box lid, place a piece of cardboard behind the paper, and settle it onto the box.
Channeling tips from some patio demonstrations, I dip a brush into the water and float the bristles over a cube of reddish brown and drip the droplets of hue onto the palette. I rinse the brush and do the same with ochre and combine the two tints into a palette puddle.
"Keep it simple," I remind myself, and slowly start to outline the cascading fold shapes and the sandstone capped silhouette against the open blank sky.
With a fan brush, I gather up blue and slather it onto the top of the paper, then pick up the paper, lean it to the left, then the right, so the moist wash will run in different directions. Some white peeks through the runny blue to give my sky some depth.
Shadows next, I add some deep brown and navy blue to the reddish puddle and carefully add paint on to the paper where I see shadows on the mound, then place the paper to dry in the sun. Once dry, I pick up a smaller brush to mix a variety of reds, browns and yellows to wash onto the page. I let the paper dry again and clean up in anticipation of the hike back down and out of the canyon.
3.
Mid-afternoon on yet another sunny day, I ride my bike through Springdale and pick up the paved Pa'rus Trail skirting around the Park campground and paralleling the Virgin River. At one of the sandy paths leading down to the water, I walk my bike through grasses beneath overhanging cottonwoods, and sit in the warm sand facing the Watchman. One of the iconic views for sunset photography, the Watchman, seemingly wearing a tutu of cottonwoods looms high over the river. I open my painting kit, and with pencil, I start sketching the rocky monolith, the cottonwoods, and the river. At an earlier patio demo, bold colors by the acrylic style of painter Royden Card inspired me to try blocks of bolder watercolor shades. I start with painted shadows of deep greens. Oranges, browns, and golds define vertical striations. The weight of blue sky pushes the old rock closer onto the canyon ledge.
4.
My top favorite Plein Air painting tips:
1. Keep it simple: focus in on a detail rather than try to paint a huge landscape.
2. Sketch the view first for relationships: use a nine section grid to place focal point in the most interesting location.
3. Paint in shadows first and work from there.
4. Don't be afraid of using colors in non-representational ways.
5. Try to convey an emotional response to the landscape.
6. Get the basic values and colors down in the open air, then later work the rest of the shading and details.
The Real Point of Spirituality
The bloated super moon rises slow behind the Zion peaks and glows down on Springdale. S. and I head to a nearby labyrinth atop a small plateau for some moon-charged Gi Gong. On Sunday mornings, S. leads a small group of women in silent meditation, mindful walking, mindful eating, and mindful discussion, so is energetically open to what the moon has to offer. We mindfully walk the labyrinth, then face the lighted moon. I lead us through the Lift Chi Up/ Pour Chi Down form of my mind/body practice of five years. Then we sit in the energetic field of self-healing. We want to believe in the energy. We want to believe in Chi, the moon, and healing. We decide to start a nightly session honoring the healing attributes of our energetic bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits.
"Each time you move your hands, my ears crackle," she tells me after one of our sessions.
And:
"I haven't been able to sleep through the night for a long time now, and I slept seven hours last night."
Facilitating Chi for another person allows me to also be in that space. I've been sleeping long and deep too. Several nights in, S. tells me that she was sending back some Chi to me during our session.
"Yes," I respond. "We are all connected. Giving is also receiving. I gain as much by sending it along to another."
I listen— to the sounds around us or the quiet. An exhaled breath rushes out through my nose involuntarily as the tingling on top of my head increases. Supposedly there is a "gate" at that location, and somewhere in the second year of my practice, this gate "opened" for the first time. Now, the tingling happens all the time. Blockages "pop" in my arm or leg. Energy is moving and I silently enter the data into the overall experiment.
Anecdotal? Maybe. Real for me? Absolutely.
I intuit what to do with my hands. I listen to my body. I recognize images that come to mind and hold the intention for the Chi to follow, but know that this energy finds its own way to what is needed. I'm happy to offer this meditation practice, to share it with others. All data.
Layers of blockages start to dissolve for both S. and I, and we mindfully share, with gratitude, this experience together beneath the West Temple of Zion.
Observation Point
Hurrian Temple
Volcanic debris of porous gray holds firm below the Grapevine Trail, washed by the cursive flow of the North Fork Creek that is without need to linger as it carves deeper beneath the attentive gaze of looming millennial towers.
Froth rings each bubble pushing off between stone and stone, bubbles escaping from trapped lace like a line of anxious ducklings chasing after mama duck.
Within each bubble, large or small, my trapped reflection stows away. Some search for haven in rock crevices, but the hesitancy shatters the trapped air as the filmy half-ball slices against calloused aggregate.
Jiggling spheres reach out to grasp tiny rounds and hold them tight. "Do this with me," they seem to beckon. But, as the duos take a slow breath in anticipation, the current herds them tighter into the fold. Tiny blips burst out of the suctioned grasp of the dominant dome, which, in surprise, falls through the rocky channel to hit the floating lacy skim.
Sitting crosslegged, as if I had eaten Alice's cake, my tiny body swirls within each soapy globe, reflections either bursting or bustling.
Like people, some bubbles rush towards the fall, while some try to cling onto anything in path, and in so doing, disintegrate, fall apart, lose substance.