Forces of Nature
Part of the adventure is to get to those places that mirror back to us what happens when time scratches at the surface and exposes the colored and textured layers hidden deep beneath. Somehow, after being beaten up by nature, what lies in the remote places gets sculpted into nothing we’re familiar with. Old, very old...and yet new.
Lower Antelope Canyon
Like the rock formations, anywhere, but specifically here in the Southwest because this is where I am, I am sculpted too. I wipe the sand particles from the corners of my eyes, and lotion up my skin to soften the cracks. I crawl beneath a juniper tree for shade respite in the heat, and wrap myself in layers against the cold nights of high desert.
In the end, or maybe just now in the present moment, this constant eroding has sculpted rock into art, as we are sculpted into art by the constancy of life wearing us down.
The Toadstools
While in Springdale/Zion, S. and I talked often about the challenges of perception, the discipline to stay present in the sculpting process, the acceptance of becoming new from the shifting of the old. It’s beautiful when it can happen, and when we get to see it so clearly.
I drive for miles down 4WD sandy roads, through sage dotted pastures and valleys, by manzanita and juniper and pine. I get out to open gates and drive over cattle guards across roads, check maps for forks not marked with public land road markers—stakes with numbers like 1017 and an arrow pointing in some specific direction. Eventually I get there…wherever I wish to be—and come to a sign celebrating my tax dollars at work. Like White Pocket National Recreation Area...The Toadstools...
Pareah movie set (burned down by vandals some years ago, so said to be the backdrop for the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales)... Horseshoe Bend. Some access is easier and I have to weave through busloads of tourists walking a paved path to some constantly eroding wonder.
But the best places need courage and patience, fortitude, and good vehicle clearance. Signs offer warnings to not come here unless you are prepared. “Know the difference,” these signs say, “between 2WD, AWD, and 4WD”.
These are 4WD roads, and even with my 4WD pick up truck, with clearance, I scrape the sand occasionally. Acceleration helps in a “hoorah” motion of riding the sand wave to firmer ground on the other side of the patch. Hesitation won’t work here in these remote places. Erosion happens even here along the road—caution and fear need to notch down for the sake of the destination. Someone else might be driving this road today, but maybe not. It would be a long walk back out the fifteen miles or so. And that’s just to the main dirt road. Then what?
Take the risk. Know one’s own limitations. Go for the leap of faith. And if all goes well, one gets to see the secret gems of nature, of time, of forces swirling around rock, a slowly ongoing performance piece molding itself into the future. Let these places be our mirrors: they are indeed spectacular.