Nathan Arizona

Love on the Backburner

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Don’t think of love cause it’s not real. A little rest would do me good. I’m ridin this ol’ Greyhound from Utah to Arizonaland and it isn’t too bad. I close my eyes or watch the clouds out the tinted windows. Don’t think of love. Just listen to the old timer pickin the banjo in the headphones, singing the Crawdad Song. There isn’t any going back, cept to moving forward and keeping a real dream. Because beauty comes deep from the center. I’ve been tellin a story of how the impossible happened, But a story is all it was. The …

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A Noise is Made

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Somewhere in the day to day continuity, you wish for some kind of escape from reality. Vanity rules our minds because we are emotional creatures. There is no logic concerning human behavior. Beyond all the static, our most basic desires are not always realized. Could it be we don’t always venture beyond where we feel comfortable? In the maze, there is a way past all the dead-ends. There is always a way from start to finish. The clues are there to build endurance. Being aware of the possibilities requires being calm and having faith. Life is about those unexpected events …

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Landscapes & Wilderness

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The way I see landscape is the simplicity of it; away from the commotion. Most tourists and travelers hit the national parks around my homeland of Southern Utah but as a local I travel to areas that foreign outsiders never see. I look for surviving elements of the old west and before; I seek out original places that seem to withstand modern colonialism. These places remain very beautiful long after everything else has changed or morphed. Of course, I do not believe in pristine wilderness but the wild in whatever shape or form still speaks volumes, even where humans do …

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Tower of Stars

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We are selfish and lonely creatures. We get too busy with our miniature lives. In a static world of big cities and forgotten dreams we tend to trample over more important things and forget others are feeling the exact same heartbreak. In the commotion I stand back and listen to the buzzing static and yearn for silence. So many opportunities wait to be seized. Often we simply overlook such chances or don’t realize that they’ve come and gone. I have passed up many good opportunities in my life and now ponder on what happened and what went wrong? It’s called …

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Everett Ruess and Chris McCandless

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There are two individuals that have influenced me heavily in their outlook; Chris McCandless and Everett Ruess. Both discovered truth in ways most will never imagine. They saw a beauty as distant and far away as the stars. It was ignited through their visions and words. Everette explains my sentiments so well and I have affinity for his thoughts: “I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. why muck and conceal one’s true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand …

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The Great Change

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I ponder the precious and rare beauty of this world. The quiet that is. The sun rises in the east igniting the purple twilight while canyon birds join serenading crickets. The arms of orange light touch the tips of canyon rim and I am lost somewhere between eternity and pure love. This is life and we are on this journey of ruggedness called reality. This wilderness feels closer to faraway from all of life’s travails. The sunrise comes and then passes into oblivion never to be repeated. The wind still whispers the ancient past as it travels through pinion. I …

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The Outlaw Coyote Kate

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In a few words to keepin it short My heart trembles for Coyote Kate. In winter, the wind whistles over the dark Uintahs through steep strange canyons of sandstone and shadow. The beauty of that country is composed of lost gold mines, dinosaur graves and chocked oil deposits – a wild territory haunted by coyotes, cowboys, ramblers ‘n such even the ghosts of departed prospectors. as the sun sets in the freeze of winter you can feel the hint of a deep conundrum plaguing the land of the Utes. in quiet discontent an independent Woman known as Coyote Kate wonders …

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Teachable Moments in Grand Canyon

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A couple of years ago I was giving a Hummer tour in the Grand Canyon with a bunch of Back Easterners. It was mid-July and about 110 degrees Fahrenheit, outside. We pulled off the rocky road road to take a short break and stretch. The road winds it’s way down into the inner gorge of the canyon via Whitemore Wash to river mile marker 187 on the Colorado River. It is one of only two access points that can get you that close to the river in a 4×4. During the break we walked over to a cluster of Barrel …

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Storytelling & Snow Covered Landscapes

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The snow covers the land in a thick white blanket with sunshine sparkling all over the mountains and trees. The sky is hard turquoise with soft clouds traveling over the new winter-land. For three days it snowed continuously. It reminds me of the deep heart of Navajoland near the Four-Corners, Arizona. This is the Escalante Desert around Cedar City, Utah, which is usually brown and thirsty. This past summer monsoon storms were disappointingly scarce compared to what I remember as a child when rain would turn streets into rivers around town. I miss those times traveling around the Navajo Reservation …

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The Heart is Innocent

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The heart knows not reason just what it feels. It isn’t any more complex then a child that likes to play in all their innocence. So because the heart is like a little child it doesn’t always know better and it makes so many mistakes. Perhaps that is why logic is there to keep it in check so it doesn’t run too wild. My heart knows love and can hardly be contained. It leads me into a lot of pain on occasion. I’m learning to keep it in check but I also listen to it more then anything else. I’m …

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Earth’s Silence

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Away from darkness a dreamer’s journey begins towards incredible healing. His vision conjures up images from the bottoms of waking hours. Those spent thoughts were turning up nothing. The imagination was sad because it did it all in vein and trial. Yet, here he wanders beneath the shield of sky, crossing the beautiful Desert that flows through him like a river. Out there is where all of the hidden wounds have been sewn. When young, he knew not his fear. Now he knows. This is my own walk on the Red Road across a cheerful landscape, a vista of quality …

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As it is Happening

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That old familiar wanderlust is coming back and I am once again listening to the wind. Talk about footloose! Why is it happening? It’s like Jack London’s Call of the Wild. I am fighting a strong temptation to flee and travel into desolation, isolation and utter solitude. One day I may tempt fate and head into the unknown… I’m listening to the chaotic-symphonic chorus of crickets outside my backyard door with two blue heelers sleeping in the tall grass. Their feet twitch in miniature spasms as if they are sprinting in their dog-dreams. Animals do have visions. Much time has …

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Classes and Havasupai

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Well I may be heading back to Havasupai even though it’s closed for the next several months. They may let me back in if I volunteer to help reconstruct the campground and trails below the village. Every year for the rest of my life, I will travel to Havasupai because it is forever tied to my soul. The introspection I went through the night of the big flood was life-changing and the muddy water really spoke to me. Now I dream and contemplate the beauty that surrounds my life and I am grateful to be SO ALIVE! Classes began this …

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Flashbacks of Havasupai

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Last night I went hiking down in the Narrows. There were no clouds in the sky. I returned to Cedar City around 7 P.M. and spent that evening reading Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. Sometime in the wee-hours of morning I had a strong dream about the entire Grand Canyon getting inundated with water ripping down every gorge and side canyon. Imagine the destruction to Hoover Dam? At the Bar 10 lodge where I used to work on the North Rim, I dreamed the employees had gone crazy and were gambling and playing poker. When I awakened images of what …

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Four Havasupai Men Saved Us

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It was a beautiful and pristine weekend on the Havasupai Reservation in Grand Canyon. Late on a Thursday night we hiked eight miles into the Grand Canyon to Supai Village and arrived at the tourist office shortly before day-break. After we paid our dues we headed straight for Supai campground two miles away to set up camp for the weekend. That very same day, I wanted to head back into the village while others went swimming in the falls. That afternoon I visited with various Supai villagers and engaged in small talk. This was my first time to Havasupai and …

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To the Hitch Hiker and Recluse

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My prayers go out to you tonight wherever you are. May God bless and protect you in your journeys far from home and family. When I’m driving down an empty road I’ll give you a ride and be a friend. I love your stories and how you write poems on leather shoes and how you sing to the southwestern moon. In the darkness on the edge you possess a strong connection to your Creator and he has not forgotten your sleepless wandering soul.

Dreams and Sacred Places

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I’ve dubbed the basement apartment where I’m living “the cave” three houses down from Southern Utah University. Lately I’ve been having vivid dreams at night in the windowless bedroom where I sleep. You can smell the soil of the earth in the foundation. At night I leave the door open to hear the crickets. I share my living space with several room-mates; spiders, ants and centipedes. Those varmints and me, we co-exist! lol… There is a mystery linked to the bedroom. These dreams are wonderful. Some of them are on par with waking reality. Early this morning I dreamed I …

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The Reality of Freedom

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Okay, I had a wild hair to break out of my shell of conformity and write a few words here on Freedom. I’m talking True Freedom and how it feels. First comes courage and faith to think outside the box and to be different from all the others. Freedom is finding the courage to really let a woman know she is beautiful. Freedom is the wild horse that roams the great basin or is the man that decides to hitch-hike the lonesome highways of America. Freedom is to enter the quiet canyons of the Colorado Plateau and to experience solitude …

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Something Weird Happened in the Hills

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I’m sure glad that things like that don’t happen on a regular basis. Something uncommon and rare doesn’t usually pop out of the bush like it did today. I’m not worried about anything paranormal or to do with wildlife. What I’m worried about are the few two-legged varmints that seem to haunt the hills. Anyone who spends enough time out there will know that it is common sense to carry some kind of self-defense whenever possible. You don’t want to stumble across someone’s marijuana field in a remote canyon and end up meeting the farmer. Or how about the poachers, …

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Mysteries, Miracles and Unknown happenings

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A couple years ago I had an amazing experience not easily explained. In fact I was baffled at first and then totally overjoyed. It all started when I received a fix-it ticket from a highway cop about a month before for a dead tail-light on my Suzuki Samurai. I ended up replacing the whole tail light assembly and was able to find it used at the local junk yard. The problem arose when I neglected to get the ticket taken care of. I left town for Spring Break that spring and was attending Dixie State College. When I returned I …

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Early in the Morning

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This morning I listened intently to whistling robins. They were chirping and cheering with an early morning joy. The lovely noise filled me with a bright primordial bliss. There’s a storm rolling in from the desert. The whirling gusts of cold shifting air whip the Ponderosa trees in the yard. The past three days the summer temperatures have spilled into the 90’s but alas the nimble clouds have come to pay Cedar City a visit. Their approach is most anticipated. Never curse the moisture that the Creator provides!

Thankyou God for Canyon Country

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Thank you Heavenly Father for this blessing of harmony. I am so grateful to be a part of the colorful landscape. Canyon Country runs in my blood. It is a part of my soul. When I become old, I want my carcass dumped in a flash flood gully where coyotes may discover my discarded flesh and laugh with joy. May they fill their empty bellies and be content. That is a powerful and pleasant thought. All around is sand and plateau, the homeland of the Anasazi. Their presence is felt on the ancient wind. Their whispers whistle through pinion and …

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The Rock Art of Canyon Lands

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There is no way to put into words how you feel when looking at huge murals of strange painted beings floating on canyon walls… These images predate the Anasazi and when they arrived in Grand Canyon perhaps they were perplexed by the archaic pictography scattered throughout Canyon Country? They give you a sense of awe when hiking to remote places like Horseshoe Canyon or the San Rafael Swell in Central Utah. I have always been fascinated with rock art. When I was in my early teens I’d check out stacks of books from the library on the subject. It developed …

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The Lonesome Wasteland

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I am resting by alcove deep in Canyonlands, dreaming of wasteland shadows and the ancient voices from the past. Thank goodness, I am far from town and listening to the sweet sound of crickets and mourning doves in a cottonwood. A dust devil sweeps the arid plain whipping tumble weeds. A dark black raven trails the light azure sky. The sandstone is baked enough to fry and scramble eggs. The desert is an enormous frying pan. The distant elevated plateau dances in a mirage. I’m alone and surrounded in pure isolation. Sure do miss those monsoon thunderheads that appear in …

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Outdooritis

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Yes, I’ve been diagnosed with this and too much homework at school is the cause. Right now I am working on a paper about Ethnomethodology and how it has become revolutionary in the field of Sociology. It basically invalidates all the old conventional theories like Marxism. Even society is an illusion to the Ethnomethodologist! Maybe I should become one? Thanks to desert beauty and crickets on warm summer nights, I know what I crave. I miss the dark monsoon storms of late July rolling over high desert plateaus and listening to the distant rolling thunder. The days are growing longer …

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