Mine

Finding The Other Person

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These days, I see other people posting deep things on social networks like Facebook, and I start to think how vain it is to put important content or anything with a more serious personal tone on a place like a corporate social network. Have we become such frail and hollow beings that we no longer find independence? This is why it is important for me to have a journal and a space to pen my more personal and intimate thoughts with a maturity that no social network is worthy of.

While stating the obvious above, here’s what’s on my mind…

I cannot change who I am for anyone but can be supportive and caring and understanding of someone else who is different. Yes, I have my struggles but the Creator knows what’s in my heart. We all have a purpose and a mission in this life. I’m trying to make sense of mine.

I would like to find someone who is wise beyond their years, with a deeper spiritual awakening about the world, and the universe and all of creation, but doesn’t care so much for our secular society where all the mundane norms become overbearing. There would be a strong affinity between this individual and me that comes loaded with absolute certainty neither of us could deny; something confirmed by a Higher Power. The Universe/Multiverse is infinite and I am aware of it as I dwell in the corners of God’s imagination. Love is simply being content and grateful for what God, the Creator, has given you. Love, through all of it’s expressions works in mysterious ways with an intelligence that even becomes eternal.

Writing a journal through these technologies enables a sturdy place for record keeping. Every day, the internet is being recorded and archived for future generations. Keeping this record let’s those who read it in the future know what was going through my mind, historically. Really, though, sometimes a serious thought and introspection is worth writing and then contemplating on.

I was inspired to say something meaningful! I’m happy in my own skin as I have matured over the years while facing the music. As an individual, my happiness comes from within and my desires and needs have changed over time. I’m still young, with so much life ahead. I hope the Creator helps me determine a destiny and guides me on where I need to go and lets me know what needs to get done.

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 juniper. A spectacular thunderhead trails across the landscape with a cloud shadow dumping rain on the thirsty landscape. The aroma of lightning and wet sage fills the air. Red Indian Paintbrush, Yellow Mustard and Prickly Pear flowers paint the pretty desolation. Welcome to the beauty of Mother Earth and a turquoise Father Sky.

My heart is filled with love for all of God’s creations – for the wailing wind that sings in desert pines. Listen to the old ways when the wasteland shimmers and conjures the past. Like a flickering movie the vision comes alive. My imagination evokes the dreams and they mix with hot summer daylight and rolling thunder. The sweltering sun bakes the land while the thunderhead is an escape from the ultraviolet furnace.

I sweat profusely in the intense dry as the dark rain heads towards my camp. The wind pushes the thunderhead swiftly. The junipers sing with the oncoming assault. Amazing! I’m taking cover in a red nylon tent that flaps and whips violently against the oncoming gusts. The thunderhead descends on my camp ground and strikes full throttle dropping golf-ball-sized rain drops that pound the earth without mercy. The dry beige colored dirt quickly turns dark and saturated rusty brown. A sudden flash of lightning strikes the ground followed by a deafening crack of thunder. As the ground trembles I feel the humbling power of nature.

Thoughts on Patience

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It is a real virtue to remain calm when storms unfold. As you think you are getting old now, just keep advancing forward through different levels of maturity. Then you will look back and realize your own immaturities. You will see that wisdom and love are not derived from arrogance or selfishness. Peace and solitude come from selfless introspection and trying your best at finding a way through darkness and suffering. Sadness plays an important role in your progress through life but true happiness is the beauty that brings balance when struggles abound.

Between Birth and Death

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My love of life is incredible and God made me into a pillar of light. Because I am happy to be free, to roam the quiet folds of reality, to travel the haunted night. I drive a small vehicle down the back roads and dirt roads of a big sky desert. My time is short on earth, but spectacular! When I die, allow the coyotes, buzzards, and varmints to eat my satisfied remains. in the end, I want to give something back to the world of creation that spawned me. How grateful I am to be a part of the grand scheme, from birth to death, in a world of the thriving unknown. Where ghosts lurk behind creaky doors and phantoms float the sandy canyons and the wind truly wails.

Remember Beauty When Feeling Uncertain

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I’m gearing to go somewhere in the next few weeks to go camping for a few days alone. I’m looking at Canyon Lands, or over to Cedar Mesa, by Blanding.

Life is good you know, but times can be rough. That’s why sometimes you have to get out and smell the juniper and pinion, and listen to the wind whistle and cut through pine needles. It is a healing song almost, just to hear the wind and the creaking wood of those old trees. You know what I really love to hear? The thunder late on a summer night, somewhere in Canyon Country, and see the faint flash of lightning in the distance. Think of a flash flood ripping down a slot canyon towards the Pariah, out there on the Great Escalante Grand Staircase. It rattles the earth with boulders, logs, and uprooted trees. The power of this planet is awe-inspiring.

The beauty of life is extraordinary. But we only have a short time on this earth to find harmony. And when I am sad, or lonesome, all I have to do is think of the immense beauty that this world brings to all of us. Surely, I am grateful for such splendors and mysteries.

In a time when materialism and greed dominate the earth, and the heart of mankind is deteriorating at rapid speed, I can think about the quietness that lurks in the shadows and this harmony carries my soft heart away. It is those quiet places that most of us choose to ignore, but something is always there, waiting, unconditionally.

And so when I venture far from town, into the deep woods or into the desert, I feel like I’m going home, especially in these difficult times. They are uncertain times, and I know where beauty is found, it is a quiet peace in my heart that is all-too-hard to describe.

The Mystery is in Control

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I’ve been posting to this blog since 2003. I’ve owned this domain since I was a teen. My heart has changed very little since my younger years. My perception of the world has morphed completely and I’ve come to realize the most spectacular beauty in this world is the Mystery. Allowing things to be dictated by the Mystery always puts me on the right course. Everything happens for a reason and we don’t always know why. It is best to let things move along after leaving a track, a mark, or a simple word, whether it’s for another human being or a group. Life is only complex if you try controlling it. I’m in harmony with my life. It’s lonesome at times, but it has been a good experience.

It is quiet outside… Only the ancient wind howls. It comes to visit in dreams.

Driving into the Desert

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The power lines run alongside the road with each pole leaning one way or the other. They have become a part of the western landscape. Every road follows a string of power lines. Every sunset is filled with airplane exhaust trails.

There is a rooster tail of dirt behind my wheels and I watch the far flung city disappear in my rear view mirror. To the mountains I go, to the lovely isolation. Beneath the fall sky and wintry clouds, the sun is glazing the Great Basin. Somewhere in those Junipers, it is waiting, a place to visit long ago. It’s not hard leaving the madness and bickering behind for the quiet universe. There is a beauty inside that I can never put down. And to the world of rocks, animals, and trees, I go.

Land of the Nuwuvi

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I’m working two jobs at the moment. One is Bar 10, out in the Grand Canyon. The other, Bundu Bashers, out of Park City. My last tour is on the 6th. I guess, I’m done with work for the season. This is a three-day tour beginning when I pick folks up on the Vegas Strip. The first day we visit Zion National Park and Grand Canyon. One of the days we have Navajo guides take them to Antelope Canyon and then over to Monument Valley. On the third day, we go to Horseshoe Bend, Bryce Canyon, and then back to Vegas. For three more hours I drive back up to Cedar City. On the way, I stop at the Moapa Paiute Travel Plaza to gas up and look around the shop.

I’d like to go camping in the Mormon Mountains pretty soon. They are apart of the Mojave desert and north of Moapa. Maybe to a place called Welcome Springs. It’s warm during during the fall and real isolated. For a week I went into that country and never saw another two-legged, just wild horses. Of course that was more in the high country on the way to Pioche, through Rainbow Canyon. In the old west, Pioche was one of the most lawless towns in Navada. It is said that there were more then 75 men killed in shoot-outs before anyone actually died of natural causes.

So after these tours, I’m going to travel the Mojave this next winter. Most of Central and Southern Nevada are part the ancestral homelands of the Nuwuvi, or Southern Paiute. I just finished reading a fictional account of a great Southern Paiute Warrior by the name of Mouse… The chairman of the Moapa tribe is quoted on the back of the book, giving it praise. The author isn’t native. I thought it was pretty good read. Although I know books are all-to-often, subjective. There’s a place in the Valley of Fire, which is also known as the Place of Birth to the Southern Paiute, where Mouse hid out and continually resisted the European invaders in his homeland during the 19th century. He was a thorn in the side of the Mormons that lived in his country. Good for Mouse! If you visit the Valley of Fire, north of the Moapa Indian Rez, there is a place the locals call Mouse’s Tank where he spent his days of resistance. There’s a lot of history in Southern Nevada, and it’s pretty interesting. Most of it is unknown to a lot of people.

Some of the folks are getting to know me at the travel plaza, because of all the stops I make while doing this job. When I was younger though, my cousins, brother, and I, we would usually stop there to load up on fireworks before heading off to go camping. We’d travel to places like Hamblin Valley, or north of Pioche, up into the Pinon country. In the fall, you can gather pine nuts. The Travel Plaza itself, is a truck stop, book store, gift shop, clothing store, casino, and everything else. It has one of the largest stock piles of fireworks in Southern Nevada. Pyro Heaven!

So this winter, I’ll venture where wild horses roam and the wind constantly moves. Nevada is a big sky state. It isn’t hard to get lost while roaming hundreds of miles through the interior. After all the time I’ve spent, I have barely scratched the surface.

Southern Nevada is a land of the Nuwuvi and I will always remember it as such. When I take visitors through, I tell them about the Southern Paiute and the folks that run the Plaza. The last time I was there, I locked my keys in the shuttle van while getting gas. Luckily one of the employees had some knowledge about opening locked doors. He unlaced his shoe and made a noose out of a shoelace. Carefully we pried a side window in the van. He slipped the noose through the opening. It took about an hour before this boy was able to get the noose onto the locking mechanism, and unlock the door. I was amazed!