Reflections

All postings that deal with introspection which may include poetry and prose

Speaking of This Beauty

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There are so many good things in life like the sunset that bathes the sandstone mittens of Monument Valley, Arizona, or the soft whistle of a meadow lark on the high desert of Southern Utah. The clouds are constantly changing while the rock filled landscapes change slowly beyond our reality in geological time. It would be a once-in-a-lifetimes experience to witness a natural rock slide from the side of a granite mountain, or weathering mesa. These deserts of the Southwest endure the hottest summers and most frigid winters, but their surfaces soak in the deepest evening sunlight of every sunset, …

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On the Way to Tuba City, AZ

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It was cool enough this morning, but the sun is now cooking the desert alive and I’m sweating pretty badly. Venturing across Navajoland, I come across the aged shell of an abandoned gas station bathed in graffiti. One mural is two large eagle feathers tide together, with the phrase, STILL HERE, sprayed in red paint below. On the other side K-Town is written, slang for Kayenta, a town close to the east. The wind is cutting through the power lines along the highway and the monster cottonwood creaks. There’s a bunch of dogs barking from a nearby residence while an …

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Traveling and Moving Around

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I’ve been moving around the Southwest far from home. The first journey was a 1,600 mile loop around Arizona passing Hoover Dam, traveling along Route 66, down through Prescott, and as far south as Tucson. This is around the time my brother was getting married to a girl from Mesa, Arizona. On the ancient Colorado, I had the opportunity to be Swamper for Arizona River Runners for one trip and worked my tail off. That is because one of the gals that was susposed to go had a medical condition at the last moment. So this oppurtunity was pretty rare …

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Last Day at Bar 10, Tomorrow

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Well it’s my last two days at the ranch, ten miles from Grand Canyon. Where my path goes from here, is unknown. Bruce at Arizona River Runners is giving me the chance to run the Colorado this summer. It looks like a dream coming true, finally! After an experience on the river, I’ll have enough material to stay busy writing for a while. Tomorrow is the last day for me, so I’ll make it the best one of them all. Today, the desert was a furnace. The mens bunkhouse felt like a greenhouse in Death Valley. There’s honey bees and …

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Bad News

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Every river company I have spoken with have no volunteer work available for folks like me. Yet, river guides like Tom Vail are telling me that I must go down the river 6-10 times as a volunteer before I can be considered for any real job on the river. Maybe I’ll go down the Colorado like good old Buzz Holmstrom; a man with real courage, who by himself, traversed the entire length of the Grand Canyon. It’s larger then life and I am forced to dream. I’m tired of dreaming, I want a piece of the action, thrill, and beauty. …

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Shouting to River Runners

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Peace is in the canyon in clouds passing over massive sandstone and limestone ledges. All is quiet, far from city noise. The deep waters of the Rio Colorado fill the inner gorge as ravens plane the blue sky catching thermals of late winter air. Cloud and cliff shadows mix. In the next few hours private river runners will come around the bend and reach mile marker 187. We will shout hello to them and wave frantically. They’ll raise their oars and shout back, then continue their fourteen day journey to the bottom of the canyon to Lake Mead. I love …

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Surviving In a World of Suffering

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I know what hides from most human beings and its realm is the vast wilderness. Humans have been separating themselves from the experiences of their ancestors. Most of them no longer retain even a hint of their original life ways. We have all lost track of why we are on this planet, which is our mother. Now, we have become so entangled by our own culture of mass consumption. We have forgotten our responsibility to the earth, and our relationship with the rest of creation. We have been cutting off this connection for very long time now, for hundreds of …

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Far from Civilization

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Last week the boss gave me a chance to go out alone on a quad, so I packed some food, water, and a camera and left to explore some of the real remote parts of the Grand Canyon. I stopped and looked out over Parashant Canyon, went up to Whitmore Point, and explored countless ranch roads. There is nothing like feeling solitude in the most isolated pockets of Grand Canyon. You don’t feel the same when others are with you. The beauty and aloneness is unrivaled. I spent the majority of time scouting cliff edges, deep ravines, and spiraling canyons. …

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Fact is Stranger then Fiction

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I am always reminding myself that fact is stranger then fiction, it gives me the ability to have faith in the unbelievable. It is not hard to feel the power of this world, but the truth isn’t always in reach. There is a strong force running through my veins to seek the unknown. I have the oppurtunity to experience the world, by the grace of God, and seek infinite truth. Life itself is a miracle and a mystery. The quote below is from a movie titled; Second Hand Lions. It carries a lot of weight in my book. Truth is …

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Looking for Pollywogs

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Tonight’s an evening at the ranch that becomes eerie. We left the lodge late in the afternoon to catch spade-footed pollywogs at a nearby pond. We started telling stories about shapeshifters, if you know what I mean? It’s not easy sleeping when you dwell on such things. Crickets and frogs start sounding louder. Every little movement, voice, drop of water, becomes an atmospheric sound scape. The night is surreal. I’m sleeping a lone out in the bunk house; no crew are staying over. Just the boss, his wife, and me. As we strolled into the ranch after dark, all the …

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One Expensive Mistake

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It is exhilarating to live far from the fenced confines of the “sophisticated’ modern world. The Grand Canyon is a mystery. It is far from the reality of the miserable suit and tie people. This morning I flew into the canyon by chopper, with a pilot named Rahn. We were supposed to pick up river runners on the Colorado. They never showed up. We sat down there for an hour and a half, visiting, waiting, talking about religion, life, and our different views on the existance of God. We decided to fly up the river to see if there were any rafts headed our way. It turns out …

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Living in Isolation

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I’m out living, working, and breathing isolation every day now. My life is far from a phony reality that once enslaved my poor spirit. I’m on the edge of the enourmous Grand Canyon now and hear the  wind, and the lonesome happy singing of gentle ravens gliding along buttes of Hermit Shale, Toroweap Sandstone, and Kiabab Limestone. The Creosote bushes span as far as the horizon. So many cacti cover the lower portions of the Canyon; three species of Prickly Pear, Hedgehog Cactus, Barrel Cactus, and Fishhook Cactus. Spanish Bayonet, also known as Banana Yucca intermix with creosote, sage, Ephedra Bush, and Desert Holly. Jimson Weed (Datura) grows everywhere, around the ranch, over by the hen …

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Heart of the Great Basin

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The stars stand bold against trees. The fire is dancing. The smoke drifts in my direction and soaks into my skin. This is a quiet moment in the Great Basin; where the little people roam the night. These individuals are knee tall. They move through the juniper mountains like ants. I can hear their whisperings, as they work in busy networks… preparing for what may come this way, someday… The thunder storms of summer claim these valleys and the thunderheads are in control. Bolts of lightning draw near, and slam the earth. At night the sky seems to clear, but …

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Working on the Arizona Strip

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My new life began on the Arizona Strip about a week and a half ago. I’m working 8-9 miles from the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon at Bar10 ranch. The Arizona Strip is one of the most isolated places in the United States, and it has been called the Tibet of North America, because it is one of the most uninhabited places by human population. The problem lays in the fact there is no water on the strip except for a few springs here and there. The Heatons own this ranch, which spans about 250,000 acres large. They have …

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The Landscape and its History

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That subliminal quiet is stirred only by ancient winds. The rocks are timeless, squared away to outlast the human element. Passing through Juniper I observe enormous balloon clouds hovering over the tips of the mountains. Looking out across the valley below, I see the rust stained foothills where one of Southwestern Utah’s largest petroglyph sites lay, a place known as the Parowan Gap. Some say the ageless writing spans 12,000 years ago in age. I’ve heard that the Paiutes say that they were written by the Creator. Others say they were inscribed by tribes coming from the far east on …

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Dreaming of the Afterlife

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A boy sat outside the village looking at the grave yard at the mesa’s edge. “What ever happened to the dead?” he pondered. “Are they living some where else far away?” Skeletons walking around after the day turns to night inspires the boy to dream of the darkness and deepness of rivers. “Are the dead living somewhere else?” Out on the mesa edge he prays every morning. He prays, waiting for the sun to come up; to come over and talk to him. Every night, he dreams of the medicine that will make him dead. He wants to go see …

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The Early Morning

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dark rain clouds wander the blue sky making the dream come alive a vision of the land singing Then cries the raven from its hollow in the knarled tree that twists its branches into the ancient wind Thunder echoes way across the desert yonder farther than the eyes can see The black rock was the blood of that ancient beast that was slain so long ago the locust begin buzzing and an eagle heralds the dawn when that sun peaks up over the rim of mountains the clouds catch pink-red rays The old man pulls up his trousers because of …

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Elbow Canyon Excursion

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the Hard blue sky on a hot day tires me, under the sweltering bright fire of the sun. I’ve been on this dirt trail for hours inside a cab that lacks basic air conditioning. I started my journey crawling slowly through a valley of creosote southeast of Littlefield, Arizona. It is about 1000 feet above sea level. I was heading towards the mountains that border the western flank of high desert known as the Arizona Strip country. I approach Elbow Canyon, which is one of the rockiest roads I have taken this rig on; jagged and short switchbacks lead all …

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Storms of Summer, Finally Here

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The drumming rain surrounds the little adobe this summer eve. In the morning the rising sun soaks the clouds in radiant light. The sun finally breaks from shadow, and dark golden light warms the window. Just before everything awakens, I take a morning stroll smelling the wet sage and creosote. The red rock landscape is burning fire red in morning twilight. Thunderclouds hug the mountains in the distance. All these mourning doves have made their encampment around my quarters, enclosed by a few cottonwood. Around 8 or 9 P.M. a mourning dove flies into the door hatch and pokes its …

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Sun in a Quiet World

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I travel far from the city. I leave the colony. I am moving away from this community of people. They all struggle as I do. I am apart of them in their world. They are wired like me. There’s no escaping the machine. Yet, every trip away from the colony becomes one little victory over the machine. If you head to the mountains, alone, and stay out there long enough, it starts to change you. I’ve gone into the wild enough that I have many stories and experiences to share with my children, and grand children, if I am still …

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1987 Suzuki Samurai

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I’ve done two crazy things in one month. I traded a DSLR while bartering for a 4×4 and sold my notebook for off-road tires. So it’s back to the library when I need to update. For a desert dweller it is justified. The 1987 Suzuki Samurai is a great 4×4. My cousin says it goes places that his Jeep cannot because it’s compact. It ain’t no speed demon, it tops about 65 miles an hour, 70 on a lucky day. It does have a new engine. There are places that I have visited that were once inaccessible, I had missed out on …

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Something at Indian Peak

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Whatever it was it was moving through the trees in our direction. All the small pinion saplings had been stripped from their tips. Maybe this is what engaged our imaginations? But the sound of snapping dead wood and breaking branches grew steadily. Perhaps it was coming from the limestone caves on the mountain above? The first time my cousin heard the comotion he came stumbling over the top of the hill asking me if I had heard it. Then we both froze in silence and I shouted in the direction of the noise. Both of us bolted back down to the Jeep in the wash below the hill. We didn;t hesitate. This was somewhere near …

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The Unknown River

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I go to a secret place, alonem amd sit on a ledge above the canyon labrynth choked with brush. The numerous finger canyons remain unknown to most. In the summer, the heat soars into the triple digits. Winter is the best time venture in this area, because the Mojave Rattlers hibernate. It is rich with human prehistory. I listen for those that once lived here, and died here. I feel the warmth of the canyon. It is incredible. It starts to get late in the evening, the sun fades. The skeletal mysteries of the night begin to creep. I listen carefully for the noise of the …

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Ravens on the Arizona Strip

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An Amazing world, this little earth strange and magnificent. We were headed to Toroweap Thousands of ravens planed the sky against orange and yellow clouds. They followed us. Timeless things await. So, how do humans stew over the most simple things, such as daily life in a town? I refuse to assimilate. The raven windows the harsh beauty. Arizona Strip, unmolested enjoyed by few ranches, modern homesteads. She still sings the old way. Vivid dreams of Pinion ignite. Simply colorful and intriging. Virmillion Cliffs radiate. Cold wind howls in the pines. Smell fresh winter rain. We passed under raging cloudbursts, …

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The Desert Calls

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His pillow is an ancient cottonwood. Wind pushes gigantic branches. He loves the twisted tree. His bare feet sift cold yellow sand. The clumps of grass push against his back. The ground is wet and moist from a previous storm. The boy sleeps to the constant summer wind and the singing creek near the reeds.. Just around the corner, big plateaus devour the landscape. He dreams of them. The cottonwood knows and sees everything. Listen to the wind as it travels through the canyons. He’s standing on the top of a butte looking out across Canyon Country. In the distance …

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My Job is Over

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Bad news. It turns out that I won’t be working at the gift shop. The owner hires me, only to have second thoughts and tells me that he can’t afford to hire another employee. So tonight I was a little depressed feeling bad, because I was actually anticipating this job and would’ve enjoyed it. Cookies like me are tough, they never give up! Life is unpredictable. Working there can remain a good memory, but I am not going to let it sadden me any further. The passed week I’ve been missing Flagstaff. Ed Little’s photos of the Peaks are a …

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Travelers

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Going back in time, the soft clouds rewind quickly to those passed centuries. The sky is glowing and the power is sweet. Here they come, people moving across the land, carrying their babes, moving to lower ground for the winter. The sky is always turquoise blue, and the junipers grow wild. They travel passed the red cliffs and head into the Black Ridge country on their way to the land of the whipping sands. Soft and vivid dream quiet like the groves of cottonwood grandpas swaying in the steady wind. The wind pushes the billowing clouds through traveling sky. Locusts …

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A Beautiful Reminder

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There is too much beauty in life to take for granted. So when life seems heavy, stop for a moment to listen to the wind sifting through the pines, or the clouds rolling and tumbling in the sky. Earth is a peaceful sphere. The universe that she travels through is endless. Trillions of unknown things abide in space and we barely know a few. Be glad that the Creator has given us this dwelling place, with warm sunshine to fall upon us each day. The sky above us is turquoise blue, and that is something to be thankful for. The …

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An End to the Occupation

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In my waking life, I move about like everybody else. I hear the constant sounds of reality, but my mind is somewhere else. My hopes are on a higher plane, like the lonesome eagle gliding on the wind. Feeling very content, I can safely say that the world needs a change. With all the loud things that plug up everyday life, severe isolation tends to be very enticing to me. My dreams cannot compete with the current trends of this society. I am here, but I am not really here. It is more like I am praying for the current …

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Nate the Lonesome Critter

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I may be working in a tourist trap of a turquoise outlet pretty soon. The big cheese came closer to hiring me today. It is a decent atmosphere to work in. Chimes ring, native flute music plays in the background, and the roaring traffic of Saint George looms outside. I’m talking to the manager, just getting to know him one on one. I spoke with one of the fellow employees too. It turns out that she likes to rock-hound a lot. Neat! Anyways, I’ll see what happens. This will definitely beat the Lowe’s job I had before, where they were …

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