Reflections

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

Unplugging My Life

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I am getting burned out on college life, though it is something I don’t mind. Knowing that my mom and dad read this blog, I am going to be careful about what I say. That is why I have an anonymous blog. I love my parents, but at the same time, I like some privacy. I need a change. Maybe I’ll do some sheep herding this summer? When lambing season starts next spring, I may call the Burtons in Parowan and ask for some work… THINGS ARE MUNDANE, so I’m looking for interesting things to do. I’m looking for work …

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Ghost Stranger

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The horned creature draws near His eyes sockets are filled with dust. Something dashes through through the trees, laughing The visitor has come. The painted female and male are holding hands. The thunderbird dances. The images are animating. The pinions grow exceptionally thick. The dead are visible from other dimensions. The crickets chant. Fearless whispers draw near. Harrowing creatures wallow close. I hear the creek sifting the ancient rocks. The horned one is looking at me. Dust filled eye sockets.

Edge of Silence

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Little painted creatures crawl down dark canyon walls. The creek is trickling. Crickets hum. The tower of stars ignite. Deep twinkling universe erases time, and fills empty space with the ages. Long ago, little people came here, passed through here, and their spirit remains. Images dance across the stone panels. The visions are possessive, intoxicating. At night, during sleep paranormal entities speak of long ago. I dream of a Pinion skeleton against hard turquoise sky… …I think of a lone coyote shrouded by night, cut off from the pack. I’m glaring into the campfire, thinking that he may come into …

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Sudden Changes

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It felt like summer again, here in Saint George. Last night it was real mild. I’m heading north this weekend to spend some time with my grandparents. Last night I drove west of Saint George, into Nevada again, just to go see some Joshua Trees out there. Man is it an amazing lost world. There is so much beauty, The highway cuts through the desert, but it still feels primordials. At home last night, I did some writing on my computer, and ate Pinion Nuts while enjoying the late night warmth. It is the middle of October and feels like …

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Ghost Piano

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I can smell the rotting wood floor, warped by a hundred years. The roof of the skeleton is still up, but a whole corner of the building is caved in. Bats hang in the corners, mice scurry underneath. I lift up some rusty sheet metal and a kangaroo rat darts blindly into the desert. The wind beats the old building and it creaks and groans with pain. A tumble weed runs through the center of town. There?s no humans here, no cars, but mine. Off in the distance bone colored mountains dance on the surface. There are no clouds in …

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Absolute Silence

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There was an old man up there on the mountains near New Harmony. He had a long white beard, was missing a few teeth, but had the deepest gaze of any human being. He wouldn?t say a word, but he would wave, smile, and continue on in his routine. He lived in a parked trailer near the edge of a creek, and drove around in an old Chevy caked in mud. I never had the courage to go visit him, but he soon disappeared and I never saw him again. That canyon is now empty and quiet. When I go …

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Edward Abbey

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Another person to educate your self about is Edward Abbey, a father to the Environmental Movement. I’ve read his books Desert Solitaire, and The Monkey Wrench Gang. Both demonstrate Edward’s intense love for the wilderness, but they also expose his racism towards Indigenous People, and his view that the wilderness was “untouched.” After reading these two books though, I feel that Cactus Ed was more then just some rugged individualist. They say he offended everybody, but the truth is, there’s no excuse for racism, bigotry, or intolerance. To the oppressive and colonial powers, and to Manifest Destiny, it sure must …

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Above Navajo Lake

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The gnarly bristlecone stands mighty on the rocky ledge beneath tremendous, galactic clouds. The clouds are merging into a great mother ship descending upon the high country. Beneath the ridge grow vast isolated groves of Aspen, patched with sprawling open meadows; the rest of the landscape is covered in old timber, and within certain areas, has been attacked by the bark beetle. If you visit places like Brian Head, twenty miles east, it looks like a cemetary of trees. Down the backside of this ridge, nestled in a small mountain valley is the natural forming, Navajo Lake. It?s a slender, …

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The Daydream

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In a classroom, the professor’s voice becomes background interference. My mind is somewhere on the landscape, far off in the Great Basin of Nevada. Those big cities become ghost towns. Wind and dust pass through the shattered windows of empty skyscrapers. There’s no electricity anywhere, except for one buzzing radio sucking on its last drop of current. The storm grows enormous, sweeping across the landscape, causing everything to disappear. I’m dreaming of the deepness of rivers, and skeletons moving through the darkness of night. Sand is blowing from the dunes in summer. The Ocean’s flooding the coastlines. Hurricanes and tornadoes …

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The Wanderlust Grows

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The wanderlust returns? For now though, I am enjoying my schooling in Saint George. I am home in Southern Utah. I think I have found my niche in the arts. For the first time this semester I am taking art classes at the beginning level: oil painting, watercolor, and drawing; except for advanced photography. These classes are giving me instruction in areas where my talents are now being challenged. An oil painting class at the beginning level is a struggle. Yet today, I was painting and noticed that everything was falling into place. I had my own style. It actually …

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Everett Ruess Days

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This looks like this is right up my alley, I’m going to it! I have a lot of respect for Mr. Everett Ruess. I read his wilderness journals a few times, after a close relative recommended his writings to me. In all honesty, I have to give credit to Everett for being a major inspiration, and role model. I share a lot of affinity with his ideas, and his outlook! Plus, he ventured into the same wilderness that I love so much. He heard the wilderness calling him. If you hear it calling, BEWARE! At the age of twenty, Everett …

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Shadows of the Land

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I am leaving home to be with the wild, the wind. I am leaving my comfort for the darkness of the earth and sky. Deep starry nights are singing. The desert is calling. There’s patience in my planning, but the time draws near. No one understands the mysteries of the world, or why the heavens weep. No one really sees the hidden mysteries. You have to drop the weight that drags you down. There is only one way to dream. The desert is calling. The land is going to tranform. The old way lives in my heart. My spirit is …

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Reminding Myself

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In those sleeping hills time does not exist. When I’m in isolation, I’m alone within the corners of God’s imagination. Below the shifting sand, I ponder previous worlds wherein mankind went absolutely crazy, and vanished. I think of the wide gaping mouth of the Grand Canyon in Arizona and the many quiet places still remaining in this world of bus and computer. But man is becoming evermore crazy. A mystery is drawing nearer, but remains patient. A thunderstorm brings the roaring rain upon housetops. Thunder reverberates through ancient canyons. Unknown rivers flow down unknown channels. This is the constant vision …

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Tsosie

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I sheep herded a few years back and worked for Burtons Livestock, out of Parowan, Utah. I couldn’t wait for lambing season to be over, to move the sheep up on the mountain. For a couple of weeks, I could enjoy the aspen and pine before my job was done. The nights spent up there were always magnificent; a billion stars lit the sky, and the pines sung like rivers. I worked with and enjoyed the company of my friend, Tsosie, a 67 year old Navajo sheepherder. It’s been a few years since I last spoke with him. He had …

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The Howling Wind

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The pine trees howl with wind as it whips through the forest and cloud ships sail above the evergreen steeples. That bristlecone sky is ageless. The sticks crack beneath my feet. The forest howls like river rapids. I set the camping pack against a tree, lie down on the forest floor and close my eyes. As the tireless river flows like violent waves crashing into a sandy beach at midnight. The water is restless as if waiting to drown the living. But it is peaceful and enormous. The boundary of reality fades, and the mystery washes me away to a …

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Watching the Chimpanzees

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Chimpanzees are genetically 98% similar to human beings. That makes them the closest living relative to the human race. So why isn’t this okay? Is science really challenging religion? Or are we just keeping our minds closed to the evidence that is out there? Humans act similar to Chimpanzees. When the human male wants to show that he is stronger then another individual, he’ll demonstrate this by throwing objects at the floor, or raising his voice, or will act in an aggressive manner. This is the way that Chimpanzees behave. So what is the difference between us and them? They …

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To Coyote

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Coyote, wild and brave, thank you for coming within throwing distance of my camp that night. I was thrilled by the yips and howls of your siblings. There was an E.T. moon above the junipers, on that plateau near the Grand Canyon. I wanted to leave camp and walk in your direction, just seeing how close I could get before getting spooked.

Red Intoxication

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Cloud shadows ascend castling red cliffs. I’m beneath those sailing clouds as they travel the dense blue sky. The red desert is infinite to my measly existence. Traveling down highway 89, across Dinetah, I cannot keep my eyes off the desert landscape of tall cliffs, sandstone stairways, and thick bedrock. Little Hogans stand beneath large rock faces, and steep inclines that cast their dark shadows. It’s not necessarily the geology of Northern Arizona that steals my breath, nor the process of how the Navajo Sandstone was formed, or how the Moenkopi formation came to be, or how the Painted Desert …

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Oh Beautiful Toroweap!

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Out there, the desert whirl winds pass across white, cracked wastlands, beneath turquoise sky; sending tumble weeds into flight and stirring thick clouds of fine dirt. There are ranchers somewhere in those foothills below Mt. Trumbell. I am betting over half of them have never seen the Toroweap Overlook of the Grand Canyon. They’ve spent their whole lives ranching, farming, and taking care of livestock, but they really haven’t seen the complete beauty of this landscape or what hides in it? When my grandfather was a boy, he ran sheep out on the Arizona strip. He wandered all over the …

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About Northern Arizona

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Sometimes, I feel caught up in a doomed system, or that I am about to fail myself. But when I see beautiful rock formations and the nimble clouds as they pass through the heavens, I am reminded that life is so beautiful; that to keep going is the ultimate goal. Now I just need to vent, maybe even in an abstract way. That is what this journal is for… The sky is deep black, and I am seeing the infrared trees. I am crossing the wasteland that stretches farther then the eye can see. The desert shrubs and creosote speak …

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Do they have Souls?

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Yes, I believe that all living things have a soul. The defining characteristic for this is that most creatures have a desire to survive and reproduce, or at least the ability to do such. It is also my assumption that there doesn’t need to be a mother-child bond within every living species either. Most mammals would share this trait, but it may only play a small role in the kigdom of life. I also believe that plants and trees have deep spirits, but they don’t provide for, or take care of their offspring. Here’s a prime example of what I’m …

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Enter into Timelessness

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There is no time in the wilderness. Those red cliffs are older then human evolution. In so-called geological time, it takes millions of years to erode away mountains and create plateaus. A sandstone ridge shades twisted Junipers, and within their scaly branches, the wind never stops. Clouds constantly shift above the plateau, creating shapes that appear once, never to be seen again. They say if a tree falls over in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, should it matter? If a rockslide drops a million tons sandstone, does it matter? And does it matter that the …

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A Mysterious Grandmother

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The cloud shadows pass through my mind, through my spirit like flickering light. I venture into a trance-like day dream, somewhere quiet, deep into the dreamer’s wilderness. There are no cities, no structures, except black desert shadows trailing from the hot sun. The planet is a hearth of quiet suspension. I can meditate on what happened so long ago. There is nothing in my existence more powerful then the turning wind, and the flow of natural elements. Neither is there anything more great than the turquoise sky, and the deep sandstone canyons. Except for the image of an old rusty …

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My Second Week in Flagstaff

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In Flagstaff, Arizona, I’ve been taking a Navajo History class at the college. Tonight I learned one of the original names for the San Francisco Peaks. The Navajo call them Dookoosliid, and yellow is their color. The peaks are sacred. Dookoosliid is the western boundry of Dinetah, the homeland of the Navajo People. Tonight, radiant yellow clouds glistened above the San Francisco Peaks. They were yellow, and then dark orange. Soon, everything turned into a soft purple glow as the sun disappeared. I want to hear the wind whip and howl through the pines, through the darkness of these woods. …

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Untitled

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In the dark mansion of space I ponder the old ways of this world. Will we ever return? What are humans without? With every traffic noise and every humming car The silence remains there afterwards. A silence greater then humans. The pine tree quietly waits, the forest is waiting. The mountains keep covered secrets. There is a greater cause weaving into us, illusions or truths. With every lifestyle and luxury, Death eventually comes to everyone. Death converts humans to the quietness… of the flowing river, and the natural flow. I’m waiting for the mystery to carry me away over vast …

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Moving to Flagstaff, Arizona

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I have lived a total of six days in Flagstaff now. I don’t know what to think of this place yet? I love the singing Ponderosa Pine that engulf the sprawling town. There are so many trees, that I couldn’t even find my way around. A few times, I got lost. This town is actually environmentally friendly; at least when compared to the towns of Utah. A lot of ravens take up residency too. It’s a quiet place, except for the trains. They sound their horns at all hours. It isn’t bothersome though. Compared to Southern Utah, this area is …

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Towards Them Hills, I Go

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In a heart beat, I’d rip down the walls of square existence, and all of civilization, in exchange for simple beauty. My own shadow speaks. My enemies are those that destroy beauty. I leave town with pop in my jug and the cool wind coming through the window. Towards the rolling hills I go, covered with dense Juniper, and Pinion Pine, where cloud shadows twist and roll. My pop jug is full of Mountain Dew; and I’m feeling the cold air hitting my face. I?m happy and humble. The desert clouds hum above my car, as it travels down the …

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Introspection: Am I a Hermit?

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I was talking with my grandpa today, about hermits, those bearded men that still seem to haunt the mountains living in makeshift huts or sheep camps. He said I ought to take my camera and go photograph the few that I’ve come by and try to capture them in their routine. Of course I’m wandering if this would be considerate or respectful towards them? I assume that these folks live in the hills because maybe they don’t want anything to do with civilization. These individuals truly live in the quiet places, yet, I don’t quite understand where they may be …

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Peering Into the Unknown

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Stars and quasars burn forever, like candles, in the stillness of the universe. Beyond the earth’s atmosphere, the universe is teaming with hidden activity. Undocumented life forms dwindle and cluster in the dark crevices of outer space. Their intelligence sometimes exceeds ours and they play with our imaginations. They have always known us and they visit the earth like tourists and vacationers. Every now and then, strange lights are seen on the desert, and appear when they think no one is near. Aliens have been coming to the earth for a long time, always leaving us with mystery. The desert …

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Recognize the Beauty

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When humanity becomes too noisy; forget the contests and debates of human existence. Venture into the shadows of this quiet world. If you go to the farthest boundries of the wilderness, or into your own imagination, always remember, that you are lucky to be in a beautiful world. It never leaves your side. The Earth, the forest, the desert, is an entity that cares for you. Whether you’re lost in the confusion of some conflict, or basking in the moments of peace, you are always valuable, and indispensable in the face of the Creator.

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