misplaced mama

Entering Zion.

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The imprints and the spirals and the graph-like squares that adorn the sides of the tight canyon are as miraculous as a human fingerprint, even more so at that large scale.  At moments I see waves and curves that bring me somewhere to the likes of the Caribbean ocean, or a sea of milk chocolate being churned.  The sky is so blue that it makes the orange almost a Technicolor Day-Glo.  And the yellow aspens are as vibrant as lemons.  The light is so clear, so clear. My favorite astrologer Rob Bresney (freewillastrology.com) told me that in the coming weeks I will be communing with nature in ways I have never done before.  I contemplated that for a while.  How could I?  Now the question does not apply.  Again, to be this clear and free, it’s not for me to commune, but to listen.  Nature herself is doing all the rest.

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Wow.  I am just blown away.  I have been in a city for way too long.

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Zion. Named by the first Mormon settlers and translates to a safe and sacred place, a haven or protection.  I’m not always so keen with the Mormons but they picked a perfect name for this land.  Safe like temple, a cave for all of us who need to feel utterly and completely loved. 

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As we walk these canyons I can’t help but feel I am being watched over, looked at, witnessed.  Examined even.  There is this unstoppable urge to explore not only this exterior landscape, but I feel like I am being directed to something less tangible, to go in the interior landscape, inside this Earth, inside myself.  There is no way we are separate and it’s easy to do so.  I easily take the dive.

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Each twist and turn as we elevate and climb, I am overcome with burnt sienna explosions extending out of the brightest color of grass green foliage which includes a variety of plant-life from desert brush to coastal lush. When looking straight ahead and hearing the rush of river water, I could be at a bunch of different places around southern California, or southern Idaho, or even some spots in the greener parts of AZ, but just a quick glance upward and you are taken to another planet.  The formations of these rocks, some of the tallest sandstone cliffs in the entire world…well I have never seen anything like it and I ma not sure I have the vocabulary at this time to describe it. Cathedrals of rainbows, shadows, scoops of dark and light joining in harmony to create echoes for the eyes, never ceasing to stop.  Water seeps out of several faces of the sandstone, soft and porous enough to collect the moisture from snow and rainfall, yet not needy enough to capture it forever. It seeps out, leaking like a filled container, streaming out and forming rivers and waterfalls, emerald pools and mini streams, sandy beaches to roll out and nap on.

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They can trace about 12,000 years back of human history here.  The first people where known as the Virgin Anazazi later to be known as the Puebloans.  The Puebloans, without a trace, disappeared from the area (there is some talk that they suddenly migrated south for unknown reasons as later on the Paiutes claimed to have direct lineage to these Original People of Zion).  But let’s just say they disappeared…somewhat like the Classic Mayan and many other Original Americans.  I used to feel a sick draining of my heart when I think about it; like their life and survival structure collapsed somehow, or was destroyed by some other culture.  But now I feel a bit differently.  I think these people were so close to the rhythm of their ‘external’ living, that they began to erase any duality between their inner and out worlds.  And so they merged as one.

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While driving to Zion I read some personal accounts of “alien” abductions. Snippets of people talking about what their experience was like, most felt as if they were being raped for their emotional capabilities, being poked, prodded and observed.  Each person I read sensed an emotion-less existence from these beings and their longing was to “feel” like we do.  (Interestingly enough, each person also smelled a scent of cinnamon on the skin from these ‘beings’).  These accounts did not sit well with me.  Feeling like indeed there are different life forms which can contact us, but not wanting to believe they come to steal from our mystical DNA, I got freaked.  I was instilled with fear from an unknown source from what I assume is outside myself. And then alternately I read Jung, and his philosophy that “archetypes are primordial psychic pattern of collective unconscious that is at the same time a dynamic agency with intentionality.”   The archetypes loom over a human awaiting their moment to “constellate” in the individual and the collective psyche.  So “aliens’ are just another archetype within the psyche.  They are just another part of me; a part of me which feels unsafe and invaded.

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Thinking about this and then reading Jung:  “not only does the psyche exist, but it is existence itself.”  And then he says, “It is almost an absurd prejudice to suppose that existence can only be physical….We might as well say, on the contrary, that physical existence is a mere interference…” Jung believed that consciousness lived within  in the greater circle of unconsciousness.  And in this great circle there were living creatures of all types, an abundance  beyond anything we can fathom.   All of them part of our unconscious selves.

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And sitting in this grand place, by a rushing river, I wonder.  This is just a part of my psyche, this place, so grand and perfect, pristine and undoubtedly safe and I am not only observing this, I am this observation and it is me. And I wonder, if the Puebloans came to a point of understanding, a complete wholeness, a circle between their environment and themselves; realizing that there needs to be no duality.  Perhaps they did not “leave” this land,  they just finally understood they could become complete within it. 

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I notice more and more the strong structure of faces in each of these rocks.  No doubt is it safe and that I am being watched.  Those are my eyes looking down on me.  I hope to grasp a deeper understanding that this beauty I look at is nothing more than the beauty I am made of, the beauty that I make.

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I understand this obtuse and bizarre.  There is no clear way for me to speak of this yet.  Reading back I sound like I am trippin’ on DMT.  But I promised myself that this travel journal needs to be unedited.  In time, perhaps I can be more concise, clear, interesting.  But for now, this is what comes out of me, and I must accept it.

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We are figuring out the camper thing. I packed too much for the space.  But thus far the stove, oven, fridge and sink all work. Pissing in the composting toilet (aka, a glorified bucket) ain’t much fun, but luckily Zion has public restrooms not far away from our camper.  The piss bucket is good for those late night bladder bursting, since Zion is not a secluded campground, I can’t just squat outside…which I must rather do. Mia casts a fishing pole like a pro, across the river and back for over an hour today.  We watched these incredible jumping spiders while we filled buckets of sand and water and stone, dumped them out and filled them again.  Time just oozed by.  There has been nothing to do, nothing to clean, nothing to fix or prepare for.  We can just sit back and enjoy. 

I’m leaving the desert now. My husband and the girls wave goodbye to the desert growth and the ragged stone mountains and ninety degree temperatures in October. The Upsetters (King Tubby in a Fine Style) play on the Ipod and the sound is smooth and bittersweet. I am munching on the chocolate chip cookies Leigh made us all for the road.

I remember when I first entered the desert almost three and a half years ago. There was this great inner door that got swung wide open. As soon as we crossed over into the vastness, I felt my spirit unlock. Space. Grand, empty space. A blank slate. But on the other hand there was a left-over presence of ancient sea, remnants of salt water still lingered in the air. And I said to myself, to start over. With the little girl slung to my hip, a lover with now short hair, and me in jeans with no tears and the purple die stripped from my hair, we will start over. And thus began a journey of such awakening. Entering a place with two things on our minds: money and security. And now I am leaving today with little of either of those two things and that is okay, because money burns and security can be suffocating. Instead I leave with such love and gratitude and a deep awareness that I have been schooled intensely while living here. I truly leave a better person. Happier, lighter, more authentic, and humbled by the light I have been given by this open desert spirit; she is bronze-skinned, naked except for some suede knee-high boots. She is raw and honest. She has been my goddess guide of the desert, and because of wounds and struggle and painful waiting, she was able to enter in me. The only way she enters is to finally be open and willing to struggle. To be it. To allow other people into it. To befriended the darkness with love.

I leave with the heart prints beautiful people. I will admit, I never thought I could develop such serendipitous friendships as I have here, but I was so very, very wrong. I depart with some of the most profound and healing friendships in my psyche, streaming through my DNA for ever. I was talking to Bill about the kind of person I am. Too gregarious to be an introvert, yet too multi-layered to really let anybody completely in. But I met a few people here who I want to jump in me, to know all of me, to be with me internally and externally forever. These are the people I sit on the porch swing with, age 89, drinking Lynchburg lemonades, and smoking pot from a blown glass bowl. We talk about books and art and grandkids, and how well we are still shitting, and what’s up with sex as old crones. And until that day, we continue to play and explore together, holding red tents and gathering. Watching. Loving. Give thanks to this desert home.

I do not say goodbye well. And so I say Aloha. You all know who you are. ________________________________________________________________________

Damian Jr. Gong Marley blasts on the stereo. I want to pull over and make love to Bill in the worst way right here outside on the side of the road as we cross from desert to juniper, the sky in layers of orange and coral pink and blue. But the girls are still awake. Their faces are covered with chocolate. They sing along in their own version of patois. Everything right now seems perfect and blessed. There is a sense of freedom happening right now between all of us that I have never experienced before. Perhaps the closest I have felt before were those few moments after Sula’s birth, where there was no linear world, only us, and we were everything. That’s what it’s like now. It’s a spell, perfect for the month of October. My favorite month, where my power soars and my confidence is like a mountain. Sula has a witch-like glow to her eyes, she has become older and wiser in the past month, her bangs long and frames her face, she exudes this mystery, and I am in just awe that she came from me. Mia has lost her fears in the last stretch of drive. She has stopped crying and now she stares out the window, mama look at those mountains, those beautiful mountains. She traces her fingers over the glass, outlining the grandness of those ancient formations. We won’t make it to the Grand Canyon tonight. Instead we will sleep somewhere close to the greatest hole in the earth and begin our trek to Zion. I am told I will find true heaven on earth there.

Here is where I woke up this first night. We make oatmeal with vanilla soy milk, raisins and chopped apples fresh from a farm. We sit outside, our skin chilling and tightening, becoming rosy from the new morning sun.