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.