Morning Day 6: I awake and send my text “I am still alive.” My eyes are feeling surprisingly better as I peer outside the tent, except for that extreme sensitivity to light. I put on sunglasses, a hat, and a scarf over the hat or minimize the light. The smoke from the California fires continues to hang like amber gauze over the valley. There is still an absence of wind, at least for the time being, so I decide to move camp to a sheltered area in the gully below. There are some pinion and juniper trees down there for shade. I think the exposed mesa has played its part. I am humbled, put in my place, notified of the thin line of life and death, of the gift of my senses, of my false gods.
Having to rest my eyes often, breaking down camp is slow going. I find the Jeep and drive it up to the cliff camp. I carefully untie the ropes that secure my tent. I thank the rocks and the Yucca plant that aided in this endeavor. “Thank you for keeping me from going over the cliff! Seriously. Thank you and you and you!” I breakdown the tent and my tarp lean-to. I lift the heavy 5-gallon water containers that have helped to weigh down my tent in the storm and pack them in the Jeep. I could have carried everything down the hill and feel a bit like I am cheating using my vehicle, but I am still weak from the past few days. When I’m all packed I turn the Jeep around, carefully, trying not to flatten my tires with an innocent cactus or back off the cliff. In my rear view mirror I catch a glimpse of a massive rainbow. I get out and take a photo of the Jeep and the rainbow above the, now empty, campsite. So grateful for the part this mesa has played.
I am tempted to seek out new places. I know there are backcountry spots to camp in, but I’m not sure where they are. I do not want to turn this trip into a sightseeing operation and lose focus. I decided to stay close, to stay in the area I know. So I pull to a stop in about 400 yards and get out.
It takes me multiple trips to unload what I need for the new location. In the process I happen to notice old dried out deer scat and mountain lion scat. The presence of a mountain lion gives me a start. I look closely to make sure I am right. Yup. Lion scat. On the upside the scat is old. It has turned grey, bleached by the sun. The prints are also faded, the mud that molds them crumbling away. These creatures obviously pass through this area, but it does not look like either deer or lion has a permanent home here. Thank God! By being in this desert unarmed, except for a knife and bear spray, I am pretty much putting myself in the category of prey. One of my friends likes to say that “word travels fast” in the wilderness, basically meaning that all of the animals in the area know about human visitors shortly upon arrival. I might not see them, but they see, smell, hear me. I do not want to intrude unnecessarily or place myself in an unsafe situation, like right next to a mountain lion den. I laugh at this. Nothing about spending 40 days in the desert in August has been safe.
Monsoon clouds peak over the distant mountains so I speed up the search. I find an area with a fire ring, which is the symbol in the Mojave Preserve brochure for “disturbed area, permission to camp.” I set up my tent and then set my blanket under a small pinion tree and rest my eyes.
Trees in the desert are very slow growing because of the sparse rain. These trees are all small, maybe ten to twelve feet high. Short trees in comparison to what we think of regular towering forest pines. They look like younger trees because of the size, but are probably hundreds of years old. They can live as long as eight hundred to a thousand years. What have they experienced living here for so long? Are they tickled by the wind and soothed by the morning sun? Can they have a web of underground communication? Or are they alone, standing silent and still, watching the sun rise and set for a thousand years?
The monsoon took a sharp left and headed away from me, clouds move strangely in this valley. Now it is noon and the temperature has climbed to hundred degrees again. I sit close to the trunk of the pinion to get the most from the shade while eating my trail-mix lunch. After being in a nearly comatose state for three days my mind is now racing with thoughts. I think of the story of Buddha, a prince who left all of his luxuries behind to wander and ultimately study with a hardcore group of ascetic monks. These monks were possibly from the ancient Jain tradition in India, whose latest enlightened being, the Mahavira, was a contemporary of Buddha. The Jains would stand naked in the elements for days in attempts to attain illusive spiritual insights. According to the Jains these practices have taken place for thousands of years producing dozens of enlightened beings and teachers, “Tirhankara.”
The prince took a break from the physical stress to sit under a tree for relief, found enlightenment, became “The Buddha” and proposed a “middle path” where one does not need to punish one’s self harshly in the quest for spiritual knowledge. I think about this in relation to what I have just experienced and what lies ahead and laugh at myself again. I think of the Mary Oliver poem Wild Geese:
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on…
I stop there because a part of me cannot just let the world go on. I fear where it is heading. I have seen as a child a glimpse at the way it could be. So I am going to walk this hundred miles through the desert on my knees. Sorry Mary. Sorry Buddha. I am going to go as far as I can, no matter how hard.
The camp I am in now has been used by hunters. This saddens me. I find spent shells scattered about and some old beer cans in a fire pit. I think about the deer and mountain lion tracks. Deer and lion is a symbiotic relationship that involves violence to maintain balance for their own survival and that of their ecosystem. I think of the human use of hunting. How have we lost our balance? Some hunters today are mindful, hunting for food and not just for sport. Others do not care if they are taking aim at the last of a species. In indigenous cultures hunting was not done purely for sport, to hang a trophy on the wall. It was for necessity and the life of the animal hunted was given great respect.
In Islamic Sharia Law (which is a collection of moral principles taken from the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad) hunting for sport is forbidden and how and why animals are hunted is very specific. A hadith of the Prophet Muhammad records him teaching that someone who kills even a sparrow for no reason will have that sparrow answer for them on Judgment Day. In the Jain tradition killing anything, even plants, is regarded as violent and minimizing violence is a lifelong goal. For Jains it is better to eat a piece of fruit that has naturally fallen to the ground then pulling it from the tree. In the Christian mantra of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” I interpret “others” to be all others, not just human others.
Only months ago I was studying in India with those same Jain monks. They have given up all attachments, even clothing. The Jains monks are so committed to non-violence or “ahimsa” that during the raining season they do not walk anywhere for fear of stepping on an insect. They are, of course, vegetarian. Their lives are dedicated to non-violence. Their texts are dedicated to non-violence. Theirs are the fundamental concepts of non-violence that Gandhi utilized.
In the United States, we rarely think about the violence that accompanies our food or clothing; the birth defects resulting from pesticides sprayed by foreign commercial farming conglomerates in South America or the conditions of trafficked laborers sewing our jeans. In the United States, we are hidden from the price of sacrifice and death, purchasing meat in sanitary plastic wrap, already butchered. Our vegetables have already been pulled from the ground and washed, the dirt removed, heaven forbid we find a caterpillar on our spinach. We pull pristine water from ancient aquifers to flush down our toilets. How long can we maintain turning the other way for our own convenience? The United States of Ostriches, burying our heads in the sand to keep from witnessing our massive impact on the Earth. My apologies to the Ostrich species for the metaphor.
I will try to follow aspects of many spiritual paths on this journey. As for the Jain path I will attempt to leave as little trace as possible. I will look carefully when setting up my tent and blanket so as not to disturb anything on the ground. I will walk mindfully. I will eat only dried fruits and nuts and seeds and other vegetarian items that I brought with me. I will keep my foraging to a minimum. I will use water sparingly. When getting overheated I will sit in the shade. Thank you Buddha. I would love to have campfire every night to soften the darkness and make me feel safe, but I will not. Campfires are very disruptive and frightening to the surrounding wildlife. If I am here to commune with nature, why frighten it away with smoke and flame? Plus, I would be devastated to start a fire that I am not able to contain! This part of the Mojave suffered horribly several decades ago and, with the changes in climate, may never recover. The ancient pinion and juniper may never grow back. I desire to be a participant in this wild community, not a disruptive tourist.
I lie on my blanket a dirty, sweaty mess, far from the over sanitized world I am accustomed too. A vulture circles high above me. Gradually is makes its way closer. I realize it is checking me out. I must smell that good. I wave my arms at it and yell “I am not dead yet!” It goes away. This vulture, or one of its kind will visit me every day for the rest of my time in the desert, a daily reminder that I am now part of the symbiotic life and death existence in the desert.
That evening massive clouds are forming again on the horizon. As I am putting the rain fly on my tent an owl swoops silently over my camp. I notice only because I see a rabbit out of the corner of my eye freeze in its tracks. It looks up. I look up. There is the owl.
Everyday I will tell the vulture the same thing “I am not dead yet!”
Every night owl will swoop over my camp.
I will listen to its haunting calls as I fall asleep.
They become the bookends of my day.
I am held in a parenthesis between vulture and owl,
scavenger and hunter.
Myself on the desert floor like a rabbit.