The smell of rain in the desert is my favorite smell on earth. If I could I would bring back a handful of dirt and a stem of creosote bush and put it all on your shower floor, only then might you know; hot earth, cool rain, explosion of vibrantly fresh, super condensed chlorophyll!
Day 7
It has rained overnight and the scent of wet earth and foliage still permeates everything. I am awakened by a strange scraping and grinding sound just a few yards from my tent. I peek out and see a rabbit chewing the bark off of a dead branch. It is really going at it. I try to get a better look but I make too much noise adjusting my position. The rabbit freezes and stares in my direction and then bolts off. I notice a couple more rabbits also sprint for cover. I have been assessed as a potential threat and evasive action has been taken.
I stretch my sleepy body, throw on a fleece for the cool morning, and move to the fire pit. Now that there is no wind I can use my camp stove to make tea! Tea seems like such an amazing luxury after my first week of scarcity. I light my tiny camping stove with a one-inch square fuel cube. This is the most non-invasive minimalist way to heat water I could find. The “stove” is a tiny aluminum pop up about 3x5 inches. The burning cube emits a small flame just enough heat for my water to boil so I have tea. The stove emits almost no smoke or odor. I choose peach-lemongrass and add a small scoop of honey. Everything is rationed. I eat my cliff bar, savor my tea and send the text “I’m alive.”
I have a suspicion that the cliff will not be my only experience of surrender. Although I cannot predict what will come, I know that the cliff was a surrender to that which is “God,” the God that I send my prayers to. I feel that I am still due surrender to the Earth, the ancestors of the land, my ancestors, the spirits of this land. I would like instruction and guidance from above and below. Maybe I should pre-empt it with ceremony.
Spiritual and cultural traditions all over the world have rituals and ceremonies. We use ritual to celebrate, to pray, to give thanks and to grieve. Some cultures use ritual for important life transitions. Marriage and funeral rituals are pretty universal, so are faith ceremonies like bar mitzvah and Christian confirmation. There are a multitude of indigenous ceremonies for planting and harvesting and for initiating adulthood, a concept the Western world could probably greatly benefit from. There are rituals meant to alter consciousness, call in the sacred or accept a new station in life. There are also rituals for entering journeys of lament such as the one I am on. I have already been initiated by the owl escorting me in to the Mojave and the days of blind submission on the cliff. However I feel called to perform a ritual for the Earth that physically symbolizes my intention and purpose. I am going to build a portal.
The concept of a portal is found from indigenous traditions across the globe to works of fiction such as Harry Potter. Sites are built to symbolize and initiate the path to the sacred, the physical earthly sacred. This physical sacred of people of the land contrasts with the esoteric eschatology of Christianity in which we have supposedly left the Garden of Eden and await the “Kingdom of Heaven to Come” which actually glorifies the destruction of everything. I suspect that this Earth is something sacred, a divine creation, not to be destroyed in the ‘end of times.”
Indigenous ritual sites are sometimes only a few yards across, sometimes miles wide. North America is full of such places like the Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, the Serpent Mounds in Ohio, the stone mounds of Georgia and the Kivas of the Southwestern U.S. Stonehenge is considered to be an ancient Celtic portal. The Avebury Circle, the Ring of Brodgar and the Cavanesh Stones are other European examples. The cave with the rock where Jesus was placed after his crucifixion could be equated as a portal where he descended to the dead for three days before rising. The Islamic tradition of Tawaf, circumambulating the sacred “heavenly stone” in Mecca during Hajj could be seen as a sort of holy symbolic portal journey.
My ancestors did not teach me their sacred ways of their land. I must construct my own ceremony symbolic of my journey in this desert. I start with a slow morning wander to find the right place, following animal paths and riverbeds, letting the desert lead my way. After about an hour I am stopped by a circle of ancient pinion trees. I feel drawn to the enclosed space. The trees feel strong and protective, powerful, even intimidating. I stand there for a long time, in awe of this ancient cluster. Eventually, I look around and realize that I have wandered in a circle and this alluring spot I have found is right back at my camp. But of course, what I am searching for is right where I am. I am laughing at this when, suddenly, the breeze blows and I hear a whisper. I must have imagined it. “Enter here,” I heard something say. Or maybe it was nothing at all.
I look around and find four quartz rocks to symbolize the four major directions north, south, east and west. I step into the wooded circle and place them inside the tree line, about seven feet in diameter. I step back out to look at my own sacred geometry.
“Who are you?” Asks a voice from within, or maybe from the trees.
How do I introduce myself to the pinion and the rocks and any other creatures that might accidentally be in attendance? Who am I to them? Why should they care if I am here? I am just another resource consuming, waste producing member of the rampantly overpopulating human species. Why should they let me in?
I composed an email to friends and family before this journey. I confessed my false gods on the cliff. Now another level of confession fills my heart, a confession to creation, to its creatures, and to its deep mystery.
I begin to walk Earth wise, counterclockwise, around the stones, inside the circle of trees. Walking in a circle begins to shift my consciousness. I have brought no drugs with me. This is to be a journey created authentically from the Heavens and the Earth. As I walk in circles I begin to speak to anything that might listen; pinion, rabbit, storm cloud, cactus, ancestor.
“My name is Gen Anderson, born in Tucson Arizona, raised in the Sonoran Desert.”
“I am not from the Mojave, I am a stranger here.”
“I have come to seek a vision for myself, for my people.”
My people have forgotten the vision of the mystics,
We have forgotten the words of the prophets,
We have forgotten the teachings of the sages,
We imprison and assassinate our healers.
We live divided, afraid of one another, fighting for wealth, smug in our privilege.
We lay waste to vast resources, poising our waters and our soil and our air.
We destroy reef and river, forest and field.”
“I have fought, but not hard enough.”
I have spoken up, but not loud enough.”
I have loved but not fiercely enough.”
I have cried tears, but not enough to end the drought.
For this I am so very sorry.”
“I had a vision as a child in the desert.
A vision of the way things could be,
A moment of the veil pulled back.
But I did not speak, in 40 years, I did not speak.
I did not have the courage to live this vision.
I take full responsibility for the part I have played.
I take my responsibility for where humanity is now.”
“I made a promise to return to the desert
But I was afraid and I hid.
Now I have returned to keep that promise.
I am ashamed that I waited this long.
I am here now to face what I must face,
To hear with the ears of my heart,
To see with the eyes of my soul,
To sacrifice whatever I must sacrifice,
To bring back into harmony whatever small piece of the universe I can.
There is nothing left for me to do in my life but to be right here right now.
I am ready if you will have me still.”
I cry my lament to the North the South the East and the West, to above and below. I cry out to all that is seen and unseen. And to a large jackrabbit who has planted itself under one of the pinion trees and is starring at me. My body is wracked with the shame of having betrayed the vision I was gifted long ago. My heart silently begs to enter back into that world of sacred mystery.
I begin to spin in a circle. The same simple game that children use to shift their consciousness long before they become teenagers and discover pot and hormones. I spin and spin and spin until I stand still but the whole desert spins around me. I allow for the disorientation to settle over me. This journey is not oriented towards what I already know or think I know. It is oriented towards surrender to what I do not know. I am putting my compass into the hands of the Wild World, into the hands of God’s garden.
I back up from the circle of quartz and breathe a deep breath. Then I sprint as fast as I can and leap from the edge of the trees all the way into the middle of the portal. I trip on my landing and fall face first onto the ground of brittle needles. I feel like I am falling and falling and falling, the earth spinning around me. I fall into a deep sleep.
The sun has journeyed across the sky when my eyes open clasping the image of a fading dream. Vulture is back circling above me, coming closer and closer. “I’m not dead yet” I whisper.
The Earth holds me. I feel the weight of my body on the ground, the beetle crawling on my leg, the embrace of the Stonehenge circle of pinion and quartz around me. Pinion perhaps as old as Stonehenge. For a thousand years these trees have stood in a circle. This circle. They called to me, this is the place, and they whispered, “Enter here.” And I did. But did this work? Did the universe shift? Did I deepen into a sacred space? I feel groggy and itchy from the course dry needles.
I get up and brush off the pine and dirt. I stand for a long time and take in the sacred geometry of stone and tree, looking beyond the edge of the portal, wondering if it has become a different world out there. It might just be a different world out here. Have I been allowed in? A tremor runs through my body. A realization pours over me, a realization of the very moment I am standing in. A moment so long I feel like time stops so that I can experience it. I savor it until...until...until the next moment finally appears. I actually made it to the desert and this is what it looks-feels-tastes-smells- like. I breathe it in. I allow the awareness of the here and now wash over me. I am so grounded in this moment of reality that I feel as though some law of quantum physics has made me disappear from the world that I had previously known. And then, like Alice, I step from the circle of stone and tree into, I pray, Wonderland.
I gather my meditation blanket and situate myself back under a pinion tree. The shadows have grown long, evening has begun, and the heat is receding. I munch on my baggie of trail mix for dinner and eat my seven pieces of dried fruit. I add some extra dried coconut out of my special bag of treats.
Slowly, a couple of rabbits venture into my camp. They sit at their favorite chewing stick a few yards from me. They keep a cautious eye on me, and then proceed with their bark removal operation. The jack rabbit remains next to my portal, it is stretched out under another one of the trees that encircles it. I name him the Mad Hatter because he was witness to this crazy human and her ritual of lament. He also appears to be keeping watch for me, perhaps a willing participant? All of a sudden the rabbits freeze, staring up at the sky. Owl silently swoops past the camp.
A distant storm casts a massive rainbow far across the valley. Songbirds begin their tribute to the evening. The desert flora releases its scented pollen to the soft evening air. A snake comes through camp chasing a lizard and a mouse at the same time. As they pass me all three stop short to glance at this unexpected human creature. Then the mouse bolts one direction and lizard the other. The snake, now caught off-guard and confused, flicks its tongue at me and then turns around and heads backs the direction it came, the hunt interrupted. I carefully peel and eat a couple pieces of incredibly sweet prickly pear fruit. It turns my fingers bright pink so I assume my tongue is pink now too, but I have no looking glass.
For the next couple of days I sit in beautiful harmony with the desert around me. I alternate my time between contemplation practices, meditation, prayer and yoga. The meditations are whatever calls to me, and range from Buddhist Vipassana to Christian Centering Prayers to Earth centered visioning ceremonies. I never close my eyes; my practice is to include the world around me at all times. I am not looking to escape; I am looking to the desert that surrounds me. I am hoping for a glimpse of the vision I had before, or maybe something I cannot even imagine. In the evening I take walks along the trails, often barefoot to feel into the earth. I have abandoned my clothing and have just a thin wrap that I put around my body, so that my skin can listen to the breeze.
The Mad Hatter continues to keep watch over my portal. The rabbits move in closer, along with a bunch of big black beetles who love being under my blanket even though I warn them of the danger of getting squashed. More songbirds have collected in the trees and hummingbirds dart in and out. An iridescent black winged butterfly lands on my arm. It seems that after several days spent in a quiet meditative state, nature has filtered back in and precedes with business as usual, my presence no longer a threat. I feel like Snow White minus the dwarves and the family drama.
A feeling of safety sets in, as though I am being welcomed and kept company by Rabbit, Lizard, Bird and Beetle. My knee-jerk reactions to unfamiliar sounds are less frequent. I no longer glance around expecting to see a poisonous snake approaching. Unlike my surrender to God on the cliff, the surrender to the Earth appears to be proceeding with less physical intensity, more serenity.
I pull out my military issue compass, but it has stopped working. The needle in the center just spins in circles. Maybe I really am in Wonderland!
