Day 8
I’ve been spending warm desert nights sleeping directly under the stars, however the threat of evening monsoon storms chased me back into my tent last night. Good thing because this morning I wake to the tent being slammed with wind and sand again. The wind is so powerful that the tent poles bend down almost to my face and then they pop back up again, the wind stopping as quickly as it started. I jump up to see what just happened. In the distance I watch as a tower of spinning earth reaches from the edge of my camp high into the sky. A dust devil! I loved these as a kid! Dust devils are like weak versions of tornadoes, also formed by the confluence of hot and cold air. In this case the hot air of the desert floor is buttressing up against the cool air of the monsoons storms. Like a real tornado they will snatch and carrying into the air anything not tied down; sand, dried cactus, leaves. This one stole my camp towel. As kids we chased the smaller dust devils. Running into their path we would brace ourselves holding our hands over ears and eyes, and holding our breath we would stand our ground in the spinning air.
I move from the tent to the cold fire ring and watch as another dust devil forms in the distance. The air is restless, battling against itself. Something is restless inside of me as well. Thoughts have been spinning inside of me the past few days, whirling dirt around in my consciousness and I am having trouble getting rid of it. In meditation I gently usher it away but it keeps coming back with even greater strength. I just want these thoughts to go away, but they keep invading. Maybe if I write it out it will help me get a handle on it. I grab my journal and compose a long angry letter to my family.
The past year has been excruciating and even though I am hundreds of miles away I feel that they are sitting around the fire ring next to me, questioning me, judging me. For the past few years we have been embroiled in a heartbreaking family tragedy that has torn us to pieces. I have barely spoken to my parents for nearly two years. Holidays are spent apart. I have begged for family counseling, mediation, anything! Unfortunately some subjects carry so much fear, shame, and guilt that no space feels safe enough to speak the past. The safest place in the present has become a place of separation. I feel as though I have lost my family. As much as this grief has hijacked me emotionally over the past year, I do not want it to hijack this journey. I write of my pain and my sorrow, of my anger and resentment.
I also write trying to explain the journey I am on now, why I chose to come to the desert. They have no idea why I am doing this. I was useless trying to explain it. I tell them that early Christians used to gather in communities in the desert to pray and to meditate. Maybe if they see this journey through the lens of their own Christian tradition it will make more sense to them. The Christian tradition is also a part of my journey, just not the totality of my journey. Of course, this is a letter they will never actually read.
I gather three stones to represent my mother, father and sister. I place them around the fire ring, a physical symbol of their emotional presence. I read my long letter out loud to the stones. At the end I of the letter I cut them loose. “This is my journey.” I tell my stone family. “You are not allowed to come with me where I am going.” “You can wait here if you like. You can hold vigil in whatever way you know how.” “I must do this alone.” Unlike the voices of my family that run loops in my head, the rocks sit in silent witness. For the first time in years I feel listened too and heard.
I choose to carefully burn the letter in the fire ring, holding the wrinkled dusty paper tight and close to the ground so that the wind does not carry it away and turn the fiery despair of my family into the fiery destruction of the desert. It burns closer and closer to my fingers until I cup my hands over the last of the flame as the smoke ascends to the spirits. Spreading the ashes until they cool I anoint each of the rocks with a cross and finally myself, a prayer for reconciliation. I thank the rocks for listening. Then I make my tea and eat my cliff bar. I try to enjoy my silent breakfast with my silent family of rocks.
I almost forget to send the text, “I’m alive” to my extended network of family! The text reminds me of just how grateful I am for the close friends in my life. Thank you again Iryna, Hillary, Travis, Derek and Jasmine! I have so much gratitude, years and tears of gratitude.
I move to my meditation blanket under a tree. My mind has quieted after releasing the letter. My heart is released from the immediate grip of guilt and sorrow. I have set down these rocks for now.
I have set down these rocks for now.
Instead of my internal whirlwind today will be about watching the external play of wind and contemplating dirt. Even with my back turned I know when to be wary, a crescendo of rushing and whirling air signals a warning. At times I listen as the dust devils form in the distance and circle round the camp. Other times I can hear them heading straight towards me. I dodge for cover behind a cluster of juniper. They are probably not strong enough to carry me off, but they carry thorny bushes and a lot of sand at high speeds. Not something I want to be impaled with. Somehow they prefer the Southern perimeter of my camp. Maybe because there are fewer trees so the earth is hotter and provides more fuel to conduct them.
I consider the perimeter of my camp my line of cat holes. I try to space out where I relieve myself so as to not over burden any one area. My relationship to human bodily functions has changed greatly in the first week or so. I have gown quite accustomed to not having modern luxuries. Instead I have grown conscious of returning the water I have taken from the aquifer directly back to the desert. I take turns watering the cactus, the creosote, and the yucca. Gradually I have marked a circle around my camp with my urine, my cat holes and as of yesterday, my menstrual blood. Menstrual blood that kept me out of temples in India that ban all women of child bearing age “just in case,” menstrual blood keeps women from entering the Catholic Priesthood, or from being Rabbis or Imams. This blood has doomed women across the globe to be second-class citizens, as if this fertile soil of creation is a toxic threat or a barrier between us and God.
I make sure to bury my bodily waste in the layer of living earth, so that the microbes can decompose it and put it back to good use. The layer of living dirt that covers the earth is only inches deep. By living earth I mean the layer that is full of organisms, fungus, bacteria, all the things that make it possible for plants to grow and for life to be decomposed, back into soil. It is the layer of planetary womb that gestates nearly every seed on the planet, and it is only inches deep. All life on land exists because of this thin layer of living soil.
In the desert it takes hundreds of years to make living soil out of eroding rock via a bacterial and microbial layer called a cryptobiotic crust. If it is stepped on, decades of soil making is ruined and it has to be built back up. I am very careful where I make my camp and put my meditation blanket. I do not want to disturb the very delicate compound from which, as the story goes, God created Adam and Eve in God’s own image. I love this metaphor; to create a living an image of Itself, God used dirt. It is humbling both for humanity and for God.
I wonder when and how the second Adam and Eve story was added to Genesis? In the second story God created Eve out of Adams rib. I prefer story number one, created as equals out of dirt, the living womb of the earth.
I pick up the desert soil, and hold it in my hands, this layer of planetary endometrium. It looks dry and void, but the life around me proves otherwise. Apparently science knows more about the bottom of the ocean and the surface of Mars than we do about the living organisms in our own soil. Agricultural schools teach that soil is an empty vessel to be filled with chemicals and fertilizers, as though the soil was itself dead. Organic farmers will show you crops that grow without the need of chemical insecticides because a healthy soil is so naturally fertile that the plants grow strong enough to resist pests. Only ruined soil grows weak plants that need a hoard of chemicals. Much of modern farming has become chemotherapy for plants. And from the toxins of modern crops many of us will someday be forced to undergo chemotherapy to kill cancerous cells in our own bodies. What circle of life do we really want?
I munch on two more handfuls of trail mix for lunch and eat some dried apple. What sustains life? What sustains my body? I have chosen the ascetic practice of simplification for this journey. I eat the same thing and drink the same thing, day after day, to avoid my attention wandering to food. It has been working. I only think about eating when I am actually hungry. I have hours more in the day because I do not have to cook or think about food. Ha, extra hours to add to the extra hours I have because I am doing nothing but sitting in the desert. I laugh out loud at that thought.
The fat that my body is shedding since my arrival has been a store for both environmental toxins as well as toxic emotions. After only a week I am beginning to feeling lighter, not in physical weight but in an energetic way. I feel like sludge is being removed and my body is becoming more alive, more sensitive, more alert. The layers of toxins from smog inhalation and pesticide ingestion are being sweated away.
This sensitivity in my body is opening me back up to my childhood sensitivity to the natural world where everything felt alive, rocks, sand, everything. I remember the energy ball between my hands that Little Gen played with when she was bored. How did she find it? I don’t know. Where did it go? Maybe it never went away, maybe I have just forgotten that it was there. Maybe I can recover it, my little girl self as a guide.
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, I focus on the space between my two hands. I remember little Gen in the desert. I pulse my hands towards each other, breathing slowly and deeply. Gradually the sensation of energy increases, like I am holding something between my hands, a childhood meditation. I feel the energy expand between my hands as I breathe until gradually the ball grows until my arms are stretched wide apart. I slowly bring my hands back towards by my heart, feeling the energy compressing until my hands are only inches apart. I have to focus to put my hands together again. My fingers and palms are alive and buzzing. A zip of energy tingles up my spine.
Well part of me might have has woken up, but after sitting for so long my legs are asleep. I laugh at the irony of this. I focus on energy between my hands and in the mean time my legs go numb. They are all pins and needles. With perfect timing a dust devil approaches. I grab my blanket and try to hobble on my numb legs to safety behind a pinion.
The evening is cooling down. After sitting under a tree for shade all day I feel the need to move energy through my entire body. I turn to the setting sun with yoga sun salutations. I do a long set of yoga poses, holding each until my body feels a deep stretch. Then I stand in tree pose, on one leg, the other leg bent with my foot resting on my inner thigh. I cannot hold the pose for very long. I fumble around, trying my best to keep it going until the sunset fades. Just before dark I pull my mat under my tarp and lie down. The soft desert breeze caresses me to sleep.