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Scott Stillman

"FREEDOM"

Welcome to your public lands.  THIS is freedom.

Lake San Cristobal, CO

Nightime.  Lake San Cristobal campspot.  I sit in my camp chair, five feet from the water's edge.  A grey moth sits on my jacket.  A mouse peeks his head up on my chair.  A fish jumps in the water.  No breeze.  Stillness.  I feel loved by the animals, by nature.  I send love back to them.  The moth relaxes.  Starts to clean his antennas.  He is here because of my headlamp.  Why are they drawn to the light?  Why are we?

Morning on the lake.  Steaming coffee.  Prescription for a great day.  Geese flying overhead in typical V-formation.  They announce their presence to the world.  Yes, we all wish to be seen.  The lake is glass, only the occasional ripple of a fish jumping.  A bird skims the water, his wings almost touching the surface, his perfect reflection below him.  The sun is not yet over the mountain.  The day waits in silent anticipation.  When the sun comes up, all this will change.  The day will be underway.  But for now, the stillness remains.

Powderhorn Wilderness, July 2012

Day 1.

Just finished dinner.  Sipping from a small bottle of Pyrat Rum at my campsite high up in the San Juans.  The mountains across from me are glowing purple and bronze in the late evening sun.  Cooling off.  The bugs have settled down for the night.

I drove to San Cristobal Lake from Boulder last night.  Camped right on the shore, launched my standup paddleboard, and took a dreamlike night paddle across the glassy surface.  Completely still and silent.  When I turned off my headlamp, all that was left were stars on the water, and stars overhead.  Floating in a world of stars and darkness.  

Today, I started my first of 2 backpacking trips into the San Juans.  And it's about time.  Don't know why I never seem to get to the San Juans.  Perhaps the 7 hour drive.  Not a good excuse.  Need to take longer trips, and more frequently.  Need to loose the job.  There is a lot to explore out there, and only so much time.

The clouds above my camp have turned purple.  Purple against the blue sky.  So close I feel I should be able to touch them.  

An elk walks through distant tundra.

Breathing slowly, and fully.  Naturally.  The "other world" is starting to melt away.  But this is only day 1.  No euphoric moments yet.  But the distractions are gone.  That's a good start.  Just the necessities.  And of course some tea, rum, and chocolate.  Just for fun.  Because I can.  Because here I'll enjoy them.  The rum tastes divine.  I take a sip.  Savour.  Fully experience the smokey, sweet flavour.  There's only so much in this tiny little bottle.  

Nothing to do, I sit.  Silence rings.  No breeze.  Nothing.  Another deep breath.  Then again, nothing.  Good.  I wait.  For what, I don't know, but still I sit here and wait.  So much is happening.  The light fades, ever so slightly.  Changing everything.  The clouds.  The temperature.  A bird chirps.  Another answers.

Day 2.

Morning.  After a night of rain, I wake up to a bluebird sky.  Warm and breezy.  Perfect.  I fix some Peet's coffee and add a little powdered creamer.  Coffee in the wilderness is pure JOY.  My senses are awakened.  I sit and read Alan Watts' "Still The Mind."  He talks of humans and potatoes.  Who is more civilized?  A good argument for the potato.  I'm convinced.  I stop reading and look around.  I see the plants with compassion.  A true empathy.  We understand each other.  A heartwarming love develops.  Not just inside of me, but all consuming of everything.  We share the same space.  I am a visitor, but welcome.  We smile.  The trees, the flowers, the grasses, the sky, the sun, the breeze.  We all smile.  The energy is buzzing.  Or is it the coffee?

Afternoon.  Storm brewing in the north.  Camp is set up though, and now I'm just waiting for it to arrive.  Let the show begin.  After a long day of hiking over mountains, across scree fields, and alpine tundra, I could use some down time.  But for now, it's just dark sky and thunder.  I'm camped right at treeline by a small pond.  A lone tree holds my bear rope and food bag.  Green grasses and yellow flowers surround my camp with vast expanses of velvet like tundra, rock outcroppings, and distant mountains for my view.  I'm way off trail, so privacy is guaranteed.

The Powderhorn wilderness seems to me to be a lightly traveled place.  The trails are faint to non-existent, and no one is here.  The way I prefer it.  There is, however, a large herd of elk that I've seen several times so far, always quick to spot me from far away.  It's funny that a herd of close to 100 elk would be afraid of one slow, tired hiker carrying a 40 pound pack.  But they always take off when they catch sight of me a mile away.  Stopping to look back at me, making sure I'm not chasing them.  I continue my slow trek and show no sign of attack.  The run anyway.

The rain starts.  Sitting in my tiny tent, the sound of rain is all consuming.  Sounding twice as strong as it is as the large drops hit the tent fabric.  

The rain continues.  Off and on.  Feelings of loneliness.  Cravings.  Typical on day 2.  It will pass.  Cravings of music, beer, warm soft skin.  Try to stay in the moment.  Need to waterproof this tent.  It's dripping from time to time.  Not good.  But the rest of my gear is working good, and my dinner of pizza was splendid.

Evening.  I danced to the music in my head on alpine tundra under fading light.  Beautiful, perfect, improvisational jams stored in memory banks from hundreds of live concerts.  Purple mountains and sheets of rain in the distance.  I am truly alone here.  Solitude at it's most solitary.  Waves of emotion.  Moments of clarity.  Gratefulness.  Freedom.  This wilderness exists.  It will always be here for us.  Waiting.  Patiently.  Even if we never go, it's here.  And sometimes that is enough.  Just the knowing.

Day 3

Late morning.  So much is happening in my little meadow.  Bugs of every conceivable color, shape, size come buzzing by and stopping to investigate.  Amazingly enough, none of them seen to bite.  The clouds drift past in all of their various formations.  The sun is out and a moderate breeze has the grasses and flowers in a constant dance around me.  In my meadow are two large beds of black lava rock.  One contains a small pond and the other is dry.  Upon close inspection, the lava rock beds provide housing for countless varieties of small animals, spiders, reptiles, and bugs.  Large birds flow overhead and occasional elk wander by.  All of this in my tiny meadow.

I sit in my camp chair and just watch.  Occasionally, I pick up Alan Watts' book on meditation.  If I were to die in this moment, what would really change?  I would be as I was before I was born, 39 short years ago.  The colorful butterfly would still land on the yellow flower.  The birds would still soar overhead.  The breeze would still blow, and the grasses would still dance.  But who would contemplate them?  Perhaps a small child in a similar meadow on a similar day.  A sinking feeling in my stomach.  But yes, this body wants to survive.  To continue on.  As all life wants to persevere.  This is natural in all of nature.  However, at that last second, before the rabbit will be eaten by the coyote, there is a surrender.  A transformation will occur, and life will go on.  And when I sit here and fully surrender to the present moment, I KNOW, with out a doubt, that "I" will always exist.  The "I" in me that is the same as the "I" in the rabbit.  The "I" in me that is the same as the "I" in the coyote.  The "I" in me that is the same as the "I" in all of life.  For as long as there is life, I will exist.

12,000 feet.  An ideal elevation.  Treeline.  There are some trees, but they are very spaced apart.  Everything has room to spread out. Not life overcrowding life.  Not up here.  We are far from the tangle of thick forests.  Views expand in every direction.  Mountain ranges are visible from a hundred miles away.  Weather can be seen approaching from vast distances, usually never even making it to here.  No humans.  No machines.  No roads.  Just wilderness.  Heartbreakingly perfect wilderness.  Everything in it's perfect place.    Very similar to the desert, really.  But a more suitable temperature for July.  Highs in the upper 60s, lows in the upper 20s.  Sunny during the day and usually a storm in the late afternoon.  I'm always intrigued by the wildlife that chooses this elevation.  They could easily walk, crawl, fly anywhere they wish, but they choose 12,000 feet.  There are flies here.  There are flies in the city.  But the flies here are slightly different.  They seem to sparkle more.  Certainly cleaner.  And the elk seem much larger here then I've seen around my house at 7000 feet.  You won't see a marmot below 12,000 feet.   They waddle by in their thick fur coats, announcing their presence as you walk by.  What are they trying to tell us?  Perhaps, "Hey there, give us your food!"  The biggest threat to an unattended food bag at this elevation is the marmot.  Or perhaps they're saying to the other marmots, "Look, there's a human!"  In a similar way that we would say, "Look, there's a marmot!"

I should go take a hike.  

But first, I would need to make lunch.  That would require pumping water.  This I've been casually contemplating for a few hours now. Instead, I continue to sit and survey my surroundings.  If I move, I may miss something.  A colorful bird or a moment of clarity.  Thoughts of the "other world" may creep back in.  Better to sit still.  Breathe deeply.  Write in my journal.  At home, I'd be frantically looking for something to do.  Don't want to waste time.  Need to check the bank account, catch up on e-mails, Facebook, the weather in Sedona.  But here, the distractions are gone.  And in their place. . .Peace.  Essence.  Essence of life.  I'm content to let things be as they are.  If it rains, let it rain.  Everything I need is at arms length.  There is nothing really to even decide.  Apart from should I eat.  Should I drink.  Should I pee.  Apart from basic survival, nothing has to be done at all.  The brain goes into "sleep" mode, and of course, meditation becomes your reality!  The quickest, easiest, secret back entrance way to meditation is to go backpacking.  But it must be solo!  Once you are past the jitteriness of day 1.  The cravings of day 2.  You just fall into it.  It's effortless.  Months of tension are released in a matter of hours.  The past?  Work?  Bills?  What past?  Everything is perfect right NOW.  And NOW is all there ever is!

I sit in wonder and amazement.

Here I am.

Day 4.

Meditating on a bluff overlooking Brush Creek.  Breathing and humming.  Sounds of the rushing creek in the background.  And in this moment, as I write this, a large moose walks up a grassy meadow across the valley.  First moose sighting of this trip.  He seems to be barking, quite like a dog barking under his breath.  This moose is jet black against a vibrant green hillside in the morning sun.  A moment later, he disappears into a aspen grove.  the sun is intense today.  I'm camped much lower, about 10,300 feet as opposed to 12,000 the past 2 nights.  The vegetation is lush and the trees are back.  Spent last night under the star speckled sky.  Shooting stars, planets, satellites, and the foggy milky way all in clear view.  Fell asleep in my camp chair enjoying the comfortable warmer air.  Liquid dreams of sex and love as the sounds of Brush Creek carried me through the night.

Canyonlands, UT April, 2013

Sunlight blankets the rocks.  Colors reveal themselves.  Orange, red, pink, white.  From my perch, high on a canyon rim, I watch this dazzling Sunday morning show of shadow and light.  The maze of ripples, folds, and crevices starts to make some sense now.  Yes, there is an order to this madness.  I can now see possible routes that I couldn't see before.  At this angle of light, canyons reveal themselves.  There are many options.  Places to explore, get lost, and find the Holy Grail.  Just around the next corner, into the next chasm, where a single ray of sunlight illuminates a sparkling pot of gold. I wander these canyons in my mind for a while over a cup of coffee.  Monuments and monoliths reveal themselves, a hundred miles away.  Deep red in color.  And sparkling to the east, the La Sal Mountains.  Blanked in snow. There is a lifetime of exploration right here in Moab.  Greater Moab.  Greater Canyonlands.  God's country.  Our country.  My country.  Peace, realized.  The search for Peace ends here.

Deep within these canyons lies a natural spring, producing a glorious waterfall cascading down smooth sandstone into a large pool.  We hiked to it yesterday.  Drank abundantly from it.  Took a nap on the warm rock at the sparkling water's edge.  Birds, lizards, traces of deer, coyote, bobcat, and mountain lion.  Alive, in a mystic wonderland of kaleidoscopic color, clean air, and sunshine.  Abundance.  Eden.  They live in perfect harmony with the land.  Removed from the rest of our world.  Concrete.  Smog.  Hunger.  Famine.  War.  Destruction.  Progress.  Wal-Mart.  They know nothing of it.  Ignorance can be bliss.  For if we are creating our own reality, is it really ignorance?  

The rocks sit there.  They just sit there.  For billions of years.  Generations come and go.  We are born, we die.  The rocks just sit there.  Ignorant and indifferent to the worlds problems.  How can they be so self-serving?  So self-centered?  Do they not care about world hunger?  War?  Violence?  The evening news?  School shootings?  The recession?  They just sit there.  Watching it all.  Witnessing it all.  No judgement.  No attachment.  The sun rises.  The sun sets.  Snow falls.  Snow melts.  They don't struggle.  They don't fight.  They don't even try to be beautiful.  Their sensual curves and arcs are carved for them by eons of wind, rain, sun, and sand.  No trying.  No ego.  Just sitting.  Stillness.  Peace.

Flat Tops Wilderness, CO

Poem - "Why Go To The Wilderness?"



To laugh at the stars

to talk with the birds

to understand the landscape

but use no words

to forget about time

and remember who you are

to feel GOD

surrendering to a star.


- Scott Stillman

Backpacking Checklist

If you are getting ready to hit the trail, check out my website www.thebackpackinglist.com.  This is an informational site providing a checklist of everything you need to pack before you head out on a backpacking trip.

 

 

www.thebackpackinglist.com

 

 

Uncompaghre Wilderness Part 2

"The Flirtiness Of Flowers"

Hiking through cascading waterfalls of flowers of every conceivable color and shape, I can't help but reflect upon how feminine and sensual flowers really are.  It's no wonder girls love flowers so much.  And it's no wonder wild flowers remind me of girls.  

They are the ultimate symbol of beauty.  It's amazing how no two flowers are truly alike.  Focusing on the Columbine for instance.  They are all beautiful in their own way but they have so many different personalities.  The ones that stand out first of course are the ones that appear to be absolutely perfect.  Picture perfect.  Not a flaw to be found.  They are easy to pick out of a bunch.  Sensual and voluptuous, they stop you dead in your tracks.  You can't stare too long for fear of being ashamed of gawking at these angels of perfection. 

Then there are the flirty flowers.  The ones you can't help but go to.  They beacon you from afar, drawing you in.  You hate to leave.  So you say, "until next time. . ."  making sure the flower doesn't forget you.  

Then there are the intriguingly different flowers.  Imperfectly perfect.  You don't quite understand them, but you want to.  The beauty seems to be emanating from within.  From some mysterious place that you want a part of.  You walk away glancing over your shoulder for just one more look.  

They are all beautiful and I am forever hopelessly attracted to them.  The wild ones.  Not the prissy, all-too-perfect flowers in a vase at the local florist, but the ones who are free flowing.  Free growing.  Dripping with morning dew.  Wild girls.  Wild flowers.  Wild beauty.

Uncompaghre Wilderness, July 2012

Day 1

Thunderstorm.

Warm and dry in my tent.  12,000 feet in elevation.  A good tent, sleeping bag, thermorest, backpack, water filter, stove, down jacket, raingear, and boots.  Relatively inexpensive items.  I spend more on my mortgage payment every month.  Recession?  No problem.  All the major corporations can go belly up tomorrow.  We worry so much about the economy when all we really need costs about $1500.  And at that number, you will have good, lightweight gear.  Now you can walk where you wish in comfort.  What about the winter weather, you say?  Well then do what the rest of nature does.  Go where it’s warm!  If you start walking in October, you can be in Florida by December.  But let’s not be silly, take the bus!  The nomadic lifestyle.  What about food, you say?  Gear will wear out and need to be replaced.  Well then, you had better learn a trade, my friend.  Learn to fix something.  Or cook, farm, construct, play music, sing, dance, weave, heal, bake!  The world needs your services.  Be useful.  Your assistant public relations manager position won’t last.  What does that even mean?  What exactly is it. . . ya do here? 

Basic necessities.  That’s what we’re talking about here.  Loose the gadgets, loose the bills, go buy some decent backpacking gear, and explore the world!  The gear is good NOW.  Not like the heavy, leaky, bulky, cotton/canvas gear of the 80’s.  Today’s gear is remarkable.  The best thing to come out of technology so far.  Camp gear.  I can lose my house, lose my job, lose my car, wallet, cell phone, but I’ll always be able to go backpacking and hit the road to amazing, unfathomable, stupendously beautiful places like the Uncompaghre Wilderness.  And that, my friend, is true freedom.

Evening.

This is the most beautiful alpine wilderness I’ve ever seen.  Pristine.  Remote.  Ridiculous scenery.  The rocks shoot straight up out of the earth here.  Huge slabs shooting 13,000 to 14,000 feet.  It looks like Switzerland, just like the guidebook said.  Only better.  I’ve been to Switzerland, but this is Colorado.  Much greener here at the higher elevations.  The faces of the rocks are covered with living green velvet almost all the way to the top.  Waterfalls cascade down their slopes.  How can so much water come out of the top of a mountain?  This always baffles me.  Thousands of gallons go rushing by every minute.  It hardly seems feasible. 

A giant shark fin, shooting thousands of feet out of the earth, is behind my tent.  On the other side a rock castle, 14,000 feet tall.  The sound of rushing water fills the basin.  And the trees.  I’ve not seen trees like this in Colorado.  The pines must be a hundred feet tall and some are 3 feet thick.  Perfectly spaced apart.  If a world renowned landscape artist planted trees in a city park, I doubt they could pull off the aesthetic placement of these pines.  You can’t have a forest fire here.  The trees are too far apart and the ground cover is lush green grass and wildflowers glistening with dew.  And then there is Cow Creek Canyon.  So remote and inaccessible, they can only build trail on the very outskirts, with views into the abyss.  No trails actually lead into the canyon. 

It’s Saturday night, and for all the Jeeps, SUVs, ATVs, OHVs, SOBs on the road to Engineer Pass, there’s no one up here.  Probably back in their RVs watching satellite TV.  It really is a shame you can’t go to a campground anymore and camp among people in tents.  When it becomes dark, there’s no one in sight.  Just me.  Sitting in my camp chair, listening to Calexico, and sipping on a whiskey and coke.  A generator kicks on and kills the silence.  Better turn up the tunes.  Luckily, the generator goes off at 10pm.  But all the more reason to go backpacking!  No, you can’t have your cooler of beer, your stereo, your portable toilet, portable shower,  satellite TV, grilled burgers.  But you can have all of that at home.  This is supposed to be an adventure.

I lie in my tent.  A distant animal makes a strange and eerie sound like a loud whisper.  I heard this same sound earlier today and thought people were behind me.  My eyes get heavy.  I start to drift off to sleep.  The many voices in the gurgling stream should make for some interesting dreams.

Day 2

Morning.

Lots of rain last night.  Thunder and lightning.  And then another shower around 8 am this morning.  But now, the sky is blue, the sun is up, and the coffee is ready. Everything sparkles and glistens with water and sunshine.  A clear brisk morning, but with the heat of the sun on my back.  An elk in the distance bugles.  Birds sing.  I smile.  I’m grateful to be alive.  To be here.  Now.  Very excited about the terrain I get to cover today.  With 12 more hours of daylight, I will have plenty of time to do it.  First, a glimpse into inaccessible Cow Creek Canyon.  Then a 13,000 foot pass.  And eventually, a river crossing.  From the looks of this wilderness so far, it should be nothing short of spectacular. 

When I’m in the wilderness, the feeling of being in the NOW is so overwhelming that I almost feel like I should force myself to think about other areas in my life.  Reflect on things.  It’s as if I say to myself, let’s think about my job and how I can improve it.  My self replies, “What job?  Are you at work right now?”  Well no, I say.  “Look around you, what more do you want?  Is the view not perfect?  Are you not warm, dry, well fed, and happy?”  Well yes, I say.  And then silence.  A cry of a raven.  And then more silence.  I smile and just fall back into nowness. 

Hiking. 

Less than an hour into my hike I stop to get out my journal.  There is so much beauty around me right now, I must stop to report.  Cow Creek Canyon consists of sheer rock walls dropping some 4,000 feet straight to the bottom.  You can never develop this terrain.  You can’t even build trail.  This is truly wild wilderness.  Unreachable.  Sacred.  Tear-jerking.  You must leave all developed areas to realize that the earth is absolutely perfect.  There is no possible improvement to be made here. 

I tiptoe through manicured gardens of pink, blue, purple, and red flowers.  Flowers mastering the art of being a flower.  Marmots cry out from everywhere, peeking their heads up in curious mischief.  They seem to be having a great day.  Calling and answering to each other from across the valleys.  A lot can be learned from the Marmot.  They use what mother nature has provided from them.  A boulder field provides rock houses, or rather rock castles for them, with all of their various tunnels and chambers to hide and play in.  Note to self, add Marmot to the list of animals I would like to be.  Of course, the high soaring bird is first on the list.  And for good reason.  Gravity becomes their toy as they soar on a thermal for hours and suddenly dive 5,000 feet, only to ascend again.  They have mastered being alive on earth.  Climbing a 14er with a few flaps of their wings, stopping for a peek, then descending for a drink of water and a snack. 

Me, I’m happy to look at the peaks from below.  I see no need to climb them.  They look majestic enough from below.  Besides, why exert all that energy?  I am lazy by nature.  It makes no difference how many miles I do, how fast I do them, or how much elevation I’ve climbed/descended in a day.  Sure, they are interesting statistics to look at afterwards, but what matters to me is how much ecstasy did I feel?  How close to God did I get?  How closely did I really inspect the tiny flowers, ferns, clovers, and tiny jungles of plant life under my feet?  How much love did I pour into the rocks and trees?  How much love did I feel coming back? 

Everything is in its perfect place here, yet perfectly out of order.  I think people are growing tired of straight lines and boxes.  Who needs them?  Correct grammar?  A complete sentence?  I don’t want a complete sentence!  I want to feel!  I want words to pierce my soul taking me exactly to the thought the writer had when they wrote what he or she wrote.  Give me that one perfectly placed word, real or made up, that makes me stop reading and just BUZZ.  An out of body experience, that’s what I want when I read.  Is that too much to ask?  You can have your complete sentences.  And the same goes for music.  Who really wants to hear a song played note for note in perfect key and tonal quality?  I want to hear the key of life!  The perfect note, played at the perfect moment, that is so fresh, so unexpected, that you grin from ear to ear and scream!  You can learn a lot from the undisturbed, unorganized, uncomparable, Uncompaghre Wilderness.


To Be Continued. . .

 

 

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, AZ

RAINSTORM

Rainstorm in the desert.  Life to the desert.  The holes in the rock around my camp are filled to capacity.  Violent thunder crashing all around me.  Like freight trains coming from every direction.  Hail.  After days of crackling dry heat, the desert is filled with water.  If only for a few days.  A sense of celebration is in the air.  I sit in my tent, wide-eyed, waiting for the next explosion each time the lightning flashes.  I’m camped next to a sandstone wash.  I wonder if it will flood.  The wash looks like an art masterpiece.  Sensual shapes and curves.  Fine arcs and tunnels sculpted from sandstone by thousands of years of rain just like this one.  When the rain lets up I step from my tent and watch the water, still running down the various channels and grooves in the rock.  Filling each small tinaja.  Gallons of water surround me where there was none only an hour ago.  I stare in amazement at the water which was so scarce for the majority of my trip.  Abundance fills the air.  There is a rainbow.  Thank you.  I’ve felt very guided, taken care of, and watched over on this trip. 

When you open up and surrender to the present moment, accept it for all its beauty and amazement, the universe becomes helpful.  Guiding you to all the right places.  Decisions are just decisions.  Either answer is correct.  Just choose.  You will be guided.  Taken care of.  As long as you are grateful.  Aware.

It’s when you fight the present moment that the universe seems to be against you.  Nothing turns out your way.  Every decision is the wrong one.  You get caught up in your mind.  Your ego.  “If only I had done this, or that.”  Life becomes a struggle.

It’s a beautiful day, and the sun is starting to come out from behind the clouds.  I’ve got some hiking to do yet.

THE FROG

A frog, who makes his home under a large rock in the largest water hole comes out to inspect his pond, which has grown to nearly twice its size.  He sees me and freezes.  Not moving a muscle, or even an eyelid.  I freeze too and we both sit completely still for almost five minutes.  Easy for a frog, difficult for a human, but I occupy my time watching cloud formations in the reflection of the water.  After a while, he forgets I’m there.  Short-term memory.  He swims across the small waterhole and under his rock once more.


 

Indian Creek Wilderness, UT

I HAVE ARRIVED.

Complete stillness.  Absolute silence.  Deafening silence.  This is why I came.  The Greater Canyonlands area is special.  It has a very purifying quality.  Calms the mind.  That is, once you are away from the Jeeps, ATVs, motorbikes, etc.  You can get away from them.  Quite easily if you try.  But you have to be willing to walk.  And it’s worth it.

It’s in these places that once you finally get to the point where you’re sitting still, doing nothing but contemplating the red cliffs, the dark canyons, and the blue sky, that you realize you’ve been here all along.  Your whole life.  Right here in this spot.  Just witnessing. 

Yes, I have been here before.  On a similar rock, in a similar canyon.  In a mountain meadow above treeline.  On a beach on some distant shore, thousands of miles away.  Yes, I’ve been here before.  I mean HERE.  I’m always trying to get back HERE.  To that place where the mindless chatter finally stops.  Where the details of my life melt away, and all that is left is right here.  Right Now. 

My God, I think.  How long has it been this time?  How long has it been since I stopped the mindless chatter in my head?  I can’t remember.  Weeks?  Months?  I stare into the maze of red rock formations over the horizon.  Emotion sets in.  Feelings of love.  Gratitude.  I have found GOD.  Eden.  If just for now. 

THIS IS WHY I’VE COME.

Morning.  Why am I out here in this desert?  All alone.  Why did I choose to put myself here?  My mind searches for an answer. . .finds none.  It’s cloudy.  The wind has picked up.  I fix myself a cup of coffee while still inside my tent, wrapped up in my bag.  I stare out of the open tent door into the vast sea of sandstone ripples, and to the distant mountain range beyond. 

I’M HERE.

The best spiritual teacher is the desert.  And the mountains.  And the sea.  Mother Nature herself.  Yes, I have been here before.  To this place where my mind stops making so much noise.  True vacation.  A vacation from the self, and a celebration of me.  HERE I AM.  Not the Scott Stillman me, but the eternal me.  The one that doesn’t come and go.  The me that is you, and the rocks, and the sky.  The animals and the plants.  The distant stars, and the sand in my notebook.

TIME STOPS.

Have I ever left this place?  Have I been here all along?  I ask the rocks.  They seem indifferent.  Yes?  No?  What difference does it make, they seem to say.  A raven cries out.  I understand.  The incessant ramblings in between visits, are they real?  Job.  House.  Bills.  Computers.  Internet.  Thoughts.  Cravings.  Worries.  Thoughts.  Thoughts.  Thoughts.  They seem so far away now. 

The clouds seem darker on the horizon.  A blanket of peace settles in.  I need nothing.  I so need nothing. 

The seed of enlightenment has been sown.  It must be watered to grow. 

Morning.  Three inches of snow blankets the red rock and my camp.  Stillness.  Cold.  Thermometer on my pack reads 15°.  My camp is in the shade.  Perfect spot for last night’s snowstorm, but now I want to be in the sun.  I pack up early.  7:45 and on the trail.  The sun is now lighting up everything around me.  Brilliant.  Skipped the coffee this morning, but I’m wildly alert.  And warm.

Now sitting on a perfect sandstone ledge, baking in the sun, it's time to finally make coffee.  Have breakfast.  Sit in wonder.  It’s a Monday.  Life is perfect.  The snow on the sandstone is magnificent.  Glowing in the sunshine.  Should have brought the camera.  But I forgot it on purpose.  Just another distraction.  Another gadget for my mind to latch on to.  Figure out.  I want to give all my attention to the desert.  Submit to her completely.  I don’t want to photograph her.  I want to become her. 

Gratitude.  Love.  Peace.  The only thoughts that come to mind, in between the long gaps of no-thought, are thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  For this moment.  For this life.  For this body.  For this earth.  For my wife.  My family.  A life fit for a king.  Surrounded by beauty, and love.