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.