In the desert I ate sun. I drank all my water and the water passed through me. I breathed the sky into and out from my lungs. I swallowed sunset and sunrise. I tasted the red stone and the black stone. I was nourished by my dreams and the dreams of the land. But I only ate sun.
In the desert I talked to everything. The birds that flitted through dawn, the cactus of morning, the lizards of afternoon, the spiders of sunset, the drums in the dark. By the last day I was singing to everything.
In the desert I could not erase my own evidence, my cells are there still.
In the desert it is easy to go downhill, to follow the easy way, the water's way, coyote's way. Uphill is a mountain, where flood and night come from, where mystery lives. I made my home at the foot of a red cliff, and every day went downhill, so I could come back uphill.
In the desert, very small lizards run up to you with giddy abandon, so happy to see you! It takes them a few seconds, by your foot, to realize how big you are. And then they run away!
In the desert, color is profound. A whole day can fill up with slate and gray and taupe and dun, and then! Bright pink shards of bone wreathing a contented barrel cactus.
In the desert I was grateful to have a meditation practice, a space within large enough to hold the space around me. A sky big enough to fill the sky.
In the desert, sometimes, there is no sound. Sometimes I found myself breathing so carefully I could barely hear myself. Once, I woke myself up with the sound of my heartbeat.
In the desert I slept with nothing over my head but the purple sky filled with diamonds.
In the desert the fractal geometry of nature is more apparent than in the forest, and the same truths are expressed no matter where you focus your eyes.
In the desert everything you talk to, talks back.
