Sonoran Desert Soul-Transit
On Monday, October 5, 2009, I awoke in Quartzsite, Arizona.
By Noon, I was “on the road” toward Black Canyon City, AZ. Not wanting
to pull my coach through Phoenix, AZ during rush hour, I avoided
Interstate I-10. Instead, I “cut the corner” from Quartzsite to Black Canyon City on Highway U.S. 60, via Wickenburg.
If the reader is unfamiliar with the territory, U.S.
60 traverses a wide expanse of Sonoran desert. Along with occasional
views of irrigated farm fields, one experiences such desert hotspots as
Brenda, (named for an old girl friend), Hope (the eastbound and
westbound departure signs both read, “You Are Now Beyond Hope”), Salome
(Where she danced) and the lesser burgs of Harcuvar, Aguila and Gladden.
After going beyond Hope, it was a relief to reach the cheerful sounding
place named Gladden.
The previous day, the first cold front of the fall
season had passed through the Arizona desert. Departing Quartzsite at
midday, the temperature was only 63 f. degrees. Throughout the day,
temperatures did not exceed 83 f. degrees. For me, a clear, temperate
day in the Arizona desert is a rare treat.
As I motored along, the open landscape, clear blue
sky and white clouds created a peaceful atmosphere. The desert transit
allowed time for me to contemplate where I had been and where I
was going in life. The old highway served as allegory to my lifelong
transit.
How wonderful could a week’s vacation be? If you are
like me, you spend the "week prior" preparing for the journey. You
spend your vacation week living the vacation in real-time. Upon
returning home, you spend the "week following" reliving your vacation.
Using that formula, you get three weeks vacation for the price of one.
As I drove east, I realized that
there were issues to address and challenges to overcome, but such is
life. Beginning there in the desert, I concluded that I have no problems
in my life. Inside me, something said, “Be on the lookout for anomalies
in time. They are ready to escort you to your destiny. If you allow
their help, you shall live your dreams sooner than you might otherwise
imagine”.
Pushing our values on to another
person no longer works. It is up to each individual to discover who he
or she is. The final step in human ascension is to come to loving terms
with self. For many humans, allowing self-love is not easy. The
distractions of everyday life alone can separate us from our Source.
Many of us live day-to-day, with a “here today and gone tomorrow”
attitude. If we do not consciously connect with Mother Earth, our lives
can become ephemeral, more dreamlike than visceral.
The way to achieve “grounding” is
different for each person. If one offers, allows and accepts self-love,
one instantly feels grounded. Whether its source is alternating or
direct, the grounding of electricity through a wire is a one-way
process. For all known living things, the Earth is our ground. Our
personal electromagnetheric energy fields seek resolution there. The
process is analogous to gravity forcing water to seek its own level.
That all energy seeks resolution is universal law. As such, it is
undeniable.
We no longer need opposing energies
in our lives. When dualistic thinking is present, new energy travels to
ground, disappearing before it can manifest. In human life, the best
interactions are win-win. In the sport of fencing, each contestant might
score a simultaneous touché to the other's heart. The result is
grounding, from one to the other and out to the universe. Whenever two
hearts touch, new energy manifests. As with any other grounding of
energy, universal law applies. Put another way, "Thousands of candles
may be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be
shortened. Love never decreases by being shared." - Buddha ...
As the desert rolled under my truck, my thoughts
drifted to Jimmy, the boy I was, over fifty years ago. During that
period, my inner child had turned inward, longing for the unchanging
security of home and family. Despite my early unrealistic expectations
about home, family and security, in my fifties I became a nomad. For two
years, I lived on my sailboat, WindSong,
laying in Marina del Rey, CA. Later I alternated living quarters
between WindSong and my travel trailer. From Catalina Island, CA, to the
Four Corners region and throughout the Western U.S., I traveled. If
nothing else, it proved to me that my core beliefs about home, and
security could change.
As I observed the scenery that day, I realized that a
desert transit is a uniquely human experience. In my imagination, my
inner child sat next to me in the passenger seat. Before sharing our
thoughts about the scenery around us, we turned and smiled at each
Other. Aloud, I said, “Can you imagine doing what I do for a living, and
making money too?”
The twin subjects of shortage and abundance had
entered my mind. A conceptual path toward monetizing my life’s work
eluded me. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, I realized that I
did not need to know the details of my future funding sources. My
contribution was to keep asking the universe for what I wanted, and then
to align my energies with the receiving of what I had asked for.
A feeling of happiness and contentment washed over
me. If ever there was a place where the universe listens to requests, it
had to be the Sonoran desert. I spent that afternoon asking aloud for
all of that which I desired. Looking as my inner child had imagined it
so many years ago, the visual backdrop to my requests was the living
desert.
In the late afternoon, I reached Black Canyon City,
AZ. At the RV Park, I detached my coach, put on my running shorts and
drove a mile to the High Desert Nature Park. After two year’s absence
from the park, I ran a course made familiar during my two winters living
in Black Canyon City. My running course included a desert-garden
pathway, which loops around the seventy-five acre preserve. Other than
drought, which blankets the Four Corners with its dust, little had
changed in the park since I first visited there in March 2005. In
defiance of drought, were the Saguaro cacti a bit bigger now?
At sunset, from atop that hill, I could feel cool
Arctic air pushing south towards Mexico. I was happy to feel that Mother
Nature's natural chiller still worked.
If our collective consciousness requests it, we may
yet see glaciers return to the high country of our Rocky Mountains. Not
so long ago, Glacier National Park, MT, had many active glaciers within
its borders. If we request new glaciers, can group consciousness create
them? Ultimately, the gloomy-doomers may win the day with their global
warming scenarios, but I hereby request new glaciers.
That night, it was clear and cold in Black Canyon
City. Later, I read that Grand Junction, CO had eclipsed by three
degrees their low-temperature record for that date. In the Four Corners,
autumn 2009 had started cold. Might it also be wet?
Events at our next stop, Navajo National Monument, AZ hinted at a possible answer to that question.
Email James McGillisBy James McGillis at 03:46 PM | Travel | Comments (0) | Link
