Death Valley
November 24th - on the side of a mountain, off highway 190 just outside the "fee boundary". I rolled in this morning and hiked the mosaic canyon, west of the general store. It was big, massive - enormous walls of jagged and swirling hues of reds, oranges, peach and greys, the view spilling back over the valley. It was breath-taking, but so busy, so many other tourists. But finally it is genuinely warm, the sky free of clouds. There's still a November breeze here though. After the canyon I drove back west a bit and have just left Bus on the gravel turn-off down below. She's a bright, beautiful speck so far away among the new hills. Home base. So here I sit, amidst crisp, dry grass, yellow'd from the heat. As is every other plant out here. Darkened - almost black - rocks all around, and across the highway's valley the mountains shift in colour as they shift in height, tree-less and bare back mountains, weathered by sunlight rather than rain... * * * ...in bed in the Bus... maybe 6:30 pm? - Happy American Thanksgiving - I've been laying back here, warming my face in the three pm rays, and watching the arc of shadow sweep across Death Valley at dusk - swallowing the colourful hills in darkness. Gradually the silhouette of these south eastern mountains has faded into the sky and if you look, stars reveal themselves in bunches. The winds pick up and night settles on the desert's edge. Bus shimmies every now and then, caught in sudden gusts. All colour fades, all light dims, the sparkling presence of other worlds scatter our distant ceiling. As the day closes the moon dances above, and I tuck inwards.
November 25th - more south eastern end of the park, about 3pm. This place, Death Valley, is incredible. I have had some beautiful and humbling moments here these last two days. And of course, right now I'm sitting on the floor with the side door open - facing west to the Panamint slopes I was behind yesterday - and my phone has finally died, as well as my laptop. I am happy but a part of me is bummed I can't take a photo of this magnificent scene in front of me! I climbed sand dunes today, and hiked up into a cavern sliced and crumbled in the side of a mountain.
This place used to be a lake, a long time ago. Then it dried up. You can see what water once did to the valley walls. Amid these massive hills of rolling rock I imagine this must be similar to sitting at the bottom of the sea. I mean, the ocean can't continue towards the ether of the Earth all the way - it gets too hot. The fire's beneath at the middle, Mother Nature's heartbeat, that pumps warmth through our veins. There must be a polar opposite of heat and fire to control it, or our world would not exist, the flaming explosion would ignite and fizzle out - it needs water and freezing temperatures to counter act, and in meeting the two somehow find balance. Is it that the explosion of our Earth's star happened to be the exact opposite temperature of the Universe - so when Earth erupted and was born the harmonizing of Fire and Water spread and formed the Earth's core and atmosphere, creating (literal, elemental) Earth and Air - but the energy, the actual molecular matter that exists here is able to do so because of gravity, holding everything in harmony with time. Holding us all on this sphere by pulling from the very center - the heart - the ether, the "fifth element". And everything that we perceive is derived from Nature, as are we, and I do believe that human beings must be the most advanced and evolved species to be currently existing, but a lot of it is lost in the merry-go-round society where money rules all... but where "greats" are remembered there is our proof, the truth of what people can, and have, achieved. We're pretty cool, us humans. The environment in which we live has become an un-productive abyss of straight lines and bills to pay, a narrow hallway down which to walk in order to be within society, a city, amidst "it all". The stars out here are incredible. I have never seen so many, ever. It's empty out here, but it's still alive. They're crispy plants but they're plants. In the canyon today I saw a coyote. There's water beneath the sand they say.
