JOURNEY THROUGH THE SACRED

JOURNEY THROUGH THE SACRED
Ruminations on travels in the Grand Canyon
Journal Memoir of North to South Rim Trek, June 2010,
(excerpt)

“Holy Water”
Day Two, Cottonwood Camp to Phantom Ranch, with a side trip to Ribbon Falls: By far the longest, most tiring day of the entire trip.  Trudging through the just starting summer heat, with 45 extra pounds on my back, there were times I was convinced the Canyon was out to get me personally!  At least the cicadas seemed to take pity on me and kept their incessant chattering comments to themselves.  The side trip to Ribbon Falls was as spiritual an experience as I’ve ever had.  And the impromptu standing in the falls was as sacred as a planned ceremony.  It was an experience that won’t soon be forgotten.

The sun beat down on plants and animals alike, sucking moisture from every exposed surface.  Plants adapted to water conservation held onto every drop, occasionally offering warm shade to travelers seeking to conserve their own water.  In the distance, a faint tone murmured a promised story of water somewhere ahead.  At times, it seemed to mock the weary traveler, seeming to dangle a refreshment just beyond reach.  At other times, it whispered encouragement, beckoning to an oasis hidden beyond the next turn.

The stream danced its way through rocks grasping for watery sustenance.  Plants clung to banks, soaking their roots in the continuing flow.  Still other plants, desert plants scattered throughout the small side canyon, clung to life, seeming to make the already hot landscape even more scorching.  Suddenly, a corner was turned, boulders stepped aside and the faint rush of water became a many voiced chorus celebrating life in a desert.

There, tucked far back along a wall painted with the layers of time, sat a desert Queen, offering the generous gift of water to her subjects below.  Pilgrims came to pay homage to her beauty, power, and gifts of respite; gathering at her banks, soaking in the life of falling water. 

The empress enticed me—suggesting unknown secrets, pressing my sensibilities—to stand in the place between sky and earth, and join the song flowing between the two.  My hands caressed the fuzzy moss; my toes gripped the uneven surface.  The very air surged with light and water and being. 

I stretched into the void and experienced the dream of that place.

Water flowed through the desert.  It seemed to pour from the sun, cascading off the edge of the cliff, over my body, to the canyon below, rushing to join the Colorado River, flowing to meet the Oceans, cycling to the atmosphere, to eventually join in the sacred falling from the sky and once again be water in the desert.  My tears joined that rush.  I bathed in the eternal flow of existence.  Acolyte to the Universe.  Priestess.  Pilgrim.  Me.