I love the desert. I always have. It is strange and inscruitable and mysterious. During the day it is brash and bold and in-your-face, but at night...ah at night it is something else altogether.
Silence so deep that it feels alive, moving. It whispers in the voices of the ancients, teases with aborted murmers of what may yet come to be. It sings in a thousand tongues and yet is only what it is. Silence. There is no one around to break the spell of absolute soundlessness, no one to disturb the tempestuous tranquilty. I am completely and utterly alone.
It should be frightening, this isolation, this wilderness around me; but I sense no malice in my surroundings. The land knows I am a stranger, but I am welcome as long as I step with care and don't disturb her.
The air is chilly and diamond-clear around me; sharp, with edges capable of slicing through any resistance, but beautiful. Sparkling. Clean. It flows over me like a mountain stream, stealing my breath, but exhilarating in its purity. And like a glacier stream, I want to cup my hands in it and drink deeply. I want to feel it crystalize in my blood and set my alight with icy fire.
I close my eyes and reach out with my other senses. I can FEEL the vastness of the landscape - the immense emptiness. It presses down on me, in on me from every direction. There can be no mistake about where I stand. There is an arrogance to the breath of this place that is unique and unforgettable. I could not possibly be anywhere but where I am.
I smell...vastness. It has a flavour impossible to describe. I smell day-scorched earth, the dusty tang of sagebrush, the elusive sweetness of cactus rose. Faintly, far away I smell water.
Now a gust of wind shushes through the sand at my feet, burying and uncovering a thousand miniscule treasures in an eternal pattern that is, like a kaleidoscope, never the same twice, always changing. No two grains of sand have ever been displayed just like this before, and they never will be again. It's humbling, the agelessness, the enormity of the idea.
There is a timelessness in this place. Eternities may be measured in seconds, or impossibly tiny stretches of time may last for aeons. There is no sense of now, no past, no future. They are all one, mixed together in a fluid chronology that may be any time, any era at any moment. It is ageless, unchanging, and yet never the same for the space of two breaths, the measure of two heartbeats.
I'm standing on a precipice overlooking nothing - and everthing. Is it the very edge of the world? Perhaps. If the ground beneath me should crumble, would I fall into the fathomless blackness of the Universe? Again, perhaps. No one has stood on this exact spot before, so it's impossible to tell. Below my feet is darkness. Solid darkness laced at the edges with the liquid sheen of moonlight. Nothing, or anything at all may exist in the heart of that darkness, but the chasm holds her mysteries to herself.
The moon is almost impossibly bright. Larger than I have ever seen it, almost close enough to touch. A pricelessly luminous jewel displayed to best advantage on a fall of velvet so darkly blue as to seem black, innumerable dazzling spangles tossed carelessly into the folds around it. If I concentrate, I can almost hear the stars breathing - a tiny musical twinkle, like icecubes in a crystal glass of water.
The sky is endless, a dome that surrounds everything and is yet an entity unto itself; as alive, or more alive that I am.
In the absolute stillness around me I can feel the heartthrob of the earth. It resonates in everything, almost deafening in it's silent power. I feel small and utterly insignificant here in the face of that which was long before my ancestors' ancestors, and will remain long after the dust reclaims my bones. I feel small in the hands of He who formed this terrifying beauty, who set it on its course and who will see it come to its destined end. I feel small in the face of the Awesome power of the Almighty. But the very fact that I am alive to know my transience, my fragility, is a testiment to the overwhelming reach and power of His love.
I have discovered that here in the wilderness, in the desert where I am the most isolated, I am the least alone. For here, in the reverent stillness of His own handiwork, I can see the very face of my Creator.
Essay by Karen
Read 526 times
Written on 2007-02-19 at 16:25
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Communion
Silence.Silence so deep that it feels alive, moving. It whispers in the voices of the ancients, teases with aborted murmers of what may yet come to be. It sings in a thousand tongues and yet is only what it is. Silence. There is no one around to break the spell of absolute soundlessness, no one to disturb the tempestuous tranquilty. I am completely and utterly alone.
It should be frightening, this isolation, this wilderness around me; but I sense no malice in my surroundings. The land knows I am a stranger, but I am welcome as long as I step with care and don't disturb her.
The air is chilly and diamond-clear around me; sharp, with edges capable of slicing through any resistance, but beautiful. Sparkling. Clean. It flows over me like a mountain stream, stealing my breath, but exhilarating in its purity. And like a glacier stream, I want to cup my hands in it and drink deeply. I want to feel it crystalize in my blood and set my alight with icy fire.
I close my eyes and reach out with my other senses. I can FEEL the vastness of the landscape - the immense emptiness. It presses down on me, in on me from every direction. There can be no mistake about where I stand. There is an arrogance to the breath of this place that is unique and unforgettable. I could not possibly be anywhere but where I am.
I smell...vastness. It has a flavour impossible to describe. I smell day-scorched earth, the dusty tang of sagebrush, the elusive sweetness of cactus rose. Faintly, far away I smell water.
Now a gust of wind shushes through the sand at my feet, burying and uncovering a thousand miniscule treasures in an eternal pattern that is, like a kaleidoscope, never the same twice, always changing. No two grains of sand have ever been displayed just like this before, and they never will be again. It's humbling, the agelessness, the enormity of the idea.
There is a timelessness in this place. Eternities may be measured in seconds, or impossibly tiny stretches of time may last for aeons. There is no sense of now, no past, no future. They are all one, mixed together in a fluid chronology that may be any time, any era at any moment. It is ageless, unchanging, and yet never the same for the space of two breaths, the measure of two heartbeats.
I'm standing on a precipice overlooking nothing - and everthing. Is it the very edge of the world? Perhaps. If the ground beneath me should crumble, would I fall into the fathomless blackness of the Universe? Again, perhaps. No one has stood on this exact spot before, so it's impossible to tell. Below my feet is darkness. Solid darkness laced at the edges with the liquid sheen of moonlight. Nothing, or anything at all may exist in the heart of that darkness, but the chasm holds her mysteries to herself.
The moon is almost impossibly bright. Larger than I have ever seen it, almost close enough to touch. A pricelessly luminous jewel displayed to best advantage on a fall of velvet so darkly blue as to seem black, innumerable dazzling spangles tossed carelessly into the folds around it. If I concentrate, I can almost hear the stars breathing - a tiny musical twinkle, like icecubes in a crystal glass of water.
The sky is endless, a dome that surrounds everything and is yet an entity unto itself; as alive, or more alive that I am.
In the absolute stillness around me I can feel the heartthrob of the earth. It resonates in everything, almost deafening in it's silent power. I feel small and utterly insignificant here in the face of that which was long before my ancestors' ancestors, and will remain long after the dust reclaims my bones. I feel small in the hands of He who formed this terrifying beauty, who set it on its course and who will see it come to its destined end. I feel small in the face of the Awesome power of the Almighty. But the very fact that I am alive to know my transience, my fragility, is a testiment to the overwhelming reach and power of His love.
I have discovered that here in the wilderness, in the desert where I am the most isolated, I am the least alone. For here, in the reverent stillness of His own handiwork, I can see the very face of my Creator.
Essay by Karen
Read 526 times
Written on 2007-02-19 at 16:25
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