West Desert Journal

Well, I left Southern Utah, and I didn’t think I could. I left those familiar surroundings behind. My family is back in Utah, and I have no relatives in Northern Arizona. It has finally become quiet in my life. What I become absent from, I grow fond of. But my patience is strong, and I love a new start. If the good old AZ becomes my home, then so be it.

My junk car cannot go off this mountain, because I’m afraid it wouldn’t make it back up. There is the desert below, that I want to see. There are things that I envision; simple things like clouds shadows passing over dark red mesas; whirl winds traveling across long empty landscapes. The desert is calling me, and it would drive me insane if I allowed it. But I am controlling the passion of wanting to be there physically. For now the landscape paints images in my head and in my dreams at night. I wake up in the morning, and look into the sky, as it comes through the window. I watch the nimble clouds traveling passed the square opening..

There is a nothingness that I crave; to simply hear the grind of my motor, and my wheels traversing down some isolated country road. I’d like to be fishing, with my shoes off, below a shady cottonwood. As the clouds slowly floated above, I’d listen to the muddy water flow restlessly, but gently.

In Flagstaff, Arizona, I’ve been taking a Navajo History class at the college. Tonight I learned one of the original names for the San Francisco Peaks. The Navajo call them Dookoosliid, and yellow is their color. The peaks are sacred. Dookoosliid is the western boundry of Dinetah, the homeland of the Navajo People.

Tonight, radiant yellow clouds glistened above the San Francisco Peaks. They were yellow, and then dark orange. Soon, everything turned into a soft purple glow as the sun disappeared. I want to hear the wind whip and howl through the pines, through the darkness of these woods. This summer, violent thunderstorms will venture through. I find myself alone in this little apartment on the western fringe of Flagstaff, with the room mates gone. I realize how far from home I am, nearly three hundred miles from Cedar City, Utah!

Flagstaff is situated in the nation’s largest Ponderosa Forest, and it separates the outside world. Which is a good thing! On the horizon, there is nothing but pine steeples against blue sky. The peaks rise above, and they become an incredible panorama.

It’s been a joy to write in my journal. When feeling homesick, it is a place to ponder. But I learn to appreciate the beauty, and wonder of this world. Arizona is a nice little place, and I don’t get homesick too bad. In fact, it scares me that I don’t miss home. I miss my family though!

The fire ignites the oily wood
cracking and echoing
into the forest.

Infinite candled stars
glitter in the black staircase
above the trees.

There are whispers
in the Quaking Aspen
in the dark grass.

Faraway from the settlements
A Great Horned Owl
sings in the tallest Ponderosa.

With every hoot
he becomes a shadow.
The ghost soon stops?

as I enter
into the darkness.
I hear the fire behind…

Eating the pitch,
snapping and casting
orange ribbons of light.

Deeper and deeper
my footsteps go
into the black labyrinth?

creating excitement
mystery, courage,
tears, and dreams.

This was long ago.
It is still here.
Forever it remains.

There in the sky’s cathedral, in the white painted aspens, where the land is still untouched; is a place where I can go to get away from the ignorance of the world. In this space is the space in which I tick. This miraculous landscape is alien to its own existence. It’s unlike anywhere else. Like the song of the hidden valley, where no one ever goes. I sit beneath a living tree, below the foot of a large sleeping hill. Now from this place, the Earth Mother speaks to me in dreams. In the sun soaked clouds, those dreams of old, speak to me. Hiding themselves as when I hide myself in prospective touch. All the materials of life are burning like a steady day inside me. Behold, in the extremity, I was threshed away into this still silence. And there, I thought of far more intelligent things. And my might, gazed at reality, giving me its music. I stared into my own existence, as a person would stare at his own reflection in the water. What a rich time it is, feeling nothing but the corners of God’s imagination.

In the dark mansion of space
I ponder the old ways of this world.
Will we ever return?
What are humans without?

With every traffic noise
and every humming car
The silence remains there afterwards.
A silence greater then humans.

The pine tree quietly waits,
the forest is waiting.
The mountains keep covered secrets.
There is a greater cause
weaving into us, illusions or truths.

With every lifestyle and luxury,
Death eventually comes to everyone.
Death converts humans to the quietness…
of the flowing river,
and the natural flow.

I’m waiting for the mystery
to carry me away
over vast distances of knowledge.
I have a home beyond death.
I ponder the still endless
wastelands of the desert
onward, into dreams.

I have lived a total of six days in Flagstaff now. I don’t know what to think of this place yet? I love the singing Ponderosa Pine that engulf the sprawling town. There are so many trees, that I couldn’t even find my way around. A few times, I got lost. This town is actually environmentally friendly; at least when compared to the towns of Utah. A lot of ravens take up residency too. It’s a quiet place, except for the trains. They sound their horns at all hours. It isn’t bothersome though.

Compared to Southern Utah, this area is a lot more diverse with people. There are a lot of folks coming from different backgrounds. In Utah, it seems like 90% of the population is Mormon and of the same mindset. There’s the Paiute in Southern Utah, and a few Mexicans. But in my humble opinion, Southern Utah is culturally lacking. I say this respectively, not to offend anybody. I have yet to become familiar with the citizens of Flagstaff, Arizona.

Today, I drove to a place called the Oak Creek Canyon overlook. There was Native people selling stuff there. Ravens were chatting. Far below the overlook railing, I could hear the creek rushing downward. I loved the steep walls of the canyon, and the various layers of sandstone that composed it. Then I wanted to go see Sedona, despite all the New Agers and frauds that I’ve heard are living there. I didn’t dare drive down to Sedona anyway, because my car has been acting like an creaky dinosaur about to kill over. In the past few months, it’s been acting strange and unpredictable. I can’t stand the thought of getting stranded again, like I did the other night while coming into Flagstaff. A radiator hose blew out in the engine, and I ended up trying to stop people on the highway for help. It’s a lonely feeling, when no one was willing to stop and help. I guess people let fear, or carelessness dictate their lives. I try to stop and help people when I see them in that predicament. Finally, a highway patrolman stopped and called a wrecker.

So now I am living in Flagstaff with three other room mates. What a dark town it becomes at night. I’ve noticed that it blends into the surrounding forest after sundown, below the San Francisco Peaks. These mountains are sacred to the Hopi and other local Native peoples. I’ve known the controversy surrounding the peaks, and I side with the original nations in this area. Down below the peaks, the desert is primordial, calling to all those that hear its vision. And how I love the glow of the peaks, when the pale moon shines upon them.

I love traveling through the Navajo Reservation, and seeing the long empty shadows being dropped from low rising sandstone formations. Just before sundown, there is a twilight of emense silence, and the only sounds I hear, are the roaring engine and the wheels humming against the endless highway. Navajo homes with little street lamps, weave a spider web of existence in the black labyrinth of Northern Arizona. I feel the strong warmth of isolation. I feel something that is hard to speak of. I listen to the radio buzz, and the static responding to the RPM of my motor. Into the blackness, into the Painted Desert I traverse.

Flagstaff is a quiet place. Yes, it is a busy little city. But it isn’t really. It is full of interesting things. I have yet to explore it. When I see Arizona, in a wholesome sense, it has a spirit that is far different from Utah. Even the local Wal-Mart has an ‘Arizona’ smell to it. Yes, I am going to miss Utah, but I left to find some personal indipendence.

And to Zoey, I appreciate your comment. I checked my bloginality, and I may post the result in the sidebar somewhere.