i know it has been awhile since i have written anything here. it is not for the lack of adventures, not by a long way. i just haven’t known how to write about them. the desert changes me every time i take a breath of the magical air. the sand and grit gets into my pours. the light shifts how i see. all of it absorbed into my being…it changes my perspective. but i think i figured out a way to start talking about it, and i will let the sunris explain.

today paco, the truck, and i woke up in a different town for the first time in over a year (well except for a little backpacking trip to the gilas that may or may not included my 2nd encounter with search and rescue, but that is another story for another time).

i wanted a get away. a place i could get some writting done, dig deep into some research that i’ve been pecking at for awhile now, and sneak in a hot spring soak…..or 3. so i pointed the truck in a direction and drove for a little over an hour. and booked a little bungalow for a week. they call it a bungalow, it is a tiny little one room with the kitchen and bathroom all in the same space, but it is mine for the week and i am very happy.

so today i woke like i usually do, before the break of dawn, litterly. the sky hadn’t even changed from it’s mightnight blue yet. so i made some tea because, well i am a mear few steps from a fully loaded kitchen, and don’t have to break up the ice in my water jug. i take the steaming cup outside for some breaths as the sky shifts into a new day.

and for some reason, today, it hits me. how long have i been doing this, greeting the sun? when i tell people i’ve been up for hours, some have actually laughed at me, my silence could only mean i was asleep. them not realizing i’ve heard them get up, make the coffee, turn on the tv or radio. that i go to sleep in a way that allows me a glimpse of the sky, even if there is no way for me to see east, i watch the light shift. i lay there and think, stew, embrace the stillness, the quiet that i won’t find again for hours upon hours.

but today i am wondering when this started? i know it wasn’t those years in the pacific northwest where i went days without seeing the sun, just different shades of grey merging in and out of a darkness that never really got black or deep dark blue of the night. it certainly wasn’t all those years of tending bar, closing co-ops, late-night social times where i would see the sun rise as i finally ended my day.

that is a different kind of witness to the sunrise, watching it come up as i go down. it is almost like a relay race, or an exchange, ok you are here now, i can go. as if i just had to make sure there would be a day even if i failed to participate. and i was rarely alone in these moments. someone from the night’s adventures, maybe the whole crew. as if the rise of the sun could signal us to eat breakfast then pass out from exhaustion and glee.

no. this greeting is something completely different. something almost magical. mystical. i feel cheated if i miss it or the rare grey day hides the moment. there is something that grounds me in this moment of this greeting. i feel connected, at least for a moment, to the greater world, to my breath maybe? to the bird songs perhaps? to the coyotes howlng one final time before they scamper off? the owls that make the occasional appearance? the hope of rain in the clouds? the message in the wind? the deep booming silience found in the desert? to the something i can not name but am deeply indebted to for the magic of this world we get to inhabit?

what i am beginning to realize is that this is the moment that puts me firmly into my body. it makes me pay attention. i hear my breathing, wanting the breath to be clean air. i take the first drinks of water to break my fast of the night, and i want it to be clean water. i set my mind on these things so that the choices i make for the day are so that i and all the beings seen and not, heard and not, that we all have clean air, water, food. that we, as we end meditation with, be at ease, know peace, and be free from suffering.

this practice of greeting the day to start my day, a new day of new potentials connects me to me, and thus me to my environment. this connection holds me accountable to my responsibility to hold up my end of the agreement of interconnectedness. and no matter what happens the rest of the day, i have this moment to hold me as a place of gratitude, relative safety, and a type of love. and i can not believe i get to receive this gift.

all this has infected how i move through my adventures these days, as well as how and what adventures i am choosing. and now i think i can write about them.

as always, thanks for reading

ometeotl