The Domain of the Earth

I love the midwest: the rolling farm fields, big green trees, rampant weeds, rivers, streams and lakes, pale blue sky (or gray, depending on the day), cows, corn.  Every time I go I admire them all, even take special extra drives into the country.  


But I don’t want to go back.  


And when I return to Arizona, I watch the appearance of the rocky hills, the dry washes, the great dry open spaces, and feel a kind of relaxation, a letting go, a pleasure in the naked beauty of the earth.  I don’t quite know if I love it more, or just differently; but it stimulates a different part of me.  


The desert is subtle in its beauty – you have to look more carefully to see the green, the differences between the summer and the winter, the slow growth of the desert plants.  The midwest seems almost ostentatious in contrast, with its heavy foliage, outsized plants (really – do they NEED to be that big?), lush grasses, abundance of water.  The sky is so wide, so blue here; and when there are storms, there are storms.  I feel more of the scope of the earth, even with the immediacy of the rocks under my feet, or the cholla just an inch from my knee.  The mountains rise up, the canyons cut down.  The earth presents itself.  I can see, can touch, the different layers of rock slicing through the slope I’m climbing.  


The plants live here, as do the animals (and humans), but it’s not their domain – it is the earth’s.  And I find myself over and over looking at this or that rock, or mountain, or horizon, or wash, or canyon, and feeling the wonder of it move me.   And move me it does.  I don’t always know toward what; but is definitely toward, rather than away from.  It draws me, makes me wonder what is farther along – just over that hill, or beyond that horizon.  The midwest never quite did that.

When Nature Comes Calling Part 2

There was another nature incident at my house.  One morning walking through the garage, I heard a strange noise.  It was not a big noise, just a little one; coming from among a stack of stored boxes and things. 

It was a rattlesnake - a very handsome one, too.

I would say I am not scared of them, but that I do have a healthy respect for them.

I've encountered them before, on the trails around Phoenix; I've even been that close to them before (about 1 1/2 feet away).  I've had them rattle at me before.  I've even captured one, using a snake catcher, from my yard and moved it into a nearby vacant area.

I've never had one in my interior living space before, however.

This one was tucked in between some boxes, well protected, very difficult to reach.  I decided to call the local herpetologists.  They came, and quickly and efficiently removed the snake.

Here's the part that keeps tugging at me.  Once the herpetology fellow had placed the snake safely in the container and we were just chatting, I heard a persistent meowing at the back door.  There was a cat out there that I had never seen before.  It was very friendly and very communicative.  I explained to it what was going on, and apologetically closed the door so it wouldn't come into the garage.  Never since have I seen that cat.

Like Gibbs on NCIS, I don't really believe in coincidences.  And, although I don't believe that all of nature is conspiring just to tell me something, I do believe that (a) I can learn from any situation, and often something deeper than initially appears; and (b) there is more to the way things work than I know.  I have no doubt that the simultaneous presence of the snake and the peculiar cat meant something, and was an opportunity for me to learn something about my connection to nature (yes, a link to another Sweet Medicine SunDance teaching).  And the beauty and strangeness of the moment is undeniable.

Leaving me to wonder - and in wonderment.  Though I can't say what it means, I can say that it was a moment of magic.