February 17, 2023
I woke early. I had my cereal. Everyday, with rare exception, I have cereal for breakfast. The latest “flavor” has been a combination of Fruit & Nut Granola with Fruit & Nut Muesli. It is a delicious and nutritious with skim milk. I buy it at Whole Foods. I also had morning tea. Then, around 7:15, I went for a walk in search of the sunrise. The sunrise here at Big Bend seems relatively late, 7:46. As I walked I noted it was mostly calm, the strong winds that were present yesterday and overnight had nearly disappeared. That was, until I hiked a ridge from which I could watch the sunrise. Once I was up on the ridge, the wind was strong, cold, unwelcome. But, this was a good spot to be at sunrise, so I stayed and enjoyed it none-the-less. And it was beautiful. It was not a dramatic, reddish, deep-color-laden sunrise. It was quietly dressed, light pastel, but wonderful in its own way, as is every sunrise, should one take the time and make the effort to see and feel it. I took some pictures, as is always the case. I expressed my wonder and gratefulness in prayer. Then I got down from that cold ridge!
Back at the van, I walked over to talk with Pam and Lisa. They are traveling from Pennsylvania, in a Volvo station wagon, having driven to Tucson for a Rock & Gem show. They stopped, on the way home, at Big Bend. Just as a side note, Big Bend is not really on the way home to anywhere. It is out of the way of everywhere! But worth the detour.
They were staying at a “borrowed” site. By that I mean, they could not get a reservation, but, in the course of the day, we had met them at Boquillas Canyon Overlook. We became engaged in their conversation and the end result was Regina told them they could stay with her at her site. I had met Regina the day before. I was having tea when she came over to my site to say hello. Her site was across the road from mine. She was traveling from Quebec. Wandering is more the word. She left Canada in the Fall with her 2000 Dodge, Pleasure-Way van. She named it Cocoon, like the movie, seen in the photo above, with the name painted on the van. She had roamed to Florida, where she had owned a condo, then to Arizona and points between, and now she was heading back to Florida to meet friends in March, before heading back to Quebec.
Yesterday, Regina and I went to Boquillas Canyon to do the short (1.4 miles round trip) hike there. It was slow leisurely hike, with a lot of photo taking and talk about various aspects of life that, in a sense, got us to where we were, in Big Bend, on this trail. She told me she had been camping at a place called Quartzite, along the AZ/CA border near Lake Havasu, and she loved it there. It had a flavor that was hippie-like, a very friendly, sharing, open community on BLM Land (Bureau of Land Management.) She was there five weeks! I also learned, among other things, she had a daughter and a son, was a former Bed & Breakfast owner, and she was a painter (abstract art).
Boquillas Canyon is magnificent and inspiring. There are cliffs rising up both sides of the Rio Grande as it races into the canyon. They have a white-gold hue in the sunlight, rising maybe 800-1000 feet above us. I ask her if she ever paints landscapes, like these cliffs. She says no, not like they look she doesn’t. But, she takes what she sees and feels in a landscape, such as this one, and she paints the essence of it in her work. We got on a discussion of feelings and this “essence” of the landscape, and how it relates to a sense of being one with the landscape, with the land and Earth itself. There is this vitality in the landscape, in the rocks that make it, in the river rushing past, in the big blue sky above, in everything. And that vitality, that essence, extends into ourselves. So, in that instant, there seems to be a oneness connecting the entire landscape and Nature with ourselves. What she sees and feels comes out in her work, in her painting.
I told her this is how I feel when I am out hiking or bike riding, especially away in the national parks and nature, where there is little distraction, ample opportunity to really feel the land, sky, etc. Painting and exercise activities are two branches of the tree of oneness, and of some deep sense of expression and fulfilment.
Anyway, Regina, a self-admitted late sleeper, came out of her Cocoon shortly after 9AM. Discussions ensured, and plans were made for the day. Regina and Pam were going to go to Boquillas, the tiny town in Mexico, a rowboat ferry ride across the Rio Grande. At the border crossing, the river is about thirty yards wide. It is also not very deep so, technically, one could walk across. But the ferry is, well, it’s easier, and it’s worth the $5 cost. Lisa was going to spend time at the Historical Hot Springs, a few miles up the road from the campground. And I was going to ride my bike from the campground here at Rio Grande Village up to Chisos Basin, which is a mostly uphill, thirty-mile route through Big Bend.
But wait, there’s more (not like the infomercial). Before I left, I wandered over to another neighbors campsite to say hi. Mary and Hanna were visiting from Austin. It sounded like they had been here many times before, not surprising since Austin is relatively close by, like 400 miles or so. From a practical point of view, talking with them was so helpful, as I was planning to visit Austin in the coming week. I learned about where I could park my van and what I might like to see.
But the more interesting topic of our discussion was Mary’s “retirement” work. She told me she is a cranial-sacrum therapist. “A what?” I said. “Tell me about this.” And she did. She started out by telling me the main point of it all was to help relieve stress that people had, that they held within themselves. She was very interesting, and I learned a good amount about it, about the function of the autonomic and sympathetic nervous systems, the role and movement of cerebral-spinal fluid and how it affects the function of other cells in the body. And, about the connection of mind-emotions-spirit with physical, how a meditative-hypnotic state can be utilized to help someone move toward a healthier state of being. Fascinating …
And all of these events and activities, they each started out with a simple activity … just saying hello! Each hello, a potential dot ... on the canvas of our lives.
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