These short reflections and insights range in length from twitter-length to short essays. They’re free, so what’ve you got to lose but a few moments?
On the Edge, Living on Air, Oldest on Earth
Yale called them the Undying Lands, a term borrowed from Tolkien. To Yale, the Undying Lands were in southeast Utah, the land of his mysterious origins. We never discovered out much about his beginnings. As a child, he went from foster home to foster home, […]
What’s at the End of Your Rainbow?
In the 12-stage journey of the hero popularized by mythologists such as Joseph Campbell, writers such as Chris Vogler, and the psychiatrist, Carl Jung, the hero undergoes many hardships on her way to psychological transformation.
Like Sarah Connor in the Terminator series, she may begin life quite commonly […]
Cave near Comb Wash
The world myth represents a journey undertaken by the hero (used for both female and male characters) which leads to a battle against an adversary of unimaginable power. In mythological tales which have existed for thousands of years, cross-cultural similarities have been noted by scholars such as Joseph Campbell in […]
Beyond Thought
An idea I’ve revisited lately is the one of God. God has a very hard time of it today. I don’t think that’s because we don’t understand God. I think it’s because we can’t understand It. Think about it: if God was small enough for us to comprehend, It wouldn’t be big […]
Navajo Lake, Gladstone Peak in the background
It’s been said that reality is as much what it isn’t as what it is, that the true path leads to emptiness, that God is as much nonbeing as It is being. As a reader of books of esoteric spirituality, I was always confused — and very […]
After a breakfast of cold oats and an orange, I take Highway 95 a few miles to Rec Road 633, which comes in on the north between the Colorado and Dirty Devil rivers. This crimson track traces around the base of a thin rock wall decaying into fins. I ride the red, flakey shale for […]
At day’s end, I hike back toward camp, down the red clay of Hole-in-the-Rock Road. Another storm rolls off the Straight Cliffs which loom in the west, taking up half the sky. Lightning strikes to the south along a flat expanse of rangeland dotted with sage. I climb down to a low spot. Black veils […]
You ever get exactly what you want, and find yourself unable to enjoy it? I mean, to really appreciate it? And it bothers you that you can’t enjoy it, that you can’t be grateful for it. What’s wrong with me? you wonder.
It’s driving 7 hours to the Grand Canyon and then thinking: ‘So what?’ while […]
Moki Dugway
Do you know what a dugway is? I didn’t either, until I happened upon one. The photo above is taken from an outcrop along Cedar Mesa in southern Utah. It shows a long and winding road excavated by U miners in the second uranium boom during the Cold war. Driving up or […]
I’d been to Powell Plateau before. A couple years back in July. This time I went at the end of September, before they closed out the North Rim for the tourists. As a backpacker, I was a step above the tourists. So I thought.
There’s no source of water so you have to haul in your […]