I’m game. There is also a jeep trail near there that we could try.
We walk the massive field, finding spring water is creating mushy grasslands in spots. Here after a drought, we’re surprised. We could understand the darker green grasses, but standing water coming up out of the earth is something else. It had been a wet and up here, a snowy winter.
The grove is as if we never left it.
I walk along the edge of the field south to where I had found tire tracks.
Someone has camped here, but not recently. The circle of tire marks is vague and overgrown.
The squirrel chatters away, high in a tree, the rhythmic tat-tat tat and squeaks above us.
I sit in a chair, now in the cooler shade of the clouds. Below me, a light breeze wriggles the baby aspens, barely two feet tall. They are children of the forest playing games, gathering their strength and prowess.
I sit back and look up at a shining silver break in the grey, as the sun casts similar light across the grasses through tree branches. It is warming me, radiant, caressing. It feels as though it burns skin for a few moments. Before this disappears, I’m reminded of the dramatic reaction my body has with the sun. There is an ancient synthesis from the beginnings with the sun. One might call this simply natural, but I know how deeply it brings me alive in the morning. It penetrates my eyes, as if a portal into my inner being. I become more alive and whole as my body receives.
This afternoon:
We put on shoes and take a water bottle and cameras. There is a slope into the deep forest away from camp and the great field. I know that if we get lost, we just keep walking downward to a Forest Service road. We will wander as far as our mood is fulfilled.
We just want to see what is there, in the neighborhood.
I used to take off walking in Tortolita out my front door, roaming, quietly immersing myself, my body bare. Sometimes my feet were also bare. My intention was to adjust the intensity of my experience. As they say, “when walking bare in a prickly desert, you’d better stay on your toes.”
Staying in the moment, using a full spectrum of the possible awarenesses, there being a necessity, is also extremely healthy. If I want to experience myself as a part of nature and of its natural influence on the body, my best is to be in this state. I want to come into these amplified senses and reactions of where this body evolved from.
To watch my body’s complexities of motion is fascinating to the point of becoming a prayer of gratitude in the wonder of it all. These bodies are amazing and to be mindful with them in each step, getting to know them, can be hours and hours of stunning entertainment. It is also integration and a path to a heightened consciousness, which I believe to be a more true state of our nature. My experience has told me that after the practice of these activities, and frequency, that these states can be brought back to my daily experience. I become a more balanced, whole and spiritual person. This was also explained to me as a path to enlightenment in India and also from what I know of many Buddhist practices. The body and life is experienced, but there is an observer, that which lacks attachment, just be here now.
Such emersions are also a great way to start a new day.
During our White Mountain retreat, we would find ourselves wandering off from camp, into the forest. DF liked to walk off in the mornings by herself. She would say hello to the familiar trees, stand in a field, arms extended, just feeling it all. Sometimes the sun would warm her exposure like a lizard’s daily air-bath. Often, I might catch a glance of her standing nude, moving to the stretch and rhythm of her chi gong moves.
We went out north of Three Points, Arizona, where I had found a clear road into the Roskruge Mountains using satellite photos. They appeared to be saguaro and associated vegetation on the hills. The peaks top out at 3700 feet with their feet lying probably somewhere around 2600, give or take. The private land goes into Tohono O’odham Nation lands and the Ironwood National Monument. It’s often hot out there and warm in the winter. We can expect a place to ourselves.
After a 30 minute drive through an often tortured desert landscape, we are slowing down as the two lane highway passes through the town which offers a few conveniences. After Ace Hardware, Dollar stores, and Mexican fast food, we find our turn at Fuller Road and head north. Asphalt shortly turns to dirt. I pull over in front of a dusty trailer on a property surrounded with a chain-link fence. I need to get out and adjust my 4×4 locking hubs. A pit bull rages out to punish our ruckus in its serene life.
The Free Range Naturist 