2024-05-19
This morning and the previous, have tended to train us to wake up with the sun, then emerge into excitement. Eventually, the wonder, sometimes surreal, that surrounds us, begins to teach.
This morning, while DF sits with a journal, I venture out for my latrine building duties. I find only a thin layer of red sand, just inches and the bedrock. I try a small indentation of a wash, hoping to find thicker soil that has built up around the bushes that are surviving there.
As I stated before, we always play our game of stepping to not disturb the delicate floor and flora. There are signs to caution humans to not trample the precious soil and biology, but here there is evidence of cattle grazing. In the distance, I can see them standing in the Monument. The cattle’s weight and hooves have destroyed way more than the simple paths that we may make. The effect of their prints can be seen. I follow a trail, an indentation paved with loose sand, made by them. They rip out plants that we walk around and admire. This plant life takes many years to root and then grow. The flora do this and flower with only a couple of opportunities each year. Even the lichen wait.
Today, the vegetation is almost all new, displaying a different green and blooming. All of this is rare.
What I know as a Mormon tea plant is different here, because of its stature and structures. Here, it also commonly grows in mass, as a dominate adaptation, unlike at home. A green ground-cover stretches out to the Gods and Goddesses. The iconic Monument Valley can still be seen on the horizon.
The soil is sand on rock. Here it has become particularly fluffy from when it rained and froze. We sink to our ankles where we walk off of the trails. It seems a shame to walk on it. It’s like freshly fallen snow, so beautiful, but you know that your tracks will change it forever. I’m feeling a bit guilty, as the black biology is protective and it will not be back until the moister meets it again, when conditions are just right.
This place is one of those places where morning brings contemplation.
Here, naked on a fallen boulder’s wide surface, I sit. At similar times, the world may seem to pass by. In this valley, it is evident that it is us that pass by this world.
The Free Range Naturist 