Traveling Meditations III - Water

Meditations on Water – From 11 -13 August



(Note: The night of 10 August was spent in a hotel in Santa Fe. That part of the trip was very enjoyable and included the St. Francis of Assisi Basilica, the Contemporary Native American Museum of Art, a stroll through the Old Square, and other events. My aims for this series of reflections does not include Santa Fe.)



Coming upon the Painted Desert has its own sort of reality to it. I recalled a story in one of my Lovecraftian story anthologies—the specific one I forget—in which an adventuresome couple goes into the Southwest in hopes of discovering this poorly mapped establishment. The suggestion is that it is a ghost town, but in truth it is a weak point between boundaries between our world and something like the dream world of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and Through the Gate of the Silver Key. Out in the Southwest, one has a definite sense of proximity to some other place or thinness of our own sense of time and space. The air is thin and changes quickly, in the summer monsoons footsteps are rapidly washed away, animals are sparse and elusive (except for the damnable mosquitoes), and distances can seem inaccurately far or near. Not to mention the brilliance of stars and the weight of the sun playing their own peculiar mental tricks.



I can also recall the fantasy novels I read in my adolescence based on the Magic: the Gathering card game, a significant notion of which were bubbles of disparate time. These spatial bubbles took on faster and slower temporal movement, sometimes drastically so, which made transport between them of living matter very difficult. (Imagine stepping through an invisible barrier and suddenly feeling numbness in your leg as the tissue therein used up its oxygen and half again or twice the speed as usual; meanwhile your heart moves at an expected rate and under-supplies oxygen to your muscles causing strain and potentially damage.) The trick between movement from one place to the other was through water, which acted to soften the temporal discontinuities and to dampen their effects so that one might move from one place to the other without damage. (The series also emphasized water as a transporter by crafting an interdimensional, the Weatherlight, as a flying ship, closer to a caravel than a spacecraft.)



In its way, these weird fiction and fantasy stories got something right. Water does play a profound role in facilitating the movement through time in a way that we cannot easily appreciate. Water has both the direct, short-view impact on the surroundings—saturated soil, hydrated plants and animals, replenishing groundwater, spurring growth, etc.—and the startling long-view effects—carved bedrock, soil removal and transportation, changing ecosystems, shifted rivers, filled in lakes, glaciers and their rending of stone, etc.—that are so outlandish it is difficult to appreciate without at least a little abstraction. Not only that, but these events happen simultaneously with each circulation of water.



The signs of water and its reflection left in stone are everywhere in the Painted Desert and especially in the Petrified Forest section therein. Over many thousands of years, water gradually deposited sediments that the stream was inadequate to carry. If a stream is fast moving, it can carry larger sediments; if it is slow moving, and likely lower, the stream can only carry fine sediments and will deposit the larger ones. In this way, one can see the seasonal variations in the ancient streambed in the sediments of the Painted Desert. Not only that, but the later carving of the Painted Desert was the result of water as well, water that cuts through the ancient bed and exposes the undulations of the streams forebear.





Shallow, ephemeral creaks and rivers carve out washes in the desert landscape, areas of calm, smooth sand that mark the easy and well-traversed passage of storms. In the monsoon season—summer months when brief but intense rainstorms, likely thunderstorms, roll it and dump fat drops of rain in the region—these washes will fill up in little time at all. The are the main vein of the innumerable tributaries all over the landscape, tributaries as thin as a finger that continue to reveal mineralized tree trunks and fossil caches all over the landscape.



Even before the present, intemperate impacts of rain, the landscape was dominated by a tropical or subtropical climate and ecosystem. The Petrified Forest is the result of a strong river that carried down whole trees during flooding events upstream, only to drop their driftwood loads when the river flow calmed. These stripped trees would become waterlogged and sink, where they would be covered by sediment and ash, the minerals in which would replace the original lignin of the trees resulting in the spectacular mineralization of the Petrified Forest. It seems that no matter what happens there, water will be a ruling factor in the landscapes manifestation.





I cannot help but ponder the sense of thinness in the air. Has it always been there? Is such a perception the result of desert aridity, a foreign environment, rapidly changing weather? Do I feel far from the usual because I am markedly distant from my normal circumstances of paved lanes and geometric buildings?





In a place so much defined by water, I laugh at the reality of carrying so many liters of it with us. Dustin and I would hike for miles, drinking occasionally in the not unpleasant heat. We are boys of the Midwest where heat is thick and humid and cold is sharp, dry, and painful. (Dustin's time in Louisiana, I think, does not breach this sort of expectation.) Strolling in the sunshine without humidity in the way, we feel ourselves clearly moving, unhindered by the usual weight of our previous circumstances. We are infused with not just our own energy, but the excitement and mystique of this uncommon realm.

Lightness - from 22 August

Internet access around the apartment is spotty and pirated, so I can't really post from there. I am currently at the graduate student orientation and taking advantage of the wireless. Here is an entry written the other day.

~~~

22 August 2010, Sunday late morning

For the last few days I have felt this peculiar lightness. Not weightlessness and not flightiness. I am not more urged or guided in one direction than usual, but I feel the more subtle tugs in each direction more finely. Not until just now did I realize what it was.

Yesterday I described in my personal journal my not unpleasant sense of aloneness. It is, at times, sharpened into feeling lonesome but has not yet manifested as loneliness. Feeling lonesome is, in a way, not unpleasant for me. Rather, it is an appreciation for those episodes or places that are enriched by the company of others. Eating my meals alone, I often sense that strange absence of another person with whom I might share that meal. Whereas loneliness is much more of a longing for that space to be filled, it is an attachment to a person or type that, in their absence, the present moment is degraded.

This lightness, though, has different qualities. It did not come together on the camping trips between Lincoln and Flagstaff or in the house I was staying in before the apartment. This ethereal sensation must have arisen Friday or thereabout despite my bicycle technical difficulties that occurred that day. What it is, I believe, is a sort of calm release of those responsibilities and concerns I have experienced for most of this year. Many of my obligations have been these long-term expectations and their slow conclusions; work applications, graduate school concerns, money issues, finding housing, arranging roommates, graduate assistantship paperwork and confusion, etc. Now, though, most of these issues are resolving or slipping out of mind. What I have now is immediacy and immediacy feels distinctly light.

Part of this sensation, I am sure, is an easily fostered sense of peace in my new quarters. I feel pruned and tidied. What I have is what I need and what I need is nearby. I can maintain a sense of quiet in my living room which makes a sense of quiet in my mind all the easier. (This notion of noise and tranquility play a part in my dislike of driving which is necessarily loud and my preference for biking which is, under most circumstances, rather serene—at least when it comes to the vehicle in question.) For most of the past week, I have been scrambling for those things a living space generally requires—light, cleaning supplies, certain tools, food, cookware, silverware, and specific items of furniture—and now that those items are more or less in place and the clutter is off the floor, I have this wholesome sensation of satisfaction.

That said, I look forward to my roommates arriving. The apartment remains rather sparse and I think their arrivals and expectations for the apartment will metamorphose the place beneficially. Also, I am excited to show off what I cannot help but feel is very much my handiwork. I could not have made the trip very easily without my brother, nor could I have moved in without Miss Julia J and Mr. Eric to assist in his absence. All the same, finding certain items on craigslist and arranging it just so feels especially personal, peculiarly reflective of me. When Miss Mari A. and Mr. Tim H. make their appearances, I hope it is a welcoming place for them not just to step inside, but to make their own as well.

Perhaps this lightness will fade with coming responsibilities. I may even begin working this coming week and I have scheduled events that require my attendance. The subsequent week I have classes and hope to have real work hours besides. Not to mention rent will be coming up again in no scant amount of time—rent I think my bank account can handle. Nevertheless, I cannot perceive those realities becoming painfully heavy. It may be that I have found a solid mental place, a psychic calm that has been rather fleeting up until now.

Traveling Meditations II - Earth

Concerning 10-11 August



The Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers argued persistently about the elementary substance, the fundamental material that composed the world. Most Ancient Greeks acknowledged a sort of elemental physics, that the world was principally constructed by combinations of wind, water, earth, and fire. Many of these philosophers argued that three of the elements were derived from the fourth, through some process of chemical or environmental mutation. If one were to argue that water were the primary element, fire might be the result of exceedingly perturbed water. After all, when one watches a flame, it looks very much like a current rising upward rather than streaming outward or downward.



In a certain way, this is comparable to one of the great issues in contemporary physics. Most physicists recognize that the four fundamental forces in the universe—the strong and weak nuclear forces, electro-magnetism, and gravity—are highly related. Originally electricity and magnetism were thought to be different forces, one having an effect on the flow of electrons, the other having to do with the organization of molecules; but when you run an electric current (an odd choice of term) through most metals, you create an electromagnet. This experiment elucidates a deep connection between electricity and magnetism that leads, in turn, to the realization that they are part of the same force. Not only that, but theoretical physics points to the likely synthesis of the four forces into one under extreme conditions, conditions that were likely present in the early universe. (Gravity's inclusion depends on the incorporation on many-dimensional space, a confusing but important characteristic of contemporary physics I will not here explore.)



Most of our travels and our destinations emphasized earth; not as a fundamental so much as indispensable element of the locales. Earth provides a setting, a sense of place, and the basis to build. Many world origin myths begin with a never-ending ocean, a pre-world in which nothing material exists, it all comes and goes with the slight perturbations of waves, swallowed again by the ocean itself. (This, I might add, shares somewhat with the curious depictions of quantum foam, the inconceivably minuscule realm below subatomic particles like quarks.) The creation of land, of earth is the first breach in mythical narrative, the singularity that makes the world itself possible. Endless ocean represents not an unknown, the way later explorers might see the ocean, but the cosmic, non-human unknowable. Water, here, does not represent a beginning, but a vast, chaotic void. (Enlightenment philosophers would later argue fervently about the seemingly impossible notion of the void in which no substance existed.) It is the climbing, jutting, solid explosion of earth that makes the world something other than insusbstantial and unknowable.



Climbing in the preserves and parks around Great Sand Dunes National Park, it was easy to make that connection between earth and being. The dunes themselves are formed by streams' slow decay of the landscape and carrying the sand, silt, and soil downstream. (Downstream, mind you, is always to the ocean.) Winds carry the soil back uphill to the flats and to the Dunes where the surrounding hills curtail the wind, creating a large vortex that results in the sands' deposition. At the very edge of the sands the elevation changes and with it the ecological conditions; just uphill the presence of water and more tenable soils provide strong footing for plant and animal life. (Like all healthy natural deserts, the dunes are lively and active in their unyielding way, full of tenacious, spindly plants and quick desert creatures; but the distinction between the two is profound.)



Here, we can see life in much grander design, much finer detail than the sparsity of the dunes supports. Coniferous trees, well-suited for the dry, thin air climb to the sky and fall to the ground, many with roots holding stolid to geometrically carved boulders. In clearings, thick scrubby grasses stretch and soak in the brilliant open sky. (I believe that the soil thickness plays a strong part in whether trees or grasses grow at the same altitude in these locations.) Birds sing in the morning and various insects call at night. Even here, one sees a strange symmetry between the elements: fallen trees, stripped of bark grow in tidal formations; fungi use chemical fires to digest cellulose in the wood; stone circles depict where previous hikers have made their fires; the sun heavy rocky stretches are particularly air thin in the heat. All around one senses a balancing, an equilibrium between the elements in its subtle and suggestive metamorphoses.



Dustin built a fire and we cooked with his jet engine-like camping stove. I fell asleep long before him, but woke many times due to the hard ground and the cold. It hovered in the thirties at that altitude with so little moisture in the air. I was painfully ill-prepared for the night. My face numbed because I could not slide deeply enough into my sleeping bag despite its 30 degree threshold. All through the trip I dreamed strangely, aggressively in my fitful sleep.



I woke early but could not manage a fire because dew had saturated most of the kindling. I felt markedly unhappy, a slow, creeping headache lined most of the day. It was beautiful out, clear and kind to us, but sleeplessness and frustration made me stubborn. During the late morning I witnessed parents refusing their children the joy of exploring the dunes and the landscape, while I wondered what they had expected from the park.

Traveling Meditations I - Air

Concerning 9-10 August

Despite being one of those distinctly earthy place, the Midwest seems inevitably ruled by air. It is not in the turbulent potency of tornadoes or the roiling brew storm clouds any more than it is in the soil and undulating tides of grasses and corn. To speak of a place or region being an air place rather than an earth place isn't to deny that everywhere is a balance of elements, but to elevate one characteristic to its distinct, prevalent, almost cognitively urgent quality. When one encounters the Midwest, one encounters the sublime breadth of air.



Driving through Nebraska and Western Kansas on our way to Comanche State Grasslands, farmland fanned out in all directions much of the way. In pockets of Kansas and then, later, in Colorado one could identify respectable stretches of prairie land, often but not exclusively near grazing cattle. Watching the populace stalks of corn or the medium prairie grasses, I felt some of that same satisfaction I have with the Midwest in its harsh, dry, windblown winters. This is not a warm or soft or even welcoming satisfaction; if anything, it is sharp.



Wind has that peculiar ability to cut. Metal and stone and wood and even ice have that potential to cut, but their wounds only go as deep as they are forced. Wind goes through you—if you are not careful—and carries something out with it again. The earnest airborne character of the Midwest is that it cuts, cleans, purifies its uninsulated inhabitants. A shoot of grass is, aesthetically speaking, a cleansed creature. (Here, I hope to adequately divorce the specifically [in]human connotations of cleanse or pure which may get in the way. The terms are intended to refer to some mode of sanctity; just as ablutions were intended to purify the person for sacred rights or ceremony, purity here entails a preparedness or clarity of character.) All of the grass is specific, simplified, pared down to just what it is. So much so that wildflowers in the Midwest act as veritable explosions, surprising the viewer with each splash of yellow, red, orange, violet, or white. Even the flowers generally exhibit a sort of respectful modesty about themselves—a calm demeanor, a particular size—as if the frills have been pruned.



Driving in the Midwest is more similar to sailing than it is to driving in, say, the mountains. The mountains force a vehicle—automobile, bicycle, feet, whatever—to yield and navigate and circumvent, but the Great Plains allow this grand, undiscouraged mobility through it. Albeit, a sail boat is determined generally by wind and the sails, one cannot help feeling a sense of riding rather than driving in the Midwest. One is on the move rather than just moving. I watched the sky as I tried to eke a few meager stretches of sleep that first day. Its blueness, its grandeur, its mature patience didn't grant me rest, so much as repose.

We slept in a park in Tribune, Kansas with two cyclists—Sara and Adam—making their way across the country nearby. Sara ate some of our food, happy to find something vegan friendly, while Adam found his own fare at a gas station down the road. They shared with us stories of elderly couples longing for their children and inviting in young strangers instead, of cross-country legends and rumors with pedals under their feet, of the ruthlessness of livestock truck drivers on their familiar two-lane highways. That night I slept poorly and dreamed anxiously, confusedly. The edges of the sky was lined with lightning storms, flashes and hard-edge bolts illuminating the soft, edges of clouds. In the morning, two women, on in their years, swam in the community pool.

Getting Satisfaction

I have a book, music, and enough light to read by; I am satisfied.

Today became long with no more hours than the norm. I can't say it makes much sense. Likely tomorrow evening, after a good deal of running about, I'll sit down at Macy's and write one or two entries about my travels. The demands of the last few days--unpacking, furnishing, cleaning, purchasing odds and ends, getting lost and finding my way, looking for work, etc.--have taken a toll. That toll has been somewhat alleviated by new acquaintances and their fine company, and baking this morning helped, but still more needs doing.

Now, though, I am off to bed. I leave you with this:

The cat here on earth
Modern totem
And intermittently decorative
-a haiku from Paloma

Thank you Muriel Barbery for writing The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

{No post this evening due to making friends with the neighbors downstairs. Apologies for the delay, which would happen anyway because I don't have internet access yet.}

Address! Paella! Baking (soon)!

I have an apartment! That also mean that I have an address! That means you can send me things!

Caleb A Phillips
3835 S. Yaqui St. #2C
Flagstaff, AZ 86001

Some individuals may get this specially sent to them as per their request. Also, I have a booklet of fold-up letters that I plan on writing once I figure out where the mailbox near my place is.

If I can sneak my way onto someone's wi-fi, I'll be posting something about my travels tonight. In the meanwhile, I am trying to put together something like an application for jobs I actually want, or--barring that--tolerate and will allow me to pay the bills.

Finally, yesterday afternoon I had people over who helped me move in, then ate the paella I made having learned the method from Dustin the day before. New acquaintances include (friends seems like a rushed term, even though I fed them and they approved, also I am not posting last nights out of some weird sense of discretion): Miss Julia J. who is a fellow student in my program, Mr Eric (guest and sweetheart of Miss Julia), Mr Aaron E., and Miss Cori C. with her sweetheart whose name I have at the moment misplaced (which is unfortunate since we geeked out over both Linux and baking). They were wonderful guests and enjoyed the vegetarian paella! I doubt the place would have felt all that much like a place to live had I not so quickly hosted them. Also in order to make the place feel more livable, I plan on baking very soon, as a starter tonight and bread tomorrow.

Anyway, the place is still in pieces, but is definitely coming together. Maybe some photos...

[Posted from Macy's.]