According the native Utes, who too spent their summers here...this is the Land of Departed Spirits, Thigunawat.
Some say Thigunawat is another name for Heaven...
And I believe them...
Floating and sailing across its Ocean sky...
For I've seen angels here...
And white dragons too...
Swimming and surfing in green and blue.
According to Western thought, Thigunawat is called Grand Mesa. Covered with a black basalt tabletop hundreds of feet thick and riding a mile high above the Grand and Gunnison river valleys, Grand Mesa is the largest flat-top mountain in North America.
I climb off trail to the top of the dragon's spine...and I find where molten rock poured out of the Earth some 10 million years ago.
The Hawaiian name for this type of ropey lava flow is pahoehoe...a rare geologic gem on this mesa, where most of the basalt is found as large gray-black blocks...
Eroding and tumbling down the mountain...as the giant Grand Mesa rifts and splits apart in a process known as Toreva block-slumping.
In the pouring fire of its molten dragon's breath...
In its shifting movements seen today...where crusty armor slips, splits and resettles on the softer earthen bed it ever-so-slowly floats upon...
In the many bright and beautiful creatures now growing upon its skin...
In this mini-tectonic environment...
So vividly is seen here the living Earth...
I see people here too, bright and beautiful...not unlike the Ute of 200 years ago...in fact the same...just a different way...
Local folks enjoying a stroll through cool shady forests of Englemann Spruce and Subalpine Fir...these wise old teachers and keepers of Nature's secrets...
A man rides the trail on a horse...and though I know official rules say those big four-leggeds aren't allowed here, I don't say anything because I can tell this is a man who knows what he's doing. I stop and talk with him...a third-generation cattleman, I see he's concerned about the environment just as I am...
You see the pioneers, they are dying here...large stands of them, young and old, all over the region in Colorado and beyond...it's SAD...Sudden Aspen Decline...and we don't know why it's happening. The old timer thinks it might have to do with the many planes flying overhead, day in and day out, spraying toxic fumes to mingle with the clouds, raining unspent petro and waste upon a thirsty land...not the type of refreshment any of us, human or otherwise, would want to drink if we had the choice...and we humans do have a choice, at least for now. But trees and the rest of the beasts aren't so fortunate to have our water filters and purifiers.
Makes me think a bit...on the difference between wisdom and intelligence...seeing the consequences of one's actions...having the foresight for course corrections...making choices for long-term health and satisfaction...seeing the people and planet working as One...inter-connecting...inter-relating...inter-harmonizing...all the time.
I meet a woman up here, shaky and scared...but she forges ahead...
And eleven thousand feet into the clouds there lurks the danger of lightening bolts...striking alongside the storms of a worried mind in a troubled world...
But here too we are peaceful and happy...wading in the tranquility of this terra firma sea.
This basalt is the oldest and freshest of earth, a most basic and fundamental building block, life sustaining crust, the very foundation of this biosphere...and I see we are one with it...atomic-chemical partners in this whole evolutionary process...wonderful and inseparable...
And though I've come here many times...I always find something new...and I see how true it is that the universe may be found in a grain of sand...
To sit, pray and listen in this sanctuary of reconciliation and possibility...meditate and participate in this dream among these ancient trees...safe and nestled in this wise old forest...feeling nearly completely and just perfectly at one with it...this old home, where...in some way, shape or form...I always belong.
How I rejoice in these reunions and new beginnings...for they are the losses and departures over once I cried.
Dropping well over 500 feet on each side, it's not always easy to walk the dragon's spine...
We might see ourselves falling away like so many lava blocks...
