Actually Communicating

In my winter hibernation, I am listening. To many podcasts. Of a weird assortment.

Top contenders right now are Krista Tippett, Joe Rogan, and Duncan Trussell.

Their voices are very different from one another.

I love their curiosity, broad interests, and desire to truly communicate. Rogan and Tippett, in particular, talk frequently about the need to truly communicate with one another. I've been listening to the language they use to describe this need. Tippett has a series called "Civil Conversations" meant to offer a real conversation about a hot button issue that often is debated in sound-bites. She's had people on opposing sides of abortion or gay marriage speak together. "Civil" is a word that shows up often for her in searching for meaningful conversation.

Rogan uses words like "reasonable people having a logical conversation." "Reason" and "logic" show up often.

I appreciate both of them because they're introducing me to thinkers who I don't come across otherwise and they're offering them a platform where they can actually be heard as opposed to being reduced into a bullet point.

I also love the idea about how we communicate and the potential around our communication.

I've been thinking about whether or not I'm after "civil," "reasonable," "logical" conversations.

I'm not.

All of these words bother me. I want to understand why.

"Civil" is a word posed in opposition to "wild." The implied idea is that the "wild" or nature, is chaotic and unruly. Civilization is the order imposed on this disordered natural state.

Well, that's a problem. Given that human bodies are natural, there's again an implication to impose order on our natural state, our nakedness, our frailty, our vulnerability. The natural world, in my estimation, is not disordered. There's a beautiful, soft order that often escapes human comprehension, but exists nonetheless. Even storms provide the clarity of a cleansed environment. The wild might lie outside of human comprehension, but it's not chaos. Our understanding of it might be chaotic but that only speaks to our comprehension, not what we seek to comprehend.

Similarly, words like "reason" and "logic" feel really masculine to me. They feel like words my Dad uses. "Reason" especially feels rooted in Enlightenment thinking of moving away from the fearful idolatry of gods to the clear-eyed measurements of science. (Please read the ample sarcasm.) "Reason" implies that thinking can be divorced from intuiting and feeling.

I don't believe that we can be so divided.

We are always feeling and intuiting-- my understanding of intuiting being processing information through senses more quickly than we're able to categorize that same information through analytical cognition. I think Rogan uses the word "reason" to distinguish our tendency to "react."

Logic is a useful philosophical process to work through ideas. It completely has a place in conversation. There's also an assumption of objectivity here-- that we can get sufficient distance from a subject to look at it without investment.

I disagree. We are subjective beings. We are interwoven. We are in context. Claiming logic or objectivity is simply dishonest. Honestly, we can own our subjectivity and admit how it influences our thinking. That's being an accountable human.

These words have helped me clarify what I appreciate about the conversations Rogan and Tippett conduct as well as the interactions I seek.

I think I'm trying to be in and create environments for the following:

• Context. Owning where we are situated in a topic. Claiming our own biases and acknowledging how they might influence our thinking.
• Emotional awareness. Acknowledging when a topic feels close to home and allowing it to affect us. Not trying to claim that our insight is more credible because we don't feel but owning that feeling is being human. We're allowed to feel. And admitting that doesn't invalidate our thoughts on a subject.
• Accountability. Being willing to evolve. Being willing to be wrong. Being more interested in growth than "winning" a conversation. Being more interested in ideas than the stakes we've claimed.
• Curiosity. Allowing human curiosity to drive us towards creativity and connection. To allow us beyond the bounds of the group think many of us have affiliated with.

I'm sure there is way more, but this is my working list. These are the conversations that I cherish because they take place between humans. Humans are wild, they are not logical, nor are they reasonable. They have feelings about things, passions, excitement, and fears. And we can talk about that.

Comfort's Discomfort

Kevin loves landscaping long, muddy days in pouring rain. Bonus if it's cold. He's obviously a weirdo but he actually has some reasons for his preference-- among them, days like that make him more easily satisfied.

It seems counter-intuitive, but I've learned this to be more universal than his personal quirk. When he comes home soaked to the bone, cold, mud plastered to his boots, his hot shower feels like manna from heaven. Sitting, doing nothing, eating some food is a miracle.

When I've comfortably worked inside the shelter of my home, my shower, meal, and sitting are far less noticeable.

Recently, whenever possible, I go as remote as possible. It's hard to find truly uncultivated places these days, but I try. West Virginia is always a strong candidate. There are parts of West Virginia that are largely undeveloped, in fact, seem practically impossible to develop. I sat outside under a cool drizzle watching state park workers. Kids had set off fireworks from a trail and kicked off a fire. which closed the trail. No trail, no sun, no problem. I bummed about, ultimately swimming in an unlabeled swimming hole, found after multiple queries. I watched the workers reestablish the trail. I watched the workers navigating traffic, in the rain. Everything felt quiet. Our expectations, collectively, were pretty low.

I'm curious what happens to your mind and outlook in those environments. I drove through more Christianity than I can remember. Christianity of every sort but Catholic! Tons of Baptist, even Mennonite. I saw country stores hanging fox skins and signs that said, "We're broke, we believe in Jesus, we know who we're voting for, leave us alone." There were proud Trump signs next to iconography and symbols of Indigenous people. Not one country store had any cheese apart from American though goats would be grazing nearby. There were plenty of jars of pickles and mayonnaise next to the white bread.

I've written before about how in these environments I get read as a WASP really quickly. I've also had a year. During it, I've sort of shifted how I encounter others and it's working better. I used to trust first and be surprised later. My current mantra is "trust no one and love everyone." I know it sounds dark, but it actually works way better. It means I'm more self-protective and more at home with myself. I'm responsible for myself and aware.

I saw a flicker of recognition in this worldview. I started noticing that with this as my outlook, I fit in better. In this neck of the woods, being polite doesn't mean being stupid.

I saw sign after sign urging us to humble ourselves before God as mountains soared overhead and trucks nearly ran me off curving mountain highways. This is a part of the country where humans are in context and proportion. Human power is very clearly limited.

I have various fantasies about living in the country but also an ethic that says, "don't move there unless you have a remote job." Jobs are hard to come by in all parts of the country. Moving to a poor part of the country and taking work is poor form.

Kevin and I were fantasizing about living somewhere rural and I confessed that I'd likely want to build cabins to rent on airbnb and various projects like that. "I'd be developing what I love for being undeveloped." Kevin paused, "It's a bit different here. Yes, you're developing, but on that scale the forest takes it back quick. At home, when you build, it's permanent. No one is under that illusion here."

Life is a mandala, a moment of impermanence. Standing in the rain, under the shade of tremendous cliffs, directing traffic through nowhere.

The poet Morgan Parker wrote a beautiful book called Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night. A Black poet, Parker writes clearly about race relations in the US. Many of her poems illuminate the priority many white people place on their comfort and sense of well-being over truly understanding the functioning of racism in the US. I've had more conversations than I care to remember with fellow white people, trying to work through race, and hearing, "It's uncomfortable."

Yes, it is.

It's also more uncomfortable to brutalized or discriminated against.

When I travel, my comfort becomes significantly less important. I go longer without eating, I curl myself into tiny bus seats, I pack layers. My excitement over the adventure outweighs any temporary discomfort.

I've watched this tendency and tried to transfer it to my daily life. Why do I need to be so controlled by access to the food I want, when I want it? The sleep I want, when I want it? Why is my contentment so conditional?

Kevin's theory is that we need to be far less comfortable. He thinks the modern priority of convenience and comfort is making us sicker and sadder. Anytime he's by a body of water, in any season, he jumps in and swims in it. I've seen him swim in water with ice on the surface. He'll lose his breath and gasp for a minute, but as he recovers himself he smiles broadly.

I used to be very hesitant about getting into water. I'd walk very slowly. I wanted my body to gently acclimate.

This past winter in Mexico, I stopped that. I started jumping in without hesitation. It's better. My body is rushed by the surrounding water and then I surrender.

I'm curious: the more uncomfortable I am with myself, do I seek proportionally greater comfort in the world? And inverse: the more comfortable I am with myself am I then more willing to let the world be no matter my perceptions of how it affects me?

I'm watching out for where else I resist.

In the jungle, you can lie down and be claimed

Leading upto the Belize retreat, I didn't do my normal obsessive levels of research but I did some. While I was leafing through Lonely Planet I remember getting a sense of three Belizes: Belize City, the Cayes, and everywhere else.

Everywhere else is most of Belize. While in most of Central America, like Mexico, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, it's pretty simple to hop on a bus, land in a new town, and get a room in a small hotel. In Belize things felt... different. More remote. The majority of Belize's land is undeveloped. Tourists generally stay in a few ecoresorts spread out through the countryside. That's not arrive-in-town-and-see-where-it-takes-you traveling. That's planning-ahead-to-be-at-a-resort travel.

Kevin and I have never stayed at a resort and honestly have never been drawn to that. Resorts always make me feel like I'll be secluded away from where I actually am. While I can see the allure if you only have a weekend and want to relax, I generally travel to experience a new place so I want to be in the thick of it.

And I wanted to experience Belize. We had spent time in the Cayes (and loved it even beyond what we expected) so I figured we'd finish our time in Belize in the countryside. If you're going to book a resort it might as well be an ecoresort. I had read about Chaa Creek in San Ignacio. The resorts, including Chaa Creek, generally exceeded my budget, but Chaa Creek had a campground for budget travelers. You had access to the resort facilities when you hiked in from the cabins. I booked it.

When we arrived at Chaa Creek it felt fancy. Generally, on a graph of increasing fanciness my satisfaction decreases. I was a little nervous. Reception gave us a slip to give to the campsite director alerting him that I was vegetarian. Then they sat us down to wait by the manicured lawns to be driven to the campsite.

As we waited an older couple from New York passed us. They asked us if we were going to the campsite and we confirmed that we were. "It's rustic out there! There's NO electricity!" They told us in shock. We said, "We know." And nodded politely. Satisfied that they'd warned us they moved on.

Shortly afterwards, a big gregarious Mayan man showed up in a pick-up truck. Docio runs the campsite with his family. I showed him my slip of vegetarianism. He sized me up and said, "We don't do this." I shrank a little. He roared with laughter, "I'm just kidding! Get in."

I love Docio.

As soon as we climbed the hill to the little campsite we were happy. We gazed down on a few tarp-roofed, screened-in cabins. There was a shared outdoor bathroom and shower hall. A small kitchen and dining room were fully stocked with potable water and bug spray. As you climbed down the trail you were at an access to swim in the river. To the right was the Medicine Trail that lead back to the resort.

Kevin and I quickly climbed down to the Macal River and swam. Being in water felt very important during that time. We made it happen daily.

The water was cool and the river very quiet. There's not much around there. We listened to birds. We were nibbled on by a few fish. Docio's wife and son boarded a canoe at the far bank. They crossed the river and passed us as they climbed up to prepare dinner.

Dinner was summer camp style. We quickly made friends with a few other travelers. During our short time we'd catch up on their days over breakfast and dinner. Docio did indeed prepare me delicious vegetarian food. 

Over dinner the sky got dark quickly. We used flashlights to pass slowly from the dining hall to the bathroom and then back to the cabin. While we ate, Docio's family had lit kerosene lanterns in each of our cabins. We returned to soft light.

While we read in bed the nighttime outside our cabin grew noisy. Each night I revelled at how the jungle came alive. The howlers around San Ignacio sound immensely more monstrous than howlers I had heard in Costa Rica. I don't know what it is but I wonder about their echoes over the river? It almost sounded like a band of ghost cows. Seriously. Cows because there was a mooing at times. Ghostly because it took on this echoed quality. It sounded and felt like rushing wind. It was so loud it woke me up every night. I loved hearing it because it reminded me that nature is not quiet but it is peaceful. The sound wasn't manmade and it affected me differently. It brought me proportionally into that environment.

And I won't lie-- it scared me too. I was 99% sure that the sound I was hearing was howler monkeys, which I know are no threat to me. However, it did sound kind of otherwordly so parts of me wondered about some type of zombie panther? I did bravely go to the outhouse. That involved leaving the cabin and walking a ways in the pitch black dark. I think I win at jungle survival.

After breakfast we walked the Medicine Trail back to the resort, which is about a 10 minute hike. This was so exciting to me! Kevin and I had read about Dr Rosita Arvigo who studied under Mayan Medicine Man Dr Elijio Panti. Together, they created the Medicine Trail as well as protecting huge swaths of Belizean jungle for old growth medicinals. I loved walking the path labelled with various plants and trees, watching birds and animals, and gazing down at the Macal River.

Back at the resort things were resort-y. I took advantage! I spent a whole day at the Infinity pool where I could order delicious drinks and eat at the really good restaurant. Certainly expensive food for Belize, but pretty sweet!

We started to understand the allure of a resort! Most guests would book these expensive tours each day. They spent a lot of money going around to the various temples (you could go to Guatemala for Tikal!) and ruins or caving or any other adventure. I mean, it's cool! BUT Chaa Creek sat on acres of FREE hiking trails. The trails wound through a working farm (that you could visit), the Medicine Trail and associated history, a natural museum, the pool, the river, canoes, and plenty else.

We did all the free thangs.

Kevin and I canoed up and down the Macal River, or more accurately, Kevin canoed and I watched toucans and all types of fantastic birds. We woke up early one morning for a free guided bird tour with the best Tanzanian guide who gleefully shouted "Excellent!" every time he found a bird. We visited the butterfly reserve and were surrounded by blue wonder. We hiked and hiked and hiked and read and swam and relaxed.

One morning I thought I woke to rain. I heard big plops on the tarp roof of our endearing cabin. I went onto the porch and saw a band of howler monkeys. What I was hearing was the sound of the nuts they were discarding and throwing onto our roof. I love monkeys. They give no fucks at all.

A friend at the campsite suggested a lovely and very discounted DIY day. We arranged to canoe down to San Ignacio and have Chaa Creek pick us up a few hours later. We assumed our known arrangement: Kevin took the oar and I proceeded to enterain him with stories. We rowed 5 miles down the Macal, through territories of birds of every conceivable color. I don't think I've ever seen nor heard as many birds in my life. I felt like I floated through worlds before slowly encountering the small town that is the city of San Ignacio. 

As promised, a Chaa Creek employee met us and took up the canoe (fancy resort!). We walked into dusty San Ignacio, through the fruit vendors at the flea market, and wove into a few shops. It's a sort of rough and tumble town. A lot of travelers don't like it but use it as a base camp for adventures in caves and ruins. I could definitely see doing that.

Kevin loved it. It felt like the perfect balance of grit and skepticism of outsiders.

We decided that next time we're in Belize we'll likely stay there to do the tours that interest us--like the ATM caves-- through independent providers (which is less expensive than booking at Chaa Creek). Then we'd go back to Chaa Creek. The peace of the jungle had a hold on us.

We hailed a taxi to take us to the Mayan ruins located in San Ignacio, called Cahal Pech. The museum is one of the better I've seen and the ruins are practically empty of visitors. As opposed to the dense crowds of Chichen Itza and Tikal, here you get a very personal and calm visit to beautiful ruins.

Some of the museum exhibits we've encountered at ruin sites speak of Mayan people as though they no longer exist. Any trip through Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, or elsewhere in Central America shows what a lie that is-- Mayan people are everywhere. Cahal Pech did a much better job of acknowledging the continuity and lineage. I also came to better understand Belize's history.

I had been reading census figures of Belize's diverse population. The literature kept talking about various groups coming to Belize maybe a hundred or two hundred years prior. The ruins date human presence much earlier than that! The exhibit at Cahal Pech explained that Belize's population at the height of Mayan civilization was three times what it is today. When the inexplicable event happened that dashed Mayan populations, Belize was practically empty of humans. The jungle overtook many of the ruin sites. Many have still not been uncovered, or uncovered by people outside of Mayan lineage. Mayans and other groups began coming back to Belize in the last few hundred years.

Kevin and I have happily visited many Mayan ruins. This particular portal was a first! I shared this photo on social media just thinking it was kind of cool. My friends alerted me to the "feminine" quality!

That night, we decided to do one last Chaa Creek tour by signing up for the night hike. A few other campers joined us in shining our flashlights on the Medicine Trail as we hiked back to the resort after dark. We met our guide at the bar. Having been at the campsite we had no idea that it was a party down there! Our guide gave us each a head lamp so we could be the cool kids at the happening bar.

We set off as he shone his light at the lawn just feet from the bar. The whole lawn sparkled with THOUSANDS OF SPIDER EYES. Immediately, I saw what we had gotten ourselves into. This was a "things that go bump in the night tour." It was so funny because the guide was totally spooked by any type of creepy crawley-- he'd had a lifetime of experiences of bites and near misses. I understood why we'd been asked to wear socks.

As we walked quietly deeper into the woods, I fell in love. We saw scorpions, tarantulas, every type of spider, possums, snakes, and all the stuff of nightmares. We all learned to quickly train our lights, to walk softly, and carry no sticks.

Kevin was the first to spot the snake on the rail post. Apparently this guy is a fast mover and poisonous. The guide was very cautious. The snake was so beautiful!

After the hike, we sat at the bar with our friends. I felt sleepy and so happy. The jungle is so alive. Kevin kept talking about something sort of unnerving and also really liberating-- in the jungle, you could lie down and be claimed. If you waited long enough, you wouldn't exist anymore. The density of the jungle would absolve and dissolve and be with and use every bit of you. There was something weighty and beautiful in that.

As with the whole of our trip to Belize, I was surprised. Honestly, I didn't think I'd like it that much. From afar, I couldn't get a read on Belize's personality or way of being. I think that's because Belize has nothing to prove. It is. It's a sense. It's a feeling. It pulled me in. I love it.

Wolves running with women

I pay great heed to the recommendations of witchy artist women. Thankfully, I have many around me. Women who are attentive to their own internal guide, who create beautifully and seasonally, and who engage with great respect all in their midst.

Repeatedly, I was urged to read Women Who Run With the Wolves.

I bought a used copy as I figured this was a read I'd mark up and return to. I do a lot of teaching around myth. Shoot, Caits and I did two retreats using myth as the intersection between yoga and writing or body and creativity. The book arrived and moved around my house a bit. It lived in my bedroom for a time. It landed on the shelf. It didn't get read.

Then I thought, "I should pick this up." I tried. I tried to read it. I loved it but I couldn't read it. This is a densely packed book, tiny type on thin, crowded pages. You can feel the author's presence. She must be wearing a shawl and a long skirt. She's probably brewing something on the stove as she speaks to you through the pages. She's there and she's very her. She's very of an era that feels to me like feral 70s feminism.

That's not a bad thing. That's sort of the medicine that healed me as a young woman. I've spent a lot of time with those women and they were huge influences. But somehow, it was too much in my suburban Philadelphia bedroom. I just didn't feel like burning my bra right then. The wolves have been pretty much driven out of the East Coast...

I'm usually really intentional about what reading I bring on a trip. Somehow, in all the busyness of preparing for the retreat, I didn't tend to my own book list. On the plane I kept exclaiming, "Why didn't I bring Muir? Or Edward Abbey? Or...? What was I thinking?"

But I did grab Women Who Run With the Wolves. On a whim, I pulled it off the shelf and threw it in my bag.

As is pretty common, I didn't read for pleasure on the retreat. I rested during personal time but I stayed pretty tuned into teaching and offering. I glanced at some essays Kevin had brought but that was about it. Maybe I was being primed... those essays were speeches from a witchy lady in the UK.

When we settled into Crestone, into this place to which I'd been called, in this place that we found by consulting sun-beat, calloused women who looked like they'd given all their fucks decades ago, I heard the author calling again.

I picked up the book and it felt REAL. Like, it felt near. I felt with her. I felt of her. Interestingly, I felt strongly the presence of the woman who rented us our magic hobbit hole. I felt all these women living on the edges, off-the-grid, completely untamed.

What felt sort of silly, or hard to relate to at home, felt relevant. There are wolves. There are feral spaces. There are stories being told around fires. It's all still there and real and felt like a valued road map in that particular moment. I felt like I was on a quest and here was my guide.

I still haven't finished the book. It's living in my purse right now. Every now and then I pick it up and read some more. The author still feels in the room, but a bit further away. I'm building trust that not only can I find the places and teachings that serve but that they find me too.

Willow Lake Trail

When we first landed in Crestone... err, drove into town? Really, landed feels more accurate, we put down our things and took a walk through town. In the small crystal/VHS video rental shop the store-keeper mentioned Willow Lake hike. When we did a little more research we saw that this 9 mile, 3,000 ft ascension was listed as one of the most scenic in all of Colorado!

On our last day in Crestone our poor little rental car climbed up to the trail head through pot-holed, rock-strewn, unpaved roads. I love how much parts of the US can feel like anywhere else in the world. I love the world when it's less sanitized and civilized.

Kevin had tried to get some info on this trail but hikers are notoriously rough communicators. On the Boulder retreat we kept asking returning hikers how long it would take us to get to the Royal Arches. Without fail they'd say something innocuous and falsely encouraging like, "15 more minutes!" An hour later we'd find more hikers who'd say the same.

And on the descent, happy, completely disoriented, we became them.

Armed with this complete lack of information, we set off.

The landscape did shift beautifully and wildly. We wandered on switchbacks in the woods to open meadows to sheer rockscapes.

We only encountered two other hikers and that's when we were about a mile from the parking lot. As we were on the descent, Kevin mislead them WILDLY on how far to the lake. He still feels bad about that.

We started at Crestone's elevation of around 8,000 ft above sea level. We ascended 4.5 miles upto 11,000 or so ft above sea level. My ears continued popping. I stopped frequently on the vertical ascent to catch my breath. Between altitude sickness and where I was with my cold it often felt hard to breathe. But once I recovered, the air tasted good and I felt better than if I stayed inside.

As with everything in this corner of the world, distance and effort felt unpredictable. The usual markers we offer ourselves were meaningless. We were working in a different spatial paradigm. Endless up. Endless quad burning. Endless panting lungs.

Until.

Willow Lake sits in an alpine mountain crevice. The water bubbles out of the mountain, springs into the lake, and then drops into waterfalls and rivulets before winding a creek through the valley below.

A lake. In a mountain, Improbable. Clear. Empty. Beautiful.

Of course, Kevin stripped down and jumped in. He said he lost his breath for a moment. He said he found God.

Air temp was about 50. The sun was hot when it reached you but clouds moved quickly through the sky and sometimes lost you in shade. The water had some ice on it and there was snow on the shore.

After endless ascension-- well, 4 hours of it, we descended the 4.5 miles and 3,000 ft in 2 hours. We basically skipped like mountain goats.

When we drove out of town the following day I still felt the climb in my body. I love coming home with remnants of a place in my skin.

Great Sand Dunes

When we landed in Crestone several friends said, "You're going to see the sand dunes right?" 

Well. It hadn't been our original intention but sure!

We drove out the one road from Crestone to the Cosmic Highway connecting the high San Luis Valley. Given that I had a cold, was stationed in a 4-road town of 150 people, I was partially hunting cold supplies. I wanted tissues. Cough drops. I always imagine a land of no CVSes and no convenience. I can now say from experience: it's AMAZING and should happen but it has it's costs. One is when you have an unexpected cold and are underprepared.

As we approached the Great Sand Dunes national park we happily encountered the one all needs shop. It seems like every park has this place. They'll make you a hot dog. You can buy propane gas. There are weirdly great salves made by a local Indigenous woman. There's kitschy home decorations next to survival hunting knives. And happily, there was ONE PACK OF HALL'S COUGH DROPS.

I bought hot sauce for my Aunts and cough drops for myself. Finally, a store. Errands. Check.

Now, to epic sand.

In Crestone we'd stopped in a shop that sold sacred healing crystals and VHS tapes of movies. Cause, Crestone. The very sweet woman tending shop suggested a few hikes and of course to head to the sand dunes. Kevin asked about how they formed. He loves the sand dunes at Jockey's Ridge in Kitty Hawk so he's sort of tuned into this stuff. She said, "you know. This is a desert. Sand just went there."

We later sat in the park's visitor center and watched a video on the geology of the park. They didn't use that language but I swear, they basically said the same thing.

The main nuance left by those wordy scientists was that the sand plays a huge role in the local ecosystem. The sand blows and drifts as sand tends to do. It blows up the mountain. When the winter snows melt it travels back down the mountains and to these dunes. There's a sweet dance occurring in this particular place. It's rare and beautiful.

On a Tuesday there were an assortment of campers and kids who have sand boards-- basically snow boards to coast down the sand. The sand dunes were crazy high and steep. Just due to a normal respect for heights I felt some trepidation. Then I tested the water on a sand hill and found that the costs of running, rolling, or generally playing in any imaginable way were nill. It's pretty freeing.

I was sort of at the height of my chest congestion here. Between altitude and the winds that naturally whip you this high up without tree cover, I paused a lot. I cared for my ability to breathe. Kevin, as is his nature, played.

He is still finding sand in every bit of his being.

We became creatures of the sand. As we walked back to our car, I paused to shake out my boots. I can't even tell you how long sand poured from them.

Many camp throughout the park. The landscape changes quickly. For those who do camp, at night you can return to the sand dunes for star watching. I can't imagine a closer nor sweeter view of the infinite sky.

Traveling as possession

It's not a memory, it's a potent feeling. The air is cold but the sun is hot. The ground is solid and dusty. Calexico plays; rumbling, evocative, creepy, romantic. The sky is wide open and a thick blue. The mountains are both near and far but they are always. And life is in a car. Life is lived in a way specific to this time and place-- moving fast on open, practically barren road. When I read the obituaries in the local newspaper it's all listings of young travelers killed in accidents. Life is raw, fast, sudden, and dangerous.

I don't feel like I went to the San Luis Valley-- I feel like it crept inside of me and it's still there. I don't feel like there were a few days where I visited Crestone-- I think Crestone decided to inhabit me. It's still there. I can still access it. I don't feel like I entered and exited-- this was a possession.

The entirety of our time felt that way-- vaguely creepy, completely magical, totally weird, and inherently wonderful. Behind our magic hobbit hole there was a small alley in the shadows of the Sangre de Cristo peaks. In the morning I saw a gathering of folks who looked like they were living fast and rough. They had that feel around them that they were fierce, protective of one another, kind, and quick to fight. One dusty guy had a tear drop tattooed under his left eye. Most were wearing old army surplus wear. An Indigenous couple made out on the hood of a truck. The whole scene was pretty far from what I live in southern New Jersey... in fact it felt about as far as some of the worlds I encountered in the mountains of northern Vietnam or the valleys of Andean Ecuador.

I couldn't put my finger on it. Were folks allowed to crash in this public space? What was going on?

Ultimately, we went inside the door near where folks smoked their morning cigarettes and nodded to the maroon clad monks wandering by on morning errands. It was a coffee shop. Not any coffee shop but a coffee shop that made bullet proof coffee with ghee and coconut oil, or added bee pollen to your smoothie, or created a spicy maca mocha for you. Like, a weirdly good coffee shop. Inside was pretty much the same as outside, but add a few laptops.

We couldn't get a wifi signal and I doubt many others in there could either. I think everyone was probably working on their novel or developing their online meditation course. We picked up the local newspaper, still hungrily taking in this strange place we'd found ourselves. Everyone was wildly friendly. A guy in a goth raincoat with feathers trailing from his hat asked about Kevin's copy of Lord of the Rings. Kevin explained the origins of his leather-bound copy. The guy responded with, "Ah, your fantasy bible" before catching up on kirtan touring with a musician from Taos.

An old guy with white locks to his waist wore a tie-dyed "Same difference" tee-shirt. A traveling family cooed over a sleepy toddler. I honestly think that if I encountered the same crowd in Chicago that they would look completely "normal" there. Like, "same difference" tee-shirt would shift to a business suit. I almost wondered what I looked like to them. As though none of us would be able to see our own reflection in the mirror.

Years ago Kevin and I wandered into Banos, Ecuador, a town in a deep valley in the Andes. That was the first time I put my finger on the experience I was having in Crestone. I wasn't where I thought I was. Where I thought I was was in me.

I don't know how else to characterize it.

The presence of that place, and others in Ecuador, affected me deeply. I remember an overwhelming desire to just stay and be with that. To write it. To feel it. To let it be with me. At that time, I had other ideas in mind and continued my journeys. In Crestone, I stayed. I'm learning.

Mountain's Call

I've read Muir's quote, "The mountains are calling and I must go," and smiled and thought, "I get that." But now I nod soberly. Yeah. I get that.

I feel like I was recently summoned by the Sangre de Cristo range. I don't know how else to describe it. I knew we were offering a retreat in Boulder and I always try to shoulder retreats with a little bit of personal time when I can restore my own inner reserves after being tuned into the participants of the retreat. I'd asked some friends in Colorado if they had recommendations but I got a lot of vague responses. Last year I designed a Costa Rica retreat for Colorado-based yoga teacher, Carrie Keahey. She said, "Go to Crestone." I had breakfast with my friend Karin Otto and mentioned this. She gasped. In awe she said, "go there. I did my 3 week zazen sit there."

I'd never heard of Crestone, but all of my favorite travel experiences began with someone else's wide-eyed suggestion. We went to Guatemala based on the recommendation of some Chilean backpackers when we were all sandwiched in the back of a van in Panama. Staying in a hostel near Tikal, we played rummy for a few hours with a guy who'd motorcycled down from Canada. He told us, "Go to Lake Atitlan. Go to a village called San Marcos. Stay at a hotel called Aaculaax." A few weeks later, while sunning on the boulders along the Lake Atitlan shoreline, we chatted with some Irish backpackers. "I love Vietnam. Go there." While planning my Vietnam trip, a yoga student said, "Go to Hoi An." And on and on.

I don't know if other people get these suggestions or not nor whether they listen. In my experience, it is worth listening to these recommendations.

I found an airbnb in Crestone and figured out how long it would take us to drive down from Boulder. I often take public transit when traveling but it wasn't an option here. There is one road into Crestone and one road out. No buses. No trains.

As we finished long, sweet hugs with the participants from the Boulder retreat, we hopped into our rental car and got on the highway south through the Rockies. We skirted the western border of Denver before dropping into more arid rock formations, following winding highways along serpentine paths of rivers. My ears never stopped popping as we found our ways into many little towns, the formula: one gas station, on camping spot, one motel, one restaurant. Again and again. And then wide open space. Uninterrupted mountains, climbing trees, open skies.

We saw several of Kevin's "weird Colorado" finds; a Coney Island hot dog stand among them. So funny to find a 8 ft tall hot dog among aspen and yet another "Yogi Bear" KOA campsite. We stopped for lunch near Breckenridge and got some good spicy burritos. The landscape shifted gradually as we wove in and out of valleys and then back up into the mountains. The biggest shift came as we exited about 45 minutes from Crestone. Suddenly, we dropped into a high altitude desert, an altiplano. The San Luis Valley plays tricks on your perception. Because it's so broad and flat, with the only discernable difference between the mountain range boundaries, it seems possibly small. But it's not. The valley opens into a vast range but there's little to differentiate distance. More tumbleweed, low grasses, grazing animals. Open, open space.

The altiplano was arid, desolate and completely beautiful. We drove towards a majestic range of southern Rockies known as the Sangre de Cristo because at sunset, the sky makes the mountains appear the color of the blood of Christ. That name gives some indication to the potency of feeling in this place. This particular area has long been a site of pilgrimage. Indigenous peoples lived and live in the region but many sites in this particular area have always been places of spiritual reverence, not places where you live your everyday life.

Highway 17 or the Cosmic Highway, which links into Crestone, is also where the most UFO sightings in the northern Americas have occurred! This feels pretty linked to me-- there's interesting scholarship on previous generations talking about spiritual sightings or communions with angels in the same terms that people in the last century have used to describe UFO sightings. Some say that these experiences are the same. Whether they're UFOs or angels is obviously a bit tricky to discern or prove, but many in and around Crestone split the difference by referring to "sky beings" or "sky spirits." Many in Crestone purposefully meditate or seek to commune with these beings who they see as helpful or conducive to shifting perspective and consciousness.

Already, we'd obviously hit another one of Kevin's "weird Colorado" spots. He had just heard an interview with a woman who maintains a site dedicated to the Cosmic Highway's high density of sightings.

We passed hot springs I'd heard about, bubbling up from the cauldron of heat and energy beneath the valley floor before turning on T road, the one way in and out of Crestone. This road is almost a straight shot towards the mountains, but mysteriously curves a few times. The bends move around houses. My guess is they either built the road around existing properties and/or they added some bends to decelerate the tendency to just speed off towards the horizon.

We passed a dispensary and a few houses and a lot of wild, open space. We dead-ended at grazing alpaca and a sign for Crestone. A left and then a right, we found a four road town and some scattered houses. I asked a woman for directions to our airbnb. She had a leathered face, suspicious eyes, and was missing most of her teeth. She seemed very sharp and discerning. The road names I was given meant nothing but in a town of 150 people she knew our airbnb host and appropriately guided us.

We opened a rusty gate to a yard of projects: apple trees dropping fruit where mule deer grazed, a geodesic dome serving as growhouse for marijuana plants, several assorted yurts, an apparently functional sink in the middle of the yard, a human-made stream running past a house where a toddler stood naked in a tall window. Some found art projects. A couple of tools.

Beneath the towering mountains, our hobbit house, a round home built from sacred geometry out of wood and cob. We entered the code and the sweet space. It was so warm! So much warmer than I would have expected. Cob does a good job of insulating or cooling depending on the season. As the temperature quickly dropped in the high mountain air, the warmth became very reassuring.

Kevin looked around wide-eyed saying things like, "I feel like I've been here before." I didn't feel that but I don't know how else to explain it... I feel like I'd been called.

And not like this was a warm, milk and cookies invitation. It felt a little rough!

I'd arrived in Colorado feeling good. On the second day of the retreat I went into deep caves with bubbling water from hot springs. By that evening, I felt rough. I had a ton of congestion in my chest that made it hard to sleep. I figured out ways to pull through so I could be present on the retreat but I almost felt like that dip had kick-started something in my body. By the time I pulled into Crestone I was still battling the congestion as well as the altitude. It felt like a purification. It felt like I'd be plunged into the depth of the mountain's heat, shook up, warmed up, and was being pushed to run clear.

I didn't feel well for most of my time in Colorado but I still loved it. I didn't feel concerned about my health. It felt like something that maybe is often covered up, or not often dealt with (I can't even name what!), was rising to the surface level. Like the mountains called me, I had to go, and they were working me out.

Given that I didn't want to miss out on this beautiful space, I continued to do things. Each day Kevin and I set out on an outdoor adventure. As the day progressed and I moved in the open air, I would feel better. I had to stop a lot on hikes to catch my breath as the thin oxygen and my compromised lungs needed time, but I could do it and I felt better for having been free range in that way. I felt summoned and I felt like the mountains wanted to work on me.

The other day I re-listened to an interview Krista Tippett did with Robin Kimmerer, a biologian of moss and member of  Indigenous spiritual community. Kimmerer said that she often asked her college students if they love the world. Many would affirm that they do. Then she'd ask if the earth loves them. That tended to produce uncomfortable silences. She phrased the question in that way to highlight the interrelatedness we have with what we perceive to be inanimate, or at least animate in a way distinct from our own consciousness. She wanted to offer the possibility of the earth's agency. I was so glad to hear that because these are the spaces I've been working in recently. Even as I write these words I think potential readers might think I've totally lost it. "Mountains calling you? Purifying you? How many dispensaries did you hit?" Language feels pretty inadequate in regards to some of these deeper senses.

I've been working to strengthen my intuition recently by simply listening to it. I pay more attention to my dreams. I try to feel my body's responses to various decisions. The more I practice in these ways, the quiet inner voice grows louder. And I'm so grateful for it's insight.

Maybe this is why I could hear the mountains call. I don't think I'm meant to stay there. The feeling of pilgrimage was strong. I think those mountains are happiest left free of human development and intervention. But I'm so grateful for the invitation and ability to be in that potent space, when called.