Philosophy
His arms opened wide and stretched out to welcome me to his domain. The Senior Saguaro stood stoically in the late afternoon sun, bracing himself against the oncoming chill of the winter air. Once the kiss of the sun left the desert floor, a layer of stark cold and darkness would settle upon the dusty floor. Rattlesnakes could be heard somewhere in the distance but to my ears only the wind and its accompanying silence mattered.
When the moon rose an hour later and the night sky was ablaze with stars I heard the most haunting sound I have ever heard: a pack of wolves, or were they coyotes? Their hymn to the night filled my heart with woe and wonder. I felt sad and I felt free. Sleepiness had yet to set in and my eyes were wide open. Stomach growling, I stood up ready to eat.
Satiated and now sleepy I rest my neck against the van and shut my eyes. Sensory deprivation lifted my spirit into the air and it soared across the ridge of the mesa miles away from here. With spirit eyes I saw red, purple, and sage-green, colors swooshing through the air and past my eager eyes. In tandem with the desert tonal vibration, the talons of a crow darted past. He had lost his way, acted mischievously, visited a former lover while the rest of the murder went home to roost. I respected the crow; his sheer blackness suggested he knew something of the Other World, could shift between them effortlessly, simply by willing it so. His feathers brought with them memories, though to me they meant nothing. Crow tried his best to communicate through raucous caw caw but he failed every time to capture more than my attention. I felt inferior here, in the presence of creatures wiser than I.
Roughness and spike penetrated my brain as it coursed past the cacti: their flowers deceptive and alluring, luring greedy eyes to their succulent flavors and then searing through skin and flesh. The hummingbird, though, the hummingbird knew better. She whirred right where she should, hovering squarely in the center of her nectar-bearer, just as I bathed in the light at the center of the Universe. While asleep I thanked the desert in my dreams.
