A Stunning Desolation.
The drive was only about 35 minutes. Past crops growing in the fields, and cows chewing in the dairies. Then the landscape changed, into scrub high desert, and rock formations.
As the miles flew by, we changed from rural landscape to forbidding sagebrush. The further we departed from civilization, the more rugged the terrain became, until at last we came to the canyon’s edge.
And stared down into a river that has been flowing so long that there is no emotional metric that would allow us to experience a concept of time that vast.
Because so long ago, this canyon was formed either from a violent disruption below, or a slow and steady erosion from above. As we stared down into the water, and then looked at the landscape around us, there was very little evidence that we, as humans, had ever been here.
Other than the endless blacktop that had smoothed our passage here, there was very little to suggest that we had any place here, or that we were welcome.
And then the sun began to set.
Out there in the middle of nowhere, you realize very quickly just how dependent we are on the heat and the light that our nearest star provides. As the darkness increased, there was both a feeling of cooling, and a sense of quiet.
As the corona of the sun slipped quietly over the horizon, and the color of the sky began to change, there was a sense of wonder, of beauty, and of foreboding.
Because this is not a place that we are meant to be.
As the sunlight bounced off of the clouds, the sky became alight with a beautiful orange glow, and the terrain welcomed its shroud of darkness. Only the river, eternal and relentless, seemed to share a sense of disappointment at the end of this day, and did its best to hold onto the light by reflecting the last of the daylight coming from the clouds.
And as the darkness enveloped the world, the lights from the few statements of human presence glowed out their message of presence, of safety, of help.
Because you couldn’t be with me that day, I took this picture for you, and share my words with you, in the hope that you can experience a sense of the wonder, the majesty and the immensity that is this stunning desolation, this monument to life, and to time.
Standing there, seeing all that was before me, I again found a sense of connection with and marvel at the universe in which we live, and the planet upon which we live and breathe.
In the midst of the foreboding darkness, and the terrain which offered little comfort, there was still a sense of being present in a place of wonder, a companionship with something greater in the universe, even its whole.
For although we are so small and so temporarily finite in the totality of the universe, there is also a recognition that we are a part of something much greater than we see, so much more than we know.
As the last light of the day brushed our faces and warmed our souls, there was a recognition that we stood not just above a canyon and a river, but in a universe of infinite majesty and wonder.
And that we were connected to it all.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings