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Column Acquiring a taste for desert heat and visions
By KRIS BERGGREN
When I was 15, I traveled with my
aunt, uncle and 10-year-old cousin from Denver to Santa Maria, Calif. We drove
across the Continental Divide toward the neon entrails of Las Vegas, our
overnight destination, my cousin and I little Jonahs swallowed up in the
backseat belly of our two-door Dodge Duster as it swam through the vast
desert-sea. Wed surface occasionally for gulps of hot highway breath from
the wide-open windows -- this was before standard air-conditioning.
My aunt, whod grown up in Western states, reveled in the
Utah landscape, the purples, browns, sages and rusts of the rock formations and
scrub vegetation. Isnt this beautiful, shed proclaim.
To my city-bred Midwestern eyes, natural beauty meant green deciduous trees, a
body of water somewhere in the vicinity, and, ideally, an orderly arrangement
of blooming flowers. Like a good American, I preferred my nature tamed and
controlled, thank you. This dry and foreign topography just didnt do it
for me at all: I found it relentless, barren, intimidating.
Fast-forward a few decades, to my familys summer trip to
Dinosaur National Monument, in northeastern Utah. Driving west on U.S. 40 from
Steamboat Springs, Colo., hillside aspen and pine groves level into unbroken
spaces of juniper and sage. The horizon is all.
Just when you think youre really on the road to nowhere, you
happen on the park entrance. Dinosaur National Monument is named for the
treasure trove of well-preserved dinosaur skeletons found by a paleontologist
commissioned by Andrew Carnegie. The Green and Yampa rivers run fast through
the park, forming deep canyons and drawing white-water rafters. There is
geology and human history here, boundless, understated grandeur. I grasp my
aunts awe of the arid wilderness.
Whats best, though, is whats not here: throngs of
tourists. Some families seek out the dinosaur spectacle, thrill seekers come
for the rivers challenge, but its not on the way to anywhere else,
nowhere near an interstate. There isnt a lodge or an Old Faithful, or
much wildlife. Just a lot of space, clear fresh air, the river and the scent of
sage.
I am surprised at how sensual the desert is here as we hike a
trail called the Sounds of Silence. The light is clearer, the landscapes
earth tones more intense. The shapes of rocks and hills weathered by wind and
ancient water draw the eye. The space void of the white noise of civilization
heightens the scuttle of tiny lizards under the brush, as well as the
rattlers sidelong warning. My children with their sweet soft limbs are so
close to its deadly venom, its puncturing fangs. Like paradise, the snake so
close yet hidden, but were safe if we stay on the trail. We round past
boulders the size of houses, oddly like the pebbles I collect from riverbed and
lakeshore on other trips. I begin to better understand this place as a fitting
backdrop for the inner drama of hermits, monks, prostitutes, not to mention
whole tribes of Judah and Jesus himself wrestling with conscience and
demons.
I find I dont mind the heat. Its not like late July in
Minnesota where even at the beach, even inside four walls with all the shades
down, doors open and fans moving, the heat fixes you. Here, in the desert, the
heat draws you further. Sage invades my nostrils like the best wine, making me
want more, feeding my imagination, stoking my daring, my wandering, my
pleasure. Here I could sleep in the shadow of the boulder at midday. I could
curl up and dream the desert scent, safe enough from blistering rays. How
little we need here. But what we need, we need: shade and water. I am relieved
after a days searing hike to return to our campground on the sandy
riverbed to gaze at stars and to sleep as peacefully as I can ever
remember.
Jesus famous desert retreat seems rather like a native
American vision quest, his mission simmering during all those years of faithful
small-town Jewish life, initiated by his dramatic baptism in the Jordan, now
congealed in his 40-day sweat lodge of desert heat and solitude.
Then he could emerge to face the shuffle of hurting people in and
out of his life. After shoring up a well of desert silence, he could face the
crowds incessant shouts and pleas. I wonder if he dreamed of desert,
longed for its scents, its cool, quiet nights. But neither his mission nor our
redemption are found in the clarity of desert light, its cleansing heat, nor
its sounds of silence. Rather theyre immersed in the din of human
frailty, in the drowning and the saving of Jonahs in the sea of humanity, the
vast pool from which our thirst is quenched.
My few days in the desert continue to feed my imagination on
solitude, on space, on the hugeness of what is out there and the smallness of
me, and finally on God who has a vision for each of us, if only we will take
the time and space to listen to the sounds of silence.
Kris Berggren writes from Minneapolis. She can be reached by
e-mail at bergolk@earthlink.net
National Catholic Reporter, April 13,
2001
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