Archive for April, 2010

Lake Powell.AZ [Video]

Monday, April 26th, 2010

“I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.” ~ Khalil Gebran  ~

Lake Powell  

Suddenly this afternoon our notion of “freedom” hit me. I choked thinking about it. I don’t know what happened and why. I am trying to understand it. Valley of the Gods is not far, it is the decision itself that moved me as I am trying to comprehend it’s emotions. We have met these past days many travelers, overlanders, souls on their expeditions, they all, most, come back to a home. It is a different mind set with more or less, often more, a schedule at hand. Their path is a circle which will end where it started and fulfill their minds and spirits with a richness acquired, hopefully. Our path on the other hand seems endless, as the shadows of both reality and imagination starts taking shape, as I can touch the rocks and feel the water of the streams, they are always with time left behind as if the canvas never dries repainted over and over.

Lake Powell  
Lake Powell  

There is no apprehension, all is calm, we both know what to do, there is always caution, a look or two over the shoulder, a check list, mental and physical, and yet suddenly the grandeur of it all hits me hard. Is it a comparison about what we are doing versus what most are doing? I know we are not the only ones, I wonder if “the others” feel as such? I also feel as the depth of this Journey is taking on another face, not foreign, but also not for now distinguishable to me. I want to speed the process suddenly as it feels good, as I know it is pure and white, but I know better, I know to let time take it’s course and mature and ripen to bare a fruit yet unknown and never tasted before. I almost for the first time want to know what it is as I however halt myself because it’s all good.

Lake Powell Lake Powell
Lake Powell  

Some really incredible meets have happened these past days, some conversations like no other, a depth that makes me realize that as sometimes bizarre my words can be, as also my world for that matter, others do understand that there is more to traveling than the reporting facts, horsepower, mileage and blurred double yellow lines. I should have known, maybe I did, I now know that I can share it all more peacefully as Mother Nature is well understood by many not only within her physical dimension, but also as emanating her soul to us making us think and rise above within the moments ahead of us. The vision through my eyes was never enough. Photos do not truly relate the feelings one can be impregnated with when present. They are for me as their memory which can take me back easily to the moments shared, they take me back to this sense of freedom that suddenly has made it’s mark in my mind, this afternoon. It is always all the senses combined and in unison as they are the ones tasted slowing us down as courses that cannot be rushed.

Lake Powell  
Lake Powell  

I wonder if the owner of the 3 million dollar I-Phone has that freedom. (It seems I cannot let that one go!). I wonder if that person can feel what we feel, plainly said. I don’t know, as today I know myself what it takes to savor such times as we have, such times as always in the company of Lance who mesmerizes me as he is the one that has given me and continues giving me such freedom. Bitter~Sweet. A flavor I am all too familiar with, a smile and a tear with this condition laid out ahead to never give up, a path otherwise too easy and too simple and so unrewarding. He has made me shed everything that has clothed me for over half a century, and yet every time that I can discern the seed of the core of my own being, it is untouchable as only glances appear guiding me on this path as to not deviate and get lost.

Lake Powell  
Lake Powell  

I cannot call it a search as I do not know myself what I am looking for. I can only feel the goodness of it all as I try to avoid the thorns of the unpaved shoulders. I thought it was a search, I now know better that it is not, it is only savoring the moment always in reach even if I have to extend my arm longer and further away to taste it. I look at the calendar of our Archives, I did this morning when meeting a couple travelers on their scheduled circle, I think that is when all this realization came about. Three and a half years as I also smile when I hear my Mother’s voice asking, not often but often enough… “and what do you do all day?”. We live. We truly live. There is no glamour, there is no luxury, there just is. It is all within as seemingly it’s sparkles have become brighter.

98  
98  

Yesterday has past and it was with some excitement that we took on the road to Valley of the Gods. This will probably be the last time for a few years before we come back here and it has taken a special meaning. The skies today had warmed up, it was perfection for the 150 miles from Page to this special space of ours. The road as so many in Arizona and Utah are the ones I could just walk as every feet is of splendor today with much greenery, a sand lighter bleached from the sun and it’s own travels as the monuments standing themselves on their own of darker shades as to attract the deserved respect on this land called a “reservation”.  

Valley of the Gods  
Valley of the Gods  

We were honored to be part of an Overland Expo video. Thank you also Bill, Nathan and Josh from “Sagen Media”.

Enjoy and be well, always.

Ara & Spirit

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Valley of the Gods  
Valley of the Gods