Perambulation and Meditation

The ride from Phoenix to Sedona has some pretty spectacular moments, scenery-wise, but none as amazing as the moment you get your first glimpse of those red rocks. I found out a couple of years ago that the desert landscape surrounding Phoenix is filled with beauty I had never imagined existed. As we drove a short two hours north this week, though, the landscape changed from the grays and blues of Phoenix..



To some gorgeous half gray, half red formations...



To the red wonder of Sedona...


Sometimes, if you're lucky, nature treats you with something special. We saw this as we were heading to dinner on our first night in town. A double rainbow!


On Sunday morning, we decided to hike. It's been awhile since I've ventured out on a trail. My back problems make me a timid hiker these days, so we asked at the hotel desk about a tame trail, and the man there recommended Thunder Mountain and Chimney Rock trails: relatively flat and easy to hike. Perfect. Boots on and hiking sticks in hand, we set out. The trail was just right for me. It was not totally flat, and there were a few rocky ups and downs, but I never felt like I was going to fall. The rocks were just gorgeous, too! Doesn't this one look like a mother and child?


Here's the happy hiker:


It didn't take us long to hike to a side trail that wound us towards a site that was on our must-do list in Sedona: the Sacred Buddhist Stupas of Kunzang Palyul Choling. Sedona is sacred central for spiritual seekers and new age-ers, and it seems like every faith is represented, Buddhism included. According to their website, "Stupas have been built for centuries in the East to protect beings from illness, poverty, plagues, famine and war; and to bring environmental stability and harmony to the world. They are visited by people from near and far who are looking for healing for themselves and loved ones, solace from sorrows, good fortune, long life and help for the dying or deceased. Stupas are also a spiritual oasis, a place to refresh the spirit, gather strength and hope and connect with a deeper truth. Just to see a stupa, to walk around it or to feel the wind blowing by it is a blessing."



This is a big meditation site, so we put down our hiking sticks down and sat for awhile, meditating and listing to the wind whip the prayer flags around. We were in good company.


There are actually two stupas on the site. Here's a shot featuring both:


Eventually, we got up and we wandered around some and read the prayer flags.





And we read the glass beads: "Om"...


And we read the brick pavers...


And then we wandered back to the trail and continued our hike. It was a great morning.


Next up...in search of the vortexes. Or are they vortices?

On the Road to Sedona

One of the great things about teaching on the semester system is spring break.  Of course, I had a spring break when we were on the quarter system, but it fell right between winter and spring quarters, so every professor I knew was busy finishing up their final grading for one quarter and planning their syllabi for the next.  Unless you were a speed-grader and a serious pre-planner, you never really got a break.  Under semesters, that has all changed.  Now, for one glorious week in mid-March, we have a true spring break.

This year, I did it up right.  My friend, Cindy, and I flew to Phoenix, rented a car, and drove to Sedona, Arizona for a few days of fun.  Cindy had spent a day in Sedona a few years back on a trip to the Grand Canyon, and she'd been wanting to go back to really explore this gorgeous place.  I was in Arizona in 2011 with my brother and sister-in-law, and we'd done a scenic train tour of the red rock canyons that surround Sedona, but I'd never been into Sedona itself.  Sunshine, warm days, low humidity, a good friend, and spectacular scenery: the perfect spring break ingredients.

On our drive north out of Phoenix, we decided to make a couple of stops.  Cindy turned me onto the National Parks Passport way back in 2002.  Here's a link, just in case you don't know about this truly addictive passtime: http://www.easternnational.org/passport.aspx.  We would be passing very near two National Monument Sites, so--passports in hand--we made a couple of stops.  First up, Montezuma Castle, a wonderfully preserved prehistoric cliff dwelling. These pueblo ruins--some of the best preserved in North America--were inhabited by the Sinagua people for more than 400 years. At that end of that time, they just up and left, and nobody knows why. Back in the thirties, the park system used to let tourists climb a series of ladders up to--and into-- the dwellings, but it quickly became clear that the ancient pueblos would not last long if this practice continued.  Now, you can view the cliff dwellings from a nice walkway on the ground below.  I loved the place: it was like nothing I'd ever seen before, and it satisfied a childhood interest of mine.  I can remember sitting in geography and history classes as a child, learning about pueblos and cliff dwellings, and I always wondered what they really looked like.  Now I know! By the way, Montezuma had nothing to do with this place: that name is an historical misnomer!

After touring around for awhile, we had lunch and then drove on to our next park site: Montezuma Well (you guessed it: Montezuma had nothing to do with this one, either). The well looks like a big round lake surrounded by cliffs, and according to the NPS, it was formed when a limestone cavern collapsed long, long ago.  They say that over a million gallons of water flow through the well daily.  The water is a constant 74 degrees, and even though Arizona is plagued by droughts, the well has never run dry.  I guess this explains why the Sinagua people populated this area, too.  On the cliffs along the edge of the well, there are more dwellings.  This place must have been quite an oasis in this desert landscape.  Cindy and I walked around the well for quite a while: it's really a lovely site.

 We stopped at one other NPS site on our way to Sedona, but we didn't stay long.  We hadn't heard of the place, and we couldn't tell exactly what it was!  We wandered around a bit, drove down a long dirt road, but never really ran into anything that suggested we were close to a monument--or a stamping station, for that matter.  We took a photo and moved on.

Next stop: Sedona and those remarkable red rocks!

Successful Friends

I had dinner with an old friend on Tuesday night. Steve and I went to graduate school together: he was in the creative writing program, and I was in the literature program. Steve used to throw great parties in grad school. He'd cram lots of people into his apartment and serve us lots of beer. Life was good. Over the years, he taught at Ball State and then at The College of Charleston. Eventually, he took a job in industry, got married, and had a couple of kids. He worked hard, but he never lost his love of writing. A few years ago, he called to ask me to write him a letter of recommendation. He was applying to an MFA program in creative writing. It was largely a distance program, allowing him to keep his job, but he thought it might really make a difference in his writing.

In the last year or so, Steve has been on fire. He's published many stories, he's been nominated for a prestigious Pushcart Prize, he's shopping around his first collection of stories, and he's working on a novel. It's great to see him succeed like this, because he really deserves it. Just in case you don't believe me, read his stuff. Here's a link to explore: http://sgeoannou.com/

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