Archive for June, 2011

Contemplating the Layers of Life in the Grand Canyon

Sunday, June 12th, 2011

What better place to contemplate the layers of one’s life than the Grand Canyon where billions of layers of earth lay raw and exposed

Layers  that start with the violet cactus flowers bursting like a tiny baby through crumbling white limestone

Layers that include the trees, the pine, the birch and the groves of aspen with their pure white bark, sparkling leaves. All their layers of roots hold the rocks and  earth firmly together. Their branches allow the layers of wind to gust, curl and float between their leaves.  Even when their life is gone the trees maintain their sculptural elegance against a bright blue sky.

As the trees fall in layers amidst the rocks and grass, their trunks dissolve with sprawling limbs as the last to go, twisting a reaching into a now smaller space lose to the ground. The logs now give their life back to the earth in layers of crumbling planks of gray, red and dark brown. This layer life process repeats itself throughout the forest, a miniature world of birth, life and death at all times.

This process compared to the layers of the canyon that opens up before me as I fly through onto wheels. I ride along the ledge and the layers are so vast and immense that I can see no real detail, only shapes of color and form. Layers of life  that I cannot even begin to comprehend. Billions. What is that? I know only a mere 50, that at times seems so “old” yet feels younger than the lines that layer around my eyes.

Layers of flat plateaus once beneath a rumbling and salty sea. The visible and invisible layers. The wind is the invisible layer that wakes us each morning while we are deep in the cocoon of our sleeping bags. On that same invisible layer an eagle soars and knows how to play each directional drift to move from place to place.

I sit here on this crumbling rock where no electronics  beckon. Life has slowed down and opened up and there is space between the layers in my brain to reflect on the layers of my life. Layers that are squeezed and transformed by the weight of each passing day. Layers of friends, experiences, countless views of places that each find their way into my heart. Layers of family going back to the layers of mountains in my grandmother’s tiny village nestled in Le Marche. How I feel connected to that place, to so many places.

Layers of thought, where do those layers go? I am blessed with the layers of my life as the forest is blessed and in need of trees that hold together the earth with their roots. A tree canopy reaches high as do my dreams and it’s roots hold tight to their world as I cling to parts of my past that I may need to shed to make way for new life.

John Muir wrote, ” The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness,” It’s been a long time since the forest and I have had so much alone time together and it has been good for me to experience a clear path again.  I go back to my busy life but take these forest meditations with me and will return again soon