Sharon's Summer

Sharon's Summer
Sharon Chooses High Elevation and High Temperature

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

A Story Told in Rock

Far behind the arid hill, still drier mountains settle into westward disappearance.  Translucent moon, it seems in morning light, levitates above the hill, a balloon perhaps gone free.







The broad mouth of Fall Canyon opens wide, its bottom filled with rounded stones, alluvium fanned out over the valley of death like spewings of a great river laden with eroded rock.  And water it was that carried the rocks and even cut the canyon and made a place for me to walk.  Perhaps these stones will lie here just a few more million years, be covered with more like them, be compressed and uplifted.  And maybe someday someone will see an eroded side and wonder, will maybe feel my presence here today as one who came to observe them.



It doesn’t matter if a major storm comes only once a hundred years.  Together they move more rock than a thousand bulldozers working a century.  It takes the storms longer, but no matter, because time in on geology’s side.  Time is how it cuts the earth.




Level layers figure nicely into stories of ancient seas, of rivers bringing silt to settle on their bottoms, of uplift along some fault that raises the land a few inches in each of a thousand earthquakes, of later erosion exposing for us to see the layers of an ancient sea.









Here the story takes a sinister turn, where layers bend and fold.  And if we can believe for one more step into lurid past, these layers lay so deep, so long, under so much weight, that they got so hot and partly melted, and then were worked like taffy but not like soup.  Finally they hardened and uplifted like the level ones, but what we are asked to believe is that these too were sediments on some ancient sea.










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13 comments:

  1. I am just so amazed at how differently your tale is told compared to your other adventures! Although the sun sears everything under it where you are, you give a dark, chilling account of the land and your impressions. We could all use a little chilling right now! It's hot!

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  2. It's a chilling hot place, if that makes any sense. I'm not aware of telling my tale differently, save that it's a different kind of tale. You make an interesting observation, one that I'll think about.

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  3. Perhaps it's the ongoing solitude and the accumulated sole encounter with silent rock and soil... the sense of the ages piling up in sediments and layers is bound to affect the brain. It seems there is not much but space and time, solidified here, and little conversation, just the bright light and shade of canyon walls... induces a different tone, mirroring the dark and light extremes? This will be even more fascinating in person, stories told I think. Come by on Friday night and see if our house is haunted, Steven and Gail... (we miss you!)

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  4. It has been a mostly solitary time here with the sediments and the sun, not much but matter, space, and time, as Kathabela says. Little conversation moderates my reactions and only the internet feeds back responses. This is not complaint, and I don’t know that it has led to darker thoughts. Maybe the party announcement should say:

    Come for the dissection of Sharon. Bring your own scalpel and sutures. Her brain has been fried in the bright sun. The question is: Can we unfry an egg?

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  5. Unfrying would be considered distinctly counterproductive, at least in shamanic journeywork terms. Dismemberment and extractions are understood to be signs of significant spiritual growth. Well, I know you didn't ask, but... Skharon R.

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  6. Oh, I cannot. I have to perform in Lake Forest Friday. :o(

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  7. I am sure there will be multiple opportunities to enjoy this process, Steven! When are you available for after death valley parties?

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  8. "Worked like taffy, but not like soup" - I can really visualize this in my mind's eye! Slow, writhing movements of molten masses, rising up, twisting about, cooling down and finally settling in with a sigh of relief and satisfaction. Another masterpiece is done! ......at least for now! Your description of these monoliths of evolution do give me the shivers, Sharon!
    I have to see this for myself! Steven says perhaps we will go around February : )

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  9. In Shamanic terms, Sharon, I speak little, being foreign to native philosophies that arose in open land and human blending into it, if that is even what you refer. Few native peoples came into Death Valley; they were too smart for that. So maybe their methods don’t linger here as in gentler environs. But if dismemberment and extractions are signs of spiritual growth, then bring on the scalpels.

    We must wait for your return, Steven, I need you to explain this wonderful darkening; I’m liking it more as we talk. See, Kathabela agrees.

    Thank you, Gail for commenting on the rocks! I wrote about rocks and you commented on what I wrote about. That is most gratifying. You say you are a painter, but here you paint with words—great description, I think I’ll steal it.

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  10. the moon shot is lovely, being in a big city I sort of noticed the moon, but was not really clear that it was full, all I see is big buildings, but nice people.

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  11. Oh Michael it is sweet to moon watch with you here, I love how you appear like the moon over the mountains on this blog... I am happy you are sharing it now... from your now unusual perspective. Sharon will give us some programs at our home about this journey and before her next step... now that she is happily home with us!

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  12. Michael is mooning over the mountains? You have to realize, Michael, that Kathabela imagines very vividly and means everything in a complimentary way. Hehe

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  13. Hee hee... because Michael is probably too busy to look back here... I can get away with my innocent vividities!

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