Would You Like to Dance?

If you follow either of my blogs, you may need a life, but you also will know that I have an ongoing contest dancing with lonesomeness and togetherness as they twirl me and whirl me hither and yon.  I  tend to favor the waltz with lonesomeness because it brings peace, quiet, gentle rhythms, and my dress whirls so symmetrically around the room, and, of course, I have accepted that it will be my inevitable partner as I age.  My years reward me with a lack of fear of being alone.  In contrast, the dance with togetherness is crazy, full of life, and throws me unpredictable turns making me seem to miss my steps more often.  While I need this partner, I have outgrown its energies.  I feel more awkward and drained of life at the end of the togetherness foxtrot.

I write this because the emptiness and solitude of places in the photos below fill me with an unexplainable awesome peace.  While I stood, camera in hand, I was very aware that people have been here and struggled to survive and lived lives of quiet desperation.  Their sacrifice is in the soil and the air and the brilliance of the sunshine and commands your attention.   They came before in prehistoric and historic times and left behind the strength of life and the closeness to the strength of the earth that they experienced.  Trying to find or create sustenance from this desolate area was a blind challenge for them.  I hear ancient chants to eternity on the desert winds...what a dance that must be!


There is a purity of human spirit that seemed to hang close as I took these photos.  While taking the photo immediately below I heard the rhythmic rush of the wings of a large black raven as it flew very high overhead on some long journey.  When did you last here the rush of a raven's wings?