Roundabout

The desert reclaims everything in a shockingly brief time span. Sunlight at this intensity is especially effective at breaking down synthetics ( all manner of plastic in particular). Aluminum cans are bleached and worn paper thin in months. Last week, on a day when the temperature reached 107 degrees (Farenheit), several (non-native) plants left here by friends were desiccated after a few hours of exposure.

On a recent hike through the hills to the north of the hermitage we found what looked to be the skull of a large dog, perhaps a pit bull. Our guess was coyotes had taken the hapless animal down. Within a few weeks that skull will blend into the rock and sand-merely another artifact of the desert.

The same seems to be happening to me in bits. It is not only my exterior that is turning leathery and wearing away under the relentless Sun but something else unexpected is being degraded in my interior life. My obscene, contrived attempts to manipulate circumstance and destiny are wearing and splintering like the sun-beaten bits of fiberglass I sometimes find blowing across the land. Both the material of my ego and the fiberglass are plastic; both are now without context.

There are no enemies to rail against here - the scorpion, snake and spider are busy using energy to find food and shade. There are no achievements to stoke the illusion of rugged individualism but there are daily works necessary to keep us all alive. It is difficult to remember why I should treat Duchess, the plot hound who lives with us, with any less respect than another human. I suppose that illustration (or any other at this moment) fails to get to the meat of the nut. The joyfully shocking roundabout was a sudden change of seeing and what I saw was that love is not something owned or distributed. Love is that Something in which we can choose, moment by moment to participate.

I came here hoping to escape. The opposite seems to have happened or, rather, the escape affected was not from the rest of the world but from the delusion of importance, individuality and futility.