I descended into the Earth

and came out feeling transformed

Sep 08, 2024

Disclaimer: I have disciplined myself to mostly write about yoga, my yoga poems and somatic poetry writing workshops, but today I was called to share something about my travels and transformations that will mimic more of a poetic travel journey full of photos and insights. The mind time travels and these photos take me back and will hopefully take you into the earth with me so that you can come out… knowing how much beauty and wonder we are capable of witnessing, experiencing, creating and containing.

son, mother, wild, earth, canyon, navajo

It was over one hundred degrees, but after a month of summer traveling in the Southwest with my husband and son in our Sprinter van — the Westy as we call her — I had gotten used to being hot, uncomfortable, and exhilarated by the newness of what I was taking in.

To me, to travel in a van is not a “vacation” but a journey of wonder, weather, and breakdowns — whether it is the engine, the brake pads, or preconceived notions of places and of myself. It is an adventure full of problems I have grown to love and of questions of what home is and how to create home within myself.

Just so you know, I am not one to take or share photos or selfies of my life— I am downright camera shy, but my dear husband took these shots in an attempt to capture our experience and, as he said, the look on my face of amazement, befuddlement, and…wow.

Antelope Canyon

Antelope Canyon is not as much a destination as it is an experience. It is located in the Navajo Nation where they call it “Tse bighanilini,” or “the place where the water runs through rocks.”

I hope these photos take you there, too, where you can, perhaps, say, How is this possible, to yourself, and then take in how creation and destruction live together simultaneously and that we all dwell in possibility.

We are possibility.

To walk among these stones was to walk among the spirit of water spiraling through sand.

To look to the sky from inside this piece of earth was to look at existence through a birth canal of red sandstone and sky.

To brush my fingers along these walls and repeat to myself, Take it in, take it in… was to let the earth speak to me and to listen to nothing and everything all at once.

To look up and gasp, feeling so small and yet part of something so large was to surrender to a soliloquy of stillness and breath .

To gaze towards a sliver of the sky is to wonder how it is possible that we are even born at all. That we are even here.

To see without projection nor comparison is to see with your heart.

To touch a poem when the poem is all that there is.

And there I was full of exuberance, laughter, gratitude, and tears. And the most reverence I had ever felt in my life.

antelope canyon, Navajo, nation, and, stone, wonder of the world, travel, van

And I want to not hold onto the experience itself, but to conjure up that feeling, that wonder, that aliveness in my every day life. Something was stirred inside of me and it is my job to make sure it doesn’t settle to the bottom, but to keep it as part of me, and seek more.

When is a time you have felt communion with the natural world or with life itself? What is a transformational experience you have had.

I would love to hear your story. Take up as much space as you need!