Always Look Up
I left the campground to head to Salton Sea. I drove back roads in spite of google maps telling me three times to go to the interstate route. I have to tell her each time, “NO”, I don’t want to take the fastest route. Why is it that we are all in a hurry to get somewhere? Can’t we just enjoy the present, take in our surroundings, see the diamonds glistening through the pavement as the sun shines on it? Little sparkles of light that leads me down the road, like little fairies with their lanterns.
I see signs with street names and wonder how they arrived at them–“No Name Street”, “Three Slashes Road”. I observe the change of landscape–miles of dips in the road, to sand dunes, to flat uninhabited deserts. I see sheep grazing on land, packed together with little room to move. I then recall the cattle farms I passed earlier in weeks with nowhere to turn around, so tired of standing they lay in the mud side-by-side. What kind of life could they be having with no movement? My heart breaks for them.
I am thankful for the two hawks and two ravens that guided me at the start of my drive. I arrive at Salton Sea, a large stretch of water–peaceful, quiet with few campers, and I find a secluded spot to pitch my tent.
The Salton Sea was once covered by freshwater, a huge lake with Native Americans living around it, and three mountains surrounding. It dried up, leaving salt, was damned, flooded and a new lake was formed – 45 miles long, 20 miles wide. Sometimes four million birds come to visit, but it is again dried up and only tilapia fish remain.
I hike in the wetland area and observe the native plants. I arrive at the beach of salt and bone remains of the fish, sit on a rock, take in the quiet, the calmness of the water and never-ending view, as I sit with my thoughts.
Birds fly overhead, making patterns and geometric shapes above me, white and black, darkness and light. I watch and they continue to hover, giving me a message from their formation.
I am mesmerized at how calmly they do this, working as oneness, not looking as if one is a leader, but doing this as one community, not in a hurry to leave.
It is such beauty, their contrast of colors against the blue sky. Blue the color of communication. As I look down for a second, then look up, they are no longer there. I do a 360 turn, and I do not see them. Did they land? Were they angels sent to me, looking like kites in the sky?
I decided to walk back by the beach. Fear creeps in, thinking I need to follow the “normal” path I took to arrive there. But then the message comes, “You are on the right path, you don’t have long to go and it will all be clear, like the blueness of the water and the whites of the beach. You just need to trust, have faith, hold your head up and keep walking.”
We seem to hold our heads down, not looking straight of what is ahead of us. If our head is down maybe we can avoid what is in front of us, or we fear what is in front of us. Put your shoulders back, walk tall, head up and look straight, because the answer is there, it’s in you, it’s in the calmness, when we take time to really look up and see the patterns from the birds above.
