I feel writing itself has become a hindrance - a pleasant diversion to record experiences, but also the channel through which I feel obliged to express all my observations. This often diverts my focus from an experience itself into an output in words and tales. I will stop writing for now.
06/01
Tired, won't write much. Helped secure a new gate, went hiking all day, it was great, got lost on the way back. Made it back after asking around, showered, dinner, sleepytime tea. Face and arms are red, will be sunburnt tomorrow. Ouch. Night.
06/02
I will restart writing now. After a day and a half or so of weekend time, I realized that writing itself is not the hindrance to experience I had observed. It is the anticipation and expectation of the writing experience that blur my views, my steps, and my actions. This weekend I applied discipline to experience fuller moments, and I spent a wonderful time.
And now still, the want to write still comes like a hunger, and I find little reason to leave it unappeased. So again I write, though I will keep my sole experiences this weekend as a reminder to attain conscious purity.
Yesterday I woke up some time at night, and I decided to walk outside and breathe some night valley air. Once outside, I was taken aback by the show of stars, and my walk became a stargazing venture. The result was the writing "Stars".
After dawn, and following some chickens, I decided to go hiking out in BLM land (government land). I cooked a cup of lentils and rice, and was about to pack and head out, when Mario knocked on my door.
- "Buenos días Mario!"
- "Qué tal Antonio, tenemos un trabajo"
- "?Ah sí?", extrañado, pues era sábado.
- "Sí, hay que poner la puerta, dice el señor Ted"
- "Ah, y ?sí tiene que ser hoy?"
- "Pues sí, es que así lo quiere. Va a tardar como una hora"
So I left my freshly cooked lunch in a covered pot, changed into work clothes, and went off to meet Mario next to the wooden post we had installed the previous day. I held the gate while Mario made some measurements, then we waited for Ted to arrive.
Once Ted arrived, I was tasked with picking up the gate, holding it up, making sure the gate was fully horizontal, passing Mario tools, and other such unlaborious tasks. I was, however, gradually feeling hungrier, as I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. Several times Mario and Ted walked off to find some tool or some pipe to hold the gate with, and I mostly just watched, so it was hard to ignore the hunger. Soon the hunger led to dizziness, and I excused myself to go have breakfast, knowing I was no longer required there.
An oatmeal breakfast and a lunch packing later, I walked back to the new gate with a backpack on my shoulders. The gate was finished by then, and I asked how to enter BLM land. Mario pointed a small pathway to me, and off I went.
The dusty path was evident since my first steps. Once in BLM, I could find nothing of man's design. The closest to it were tennis shoes prints in the dust that the wind had yet neglected to erase. The visible path seemed mostly uphill - a chain of dirt hills linked by relative valleys, and a taller dirt mountain with orange-brown cliffs, farther out in the horizon. I began hiking with no more purpose than to be out there alone.
The land around me consisted of dust, rocks, and plants. Dirt event, without a thick dust layer on top, was rare. Looking down I saw only shades of brown, and gray, and scattered patches of arid green, permeated mostly by the orange-brown dust. A look up, though, revealed a vast expanse of an intense, smooth blue. Not a single cloud, nor trace of it, dared interrupt the majestic fabric, which yielded only to its powerful painter with a round pattern of whites and yellows, and to the solid, orange horizon, by gracefully donning white and green hues as it approached the land.
Up on a locally highest hilltop, I sat down to look at the view. Though its palette was fairly austere, the gradients across the flats and hills, the fragile angular cliffs, the shadows trapped between those rare corners, and the orderly scattering of stoic shrubs, gave it a complexity of its own.
**Interrupted due to tiredness caused by hunger, some previous physical activity, or nutritional deficiency.**
I meditated with my eyes closed, breathing purposefully, for an indeterminate length of time, which I estimate to 15 minutes. Then I realized my shoulders and neck would easily sunburn throughout the day, so I tied a shirt on my head. My arms remained uncovered.
I kept walking up and down the hills, sitting and meditating at certain points. Then one time I decided to hike only, and hike I did, all the way to the mountain. The most remarkable sight on the way was a red flower coming out of a "nopal". It stood out from the entire landscape by its deep, rich color. From up close, the four or five petals reached up high, and left an opening in the middle, where a yellow stem held its pollen at the top, just waiting... Its petals were thick, and were guarded underneath by daunting thorns below and around them. I imagined the thickness in the petal helped it either retain more humidity or protect it better in the open landscape. As I stood there, wishing good towards the flower, something buzzed right in front of me and stopped at the flower. A hummingbird, blue and green, was putting its beak into the flower, eating pollen, I imagine! It happened right at my feet, and I saw all the hummingbird's back body (the parts that didn't flap) in fine detail. I began to stoop down to see it from up closer, but right then it flew off. I guessed that he'd taken some pollen with him, so this was good for the flower. I praised the flower internally for standing out so starkly, and kept walking. Soon after I saw several other flowers like it, in groups or alone, shining that strong red. Some were more wilted and darker, some were open and bright. But none of them struck me as much as that first one.
(06/04)
I kept on walking and meditating and taking off my shoes and socks at some point - the dust beneath felt deliciously soft, though sometimes a bit too hot. At some points the hilltops were quite narrow, and a large shrub grew right on top, so I hung on to a branch or two as I swung my body above the smooth steep slope, dotted with rocks and cacti, leading down to the ground about 30 feet below.
The first thing I noticed when I reached the top were the birds. What had seemed like medium-sized crows at a distance, now looked like full-grown black scavenging birds, not quite vultures but larger than crows. Six or seven of them glided atop the mountaintop, claiming the best view of the region, I imagine eagerly awaiting some weak prey. I felt as if they glided on top of me for a while, cawking at each other, wondering whether I was good to eat yet. But after about three minutes, they moved out along the mountain.
I lunched and meditated up there. The cup of lentils and rice proved to be more than enough for a generous lunch, and I left part of it for later. I munched on a few carrots to moisten myself, and sipped on my water bottle. Then after a couple of quads passed by on the mountain road, I suddenly felt like I wanted to be back, so I hiked back down.
Some time later, I realized it wasn't as easy to go down as up to to the unattentive, even considering the scarce vegetation. Several times I reached a dead-end hilltop, and then I slid down to the main ground, where I trusted only my sense of direction (and not the view) to lead me back.
I could've done a better job. Where I expected to find a broken fence, I found tall and spiked ones, and solid gates. At first I thought the fence had been blockaded with a bunch of branches, but that seemed implausible. I hiked up thorny hills and brambled growths, seeking a way to cross the fence (this area was much greener; a little acequia passed right by).
The sun was coming down, and I was gradually getting thirstier and more concerned, so eventually I scurried under two gates to get to a road that I didn't know about. Wandering and asking, I found my way back, and then I went straight to showering and bed. My body was grateful. Getting lost was the most tiring part, by far, of my day trip. "A little more care could've prevented this", I thought.
06/01
Tired, won't write much. Helped secure a new gate, went hiking all day, it was great, got lost on the way back. Made it back after asking around, showered, dinner, sleepytime tea. Face and arms are red, will be sunburnt tomorrow. Ouch. Night.
06/02
I will restart writing now. After a day and a half or so of weekend time, I realized that writing itself is not the hindrance to experience I had observed. It is the anticipation and expectation of the writing experience that blur my views, my steps, and my actions. This weekend I applied discipline to experience fuller moments, and I spent a wonderful time.
And now still, the want to write still comes like a hunger, and I find little reason to leave it unappeased. So again I write, though I will keep my sole experiences this weekend as a reminder to attain conscious purity.
Yesterday I woke up some time at night, and I decided to walk outside and breathe some night valley air. Once outside, I was taken aback by the show of stars, and my walk became a stargazing venture. The result was the writing "Stars".
After dawn, and following some chickens, I decided to go hiking out in BLM land (government land). I cooked a cup of lentils and rice, and was about to pack and head out, when Mario knocked on my door.
- "Buenos días Mario!"
- "Qué tal Antonio, tenemos un trabajo"
- "?Ah sí?", extrañado, pues era sábado.
- "Sí, hay que poner la puerta, dice el señor Ted"
- "Ah, y ?sí tiene que ser hoy?"
- "Pues sí, es que así lo quiere. Va a tardar como una hora"
So I left my freshly cooked lunch in a covered pot, changed into work clothes, and went off to meet Mario next to the wooden post we had installed the previous day. I held the gate while Mario made some measurements, then we waited for Ted to arrive.
Once Ted arrived, I was tasked with picking up the gate, holding it up, making sure the gate was fully horizontal, passing Mario tools, and other such unlaborious tasks. I was, however, gradually feeling hungrier, as I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. Several times Mario and Ted walked off to find some tool or some pipe to hold the gate with, and I mostly just watched, so it was hard to ignore the hunger. Soon the hunger led to dizziness, and I excused myself to go have breakfast, knowing I was no longer required there.
An oatmeal breakfast and a lunch packing later, I walked back to the new gate with a backpack on my shoulders. The gate was finished by then, and I asked how to enter BLM land. Mario pointed a small pathway to me, and off I went.
The dusty path was evident since my first steps. Once in BLM, I could find nothing of man's design. The closest to it were tennis shoes prints in the dust that the wind had yet neglected to erase. The visible path seemed mostly uphill - a chain of dirt hills linked by relative valleys, and a taller dirt mountain with orange-brown cliffs, farther out in the horizon. I began hiking with no more purpose than to be out there alone.
The land around me consisted of dust, rocks, and plants. Dirt event, without a thick dust layer on top, was rare. Looking down I saw only shades of brown, and gray, and scattered patches of arid green, permeated mostly by the orange-brown dust. A look up, though, revealed a vast expanse of an intense, smooth blue. Not a single cloud, nor trace of it, dared interrupt the majestic fabric, which yielded only to its powerful painter with a round pattern of whites and yellows, and to the solid, orange horizon, by gracefully donning white and green hues as it approached the land.
Up on a locally highest hilltop, I sat down to look at the view. Though its palette was fairly austere, the gradients across the flats and hills, the fragile angular cliffs, the shadows trapped between those rare corners, and the orderly scattering of stoic shrubs, gave it a complexity of its own.
**Interrupted due to tiredness caused by hunger, some previous physical activity, or nutritional deficiency.**
I meditated with my eyes closed, breathing purposefully, for an indeterminate length of time, which I estimate to 15 minutes. Then I realized my shoulders and neck would easily sunburn throughout the day, so I tied a shirt on my head. My arms remained uncovered.
I kept walking up and down the hills, sitting and meditating at certain points. Then one time I decided to hike only, and hike I did, all the way to the mountain. The most remarkable sight on the way was a red flower coming out of a "nopal". It stood out from the entire landscape by its deep, rich color. From up close, the four or five petals reached up high, and left an opening in the middle, where a yellow stem held its pollen at the top, just waiting... Its petals were thick, and were guarded underneath by daunting thorns below and around them. I imagined the thickness in the petal helped it either retain more humidity or protect it better in the open landscape. As I stood there, wishing good towards the flower, something buzzed right in front of me and stopped at the flower. A hummingbird, blue and green, was putting its beak into the flower, eating pollen, I imagine! It happened right at my feet, and I saw all the hummingbird's back body (the parts that didn't flap) in fine detail. I began to stoop down to see it from up closer, but right then it flew off. I guessed that he'd taken some pollen with him, so this was good for the flower. I praised the flower internally for standing out so starkly, and kept walking. Soon after I saw several other flowers like it, in groups or alone, shining that strong red. Some were more wilted and darker, some were open and bright. But none of them struck me as much as that first one.
(06/04)
I kept on walking and meditating and taking off my shoes and socks at some point - the dust beneath felt deliciously soft, though sometimes a bit too hot. At some points the hilltops were quite narrow, and a large shrub grew right on top, so I hung on to a branch or two as I swung my body above the smooth steep slope, dotted with rocks and cacti, leading down to the ground about 30 feet below.
The first thing I noticed when I reached the top were the birds. What had seemed like medium-sized crows at a distance, now looked like full-grown black scavenging birds, not quite vultures but larger than crows. Six or seven of them glided atop the mountaintop, claiming the best view of the region, I imagine eagerly awaiting some weak prey. I felt as if they glided on top of me for a while, cawking at each other, wondering whether I was good to eat yet. But after about three minutes, they moved out along the mountain.
I lunched and meditated up there. The cup of lentils and rice proved to be more than enough for a generous lunch, and I left part of it for later. I munched on a few carrots to moisten myself, and sipped on my water bottle. Then after a couple of quads passed by on the mountain road, I suddenly felt like I wanted to be back, so I hiked back down.
Some time later, I realized it wasn't as easy to go down as up to to the unattentive, even considering the scarce vegetation. Several times I reached a dead-end hilltop, and then I slid down to the main ground, where I trusted only my sense of direction (and not the view) to lead me back.
I could've done a better job. Where I expected to find a broken fence, I found tall and spiked ones, and solid gates. At first I thought the fence had been blockaded with a bunch of branches, but that seemed implausible. I hiked up thorny hills and brambled growths, seeking a way to cross the fence (this area was much greener; a little acequia passed right by).
The sun was coming down, and I was gradually getting thirstier and more concerned, so eventually I scurried under two gates to get to a road that I didn't know about. Wandering and asking, I found my way back, and then I went straight to showering and bed. My body was grateful. Getting lost was the most tiring part, by far, of my day trip. "A little more care could've prevented this", I thought.
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