Today I was walking around some canyons and mesas in southern Utah. The hot sun beat down, but a cool breeze kept me going, along with some ephedra I'd been chewing and spitting. As I made my way from the shallow washes into the steeper canyons, the fallen rocks and canyonsides seemed like perfect bricks stacked high by some ancient civilization, only to be thrown down by wind, water, and time. I felt like the Moenkopi red sandstone was really a Moenkopi Temple, erected to a long-ago powerful god, whose only remaining power is to strike awe in those who enter its territory. All I could think of was how great this temple must have been before being covered over by gypsum, mud, petrified forest, and silt, only to be exposed once again for us humans to experience. The light breeze on my back, and the stormclouds rolling over the mountain in the distance are the forces that enacted this change, but only after being given millions of years to operate.
It's been a good day, thinking about erosion and sedimentation and shit.
I step up to the bar. "Hey bartender, can I get some gin? The juniper here smells too good to ignore. Cheers!"
Oh, makes me jealous! Allthough I have wandered some of those canyons myself a long time ago. ~bartender? I'd very much like to join in with the Gin. Ah, the scent of sage brush floods my memories. And Tom Lehrer singing about "I watch them guiding missiles ..." ... good times they were. Cheers!
Sounds very insightful. Would love to see the canyons in the Southwest for myself someday!