Enchanted ✨

I have just come out of Cougar Canyon in Anza Borrego Desert in So Cal where I spent the week apprenticing to Sweetness. Sharing deep time in deep wilderness – lamenting and celebrating with beautiful humans in the depths of the dreaming Earth was delicious, disarming,

Even more delicious was the way I was invited to share space with the ones at the mouth of this canyon. While I wandered far and wide in the desert, I finally gave myself over to the allure of the stunning and magical spot where I had pitched my little tent.

“Stay here!” said the sacred others there. “Sink into our homeplace. Share our world.”

Where else did I need to go? The world was right here, inviting me to listen, to slow down, to pay attention, to wait, to stop all the going and be WITH, be open, be empty.

How could I refuse such an invitation from honey bee and waterfall, boulder and frog? How could I not be melted each evening by the rising of the waxing crescent moon above the outline of the canyon walls and a sky filled with countless stars?

Each morning, I awoke before first light, crawled out of my tent-nest snuggled right next to a huge white sage bush, my bare feet landing in cool sand, and walked the few feet to the beach of Cougar Creek to filter my drinking water and watch the land come back to life.

Darkness gave way to light slowly pouring into this steep canyon crack, to the zooming and chattering of hummingbirds and croaking of ravens, while the courting frogs trailed off to sleep.

Two lush sycamore trees growing out of boulders in the water stood like twin gatekeepers—opening the way up into the steep canyon. So fragrant with the spring wildflower blooms all around, these siblings revealed a mama Hummingbird who was nesting in their boughs.

Unbothered by me, tolerant of me, or maybe even, in moments, curious about this human who had temporarily taken up residence in her neighborhood, she sat so softly on her minuscule eggs, her long beak pointing skyward.

After the reverential breakfasting and gathering in council with the other humans in my pod, the afternoons were mine to fall more deeply in love with this mama hummingbird, with the giant, eons-old boulders, and with something so stirring in the ancient underworld of this place meeting my being.

I bathed in pools of cold mountain water and washed my body, my dishes, my clothes. I shared this spot with human sisters and entered into ancient memory of washing and laughing and sharing stories and bathing in so many other waters, in so many other times, in so many other worlds.

There’s something in the feminine soul that remembers and knows and attunes effortlessly to the rhythm of the land and water, Sun and stars.

Honey bees drank from the wet sand and the canyon filled with song and ghost whispers of the ancient people who once lived in this canyon.

As I fell asleep, napping on the biggest boulder, incredibly smooth and impossibly comfortable, under the sycamores, water rushing in my ears, I felt myself being pulled by the love-hand of gravity to give up all of who I am, to sink and let go. I rolled in and out of sleep, in and out of sand, in and out of buzzing and humming, until I became overtaken by such profound Sweetness and be-longing, that I disappeared.

How hard to leave at the end of the week, to fill my backpack with human things, to know that I might not return for many, many moons.

The final morning was blessed by gentle rain, and when I took down my tent, I found a single, huge, robust branch of white sage lying at my door, like an offering back from the land. In tears, I offered my own song of Sweetness and gratitude in return.

Previous
Previous

January 2025 News!

Next
Next

A New BIG Yurt for Spirit Hollow!