Living on Less

Traveling light is in my DNA. This is why I am about to go on my 22nd purge of belongings. There’s something about leaving behind piles of non-essentials that I delight in. Never much of a pack rat, I like the freedom of just picking up and going, not worrying about someone watching my valuables, watering my plants, or gathering up my credit card bills for the things piled in my house.

Over the past week I have been living out of a large day pack. My sole possessions are in this pack, along with a bag for my laptop and camera (both are essential technologies, although I recognize that a person can certainly live a full life without them). Basically, I own clothing, toiletries, and tech. Everything else has been left to donation boxes, friends, and collateral damage from break-ups. There were times I didn’t exactly plan to lose things, but it happened to be the way it ended up. No love lost. I scantly recall what I even owned.

There are so many things to delight in without possessing them. I love plants, of course, but enjoy them growing wild. I love art, but I am satisfied seeing it at museums or galleries, or on the walls of friends’ places. One of my cherished possessions at one time was a painting of a black horse. Interestingly, I happened to see a wild horse of the same coal-black hue galloping through the underbrush of a mesquite bosque near where I camp. There’s art everywhere, poetry in movement, music in the sound of water.

You might think I am being too extreme to live an austere life. Yes, there are times I miss having my collection of tea pots, plants, cozy quilts, and other fun, comforting items, but when I think about the absolute ease of moving around, I wouldn’t wish it all back. My life is in my experiences. Home truly is in the love you feel when you occupy a favorite place and interact with a cherished friend.

Traveling light takes patience. It means less about convenience and security and more about whimsy and wonder. It means less time cleaning and maintaining and more time tending relationships and honoring time, the limited time we have on this planet.

“Desire to possess nothing in order to arrive at being everything.” St. John of the Cross

The Christian Mystics wrote of eliminating the needs of the world in pursuit of a greater connection to God. This spiritual thirst is something that drives me to seek that connection. As a woman of modernity, I’ll admit that search for the sacred is hard. There are so many distractions that keep is locked in a profane chase for people, places, and things. It is no surprise we have the enormous task of tackling addiction, neuroses, mental illness, a general malaise of modernity. In having, we are always in a state of wanting. We are in a state of comparison, of wondering if we made the right decisions or have the right make-up to achieve what we see others achieve.

There are days I get caught up in fear and worry about my future. If I don’t have a prescribed lifestyle, will I survive? Then I remind myself that today I have enough. Today is the extent of what I have in front of me. As I write this, crowds of blue butterflies congregate on a still puddle in the middle of an unknown forest road. What a shame to give myself over to worry when wonder appears in all forms and in all ways. Miracles.

Shooting Stars in the Sierra Ancha

I recently returned from an overnight trip to the Sierra Ancha. This is a range that is close to my heart, because it was one I visited briefly during my first trip to Arizona after being gone for nearly 15 years.

As my friend Ellen likes to say, this place is special, sacred. You can feel it when you are here. Something of the ethereal is close to the skin. No wonder there are many sightings of monsters and ghosts, of messages on the wind and in strange dreams beneath glowing stars.

We arrived in late morning, so I decided to hike down Rose Creek. Little did I expect, I encountered a small female bear. I was as stunned as she was. I have a certain level of fear about bears; they seem so unpredictable. Their demeanor can quickly change from aloof to threatening, and within seconds.

The bear looked at me, then Lily, my 13 pound dog. I realized that the only way out was to back up since we were surrounded by thick, thorny berry bushes. Lifting Lily high, we eased away, watching the coal black eyes look back at us. Thankfully, we escaped safely through the berry corridor.

Roaming the back roads is always a part of any adventure that I consider an adventure, and Ellen and I set off for Buzzard Roost Canyon the next day. Rocking through the boulders and slopes, and down, down, down into the mouth of the canyon, we went far away from any human activity. Spotting perfect primitive camp sites and canyon songbirds lifting off of the schist and gneiss, what else is there but this?

 

Lying awake at midnight in my tent, listening to the soft steps of skunks along the creek, I am here. The immensity of the night sky overwhelms me. I wish for one star to fall. Minutes later, the blaze and the descent.

Water in the desert is precious, and to find a flowing creek in the Sonoran is a magical thing. After miles of climbing and bumping down forest roads, we were delighted to find Spring Creek by way of Jerky Butte.

Even a shallow swimming hole can relieve a tired, hot traveler. I am a longtime traveler.

Waking up at sunrise, I hiked along a new road that leads to a development that’s in an in-holding of the national forest. The illuminated cliffs of the Sierra Ancha Mountains caught first light. Being in deep canyons feels like I am returning to the quiet, still place where my true self emerges. The light shines on these places, but it occurs one hour at a time.

If you pay close attention on any walk, you will notice things. Small things that can make you wonder why you ever thought you were alone.

 

Fall is my favorite season, which feels like a mere two weeks in AZ. I do love the winter months here, but sometimes I miss those real two-three months of serious autumn that I experienced in Indiana. The kind that reminds me of the fall foliage of my birthplace, the sound of the wood stove’s cracks-and-pops, feeling chilly enough to put on an extra big flannel shirt when the sun sets, and that deep, pungent odor of decay.

I savor it when I am in the mountains.

 

As with any range, a person can spend an entire lifetime exploring and never fully get a complete picture of all of its secrets. And, isn’t that the point, really, to know that a place is composed of so much enchantment it is impossible to contain?

When the disciples asked Jesus when the new world will come, he replied, “What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it.” There is no outside heaven or planetary escape of tech fantasy. This is it. This is the kingdom.

I hope to continue to recognize it for years to come.