My favorite place on Earth.
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I used to draw the desert constantly despite the fact I had never been there. In 1987 Randall and I took a road trip out west. Starting in El Paso, driving through New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.
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One day we were traveling in his tiny Chevrolet Sprint, listening to Baba chanting Nityananda Mahan we rounded a corner and Monument Valley unfolded in front of us. My breath was taken away and I began softly sobbing. As we neared the stark, majestic formations I had the overwhelming feeling of returning home. The soft sobs continued as we drove through the right and left mittens. We came to rest on the red dirt road and I desperately wanted to go sit with these formations and make the entire world go away. I was completely and absolutely overwhelmed by their majesty and by the feeling that my heart had expanded so much that I was lost in it.
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We eventually left and I knew why I had drawn the desert for so long.
14 comments:
Now you've got me wanting to go there. I've never been. I think that it would be really a great place to meditate and experience the eons of time that made it happen.
i know what you mean - i've had similar experiences with that part of the country. very cool.
I never knew you felt that strongly about the desert.
Our souls always have a home....and we always know when we get there.
Man! Dude!!
That must have been some gooooood shit.
Oh...Annie K. is SO right on!
You were home.
Oh my goodness. I had a similar experience the first time I got to the Arizona desert.
The fact that you had been drawing it for years is just amazing.
thank you for sharing this.
Breathtaking. Hearing the tones from "Close Encounters" as I think of that moment of connection. Thanks for completing the circle.
To paraphrase Merton, I will have solitude but only by miracle and not by my own contriving. Where? Here or there makes no difference. Somewhere, nowhere, beyond all "where".
the West blows me away as well... I feel connected out there like nowhere else.
wow. really.
Thanks for sharing this beautiful experience! It is so wonderful that you were compelled to draw a desert that you had never been to. So wonderful the deep connection you experienced! Amazing to me. Glad to hear of it.
I got here by googling "Nityananda Mahan" and I see your photo and say "That is the best (expletive deleted) photo I have ever seen!!" And mind you I'm sitting in an office with 3 of my favorite Ansel Adams photos on the walls. I will make a point of going to Monument Valley someday. It's definitely on my list as of the moment I saw your photo.
Anonymous, I love it that you found Monument Valley through Baba and Bade Baba. Maybe you will share with me sometime your journey.
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