Sanctuary

Hello Fam! I spent several days on retreat - a good time to collect my mind, center my spirit, soak in God as I traveled to northern NM, camping with two friends, Ryan and Matt. Our first night, bout an hour south of Amarillo, Matt suggested we pull over and explore the abandoned farmhouse on the side of the road. So we did. And while walking over fallen walls and debris, through broken doorjambs and, outside, cotton, we found a storm shelter, insulated by earth and nine inches-thick straw on the ceiling. It was warm and cosy and the best place we'd find on that freezing night that snowed. We stayed in that shelter. The next morning, we headed on through Amarillo, stopped in Las Vegas to camp. We drove to Santa Fe the next day and stayed the night with Amanda. She made us a great (and, of course, because it's Amanda, healthy) breakfast and we were off again. We found a camp site in the Santa Fe National Forest and set up our tent, made a fire, and stayed there for two, literally freezing nights. We made fires from scratch, then used them to cook our food. We purified river water for drinking by boiling it in a kettle. We hiked, explored, gazed along infinite acreage of pine forest and mountains. Nature, creator and destroyer, structure and chaos, predator and prey, rushing rivers and draught, God, is beautiful.

A few other photos:

Piano and TV on a front porch

Ryan and Matt in the shelter

Ryan

Bed springs!

Matt outside the leaning building

Ryan lost his glasses, but found them!

One of the meals Matt cooked on the fire Ryan made from the wood I collected. We rotated roles.


Scenes:

The river rushes down below, melted snow flowing fast over rocks and stone. The water, crisp, slow, erodes as it melts from the peaks of these mountains and trickles. I sit with ease and watch the pines sway. The wind elopes. It passes like a flock of birds, and leaves me at my pirch.

Matt and Ryan greet me from the top, specks on a rock the size of a mountain. And a jumbo jet leaves a white streak as it passes discrete behind them. And they, those two, sway like the trees. And rocket strength winds whirl by me, through me.


Thoughts while away:

God is erosion, a fallen tree, the water that flows under the surface of ice in the river; God, feral like lightning. God is the butterfly that flutters through cool pine and the blackbird that swoops down to catch it. God is the river, brush of wind, sway of trees symphony that scores the whole scene.