Tag Archives: Bryce canyon national park

The Gathering

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It is a time of the Gathering, where once a millennium a very important meeting takes place. It is a time when the tribes come together and receive the wisdom of the ages once more. The People of the Stone who have nearly forgotten the Rules of Living arrive and begin to form the circles in preparation for the moment of receiving. They are here because they need their wisdom to be reawakened and replenished. They are ancient, and just as the wind and rain erodes their bodies, so too, do their memories erode. Slipping away on the wind, slowly dropping off of their shoulders as grains of sand, shards of their lives left to litter the ground they stand on.

They have come from all over their land, slowly marching in, timing their arrival to be there before the Flare erupts. The elders both male and female form the center circle, their glow slightly lower as their time begins to wane. As a sign of the people’s respect they stand in front of the warriors and their women, who burning brightly, are already anxious to assume their new roles as leaders of the people. Behind them are the latecomers who have had the farthest to travel, but bring the same bright burning glow that is the desire to be reborn in the light of the new cycle.

As they gather they are waiting for the moment when they have collected enough of them so that the heat of their remaining knowledge forms an inner glow. The glow they form, in all its intensity, will summon the light of the ages and infuse them with all the wisdom and knowledge that has been accumulated over millions of years.  When the Moment of Enlightenment occurs, they are reborn. Their memories are sharpened, they are renewed and can return to their own lands and live their lives again until summoned to the next meeting.

This happens on time scale so vast that the only way we humans know it is going on is by seeing the occasional bit of sand sift down to the floor they stand on. Or see them gradually but ever so slowly, emerge from the cliffs and canyons they live in. Some call this erosion but if you look closely you will see that it is the arrival of another person. If we’re fortunate we get the smallest glimpse of the oncoming burst of light that is the Flare as the sun rises each morning and begins to pick up the glow of the elders, highlighting them for the briefest of moments. If this is what the beginning of the flare is like, it is doubtful any of us could with stand the event itself. But there are some who would dare.

Note: To see the assemblage of the People of the Stone go to Bryce Canyon National Park and attend the meeting any morning as the sun comes up. You won’t see the Flare but you might see the briefest glimpse of what it will be like.

Bryce Canyon Forest

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I’ve been meaning to show you the forest at Bryce Canyon National Park for a long time. It won’t take very long because this is it. Yup, all of it. 10 trees. And three of them are dead. You would think with all the taxes we pay to maintain our national parks that they could afford a few more trees. Jeez, Home Depot and Wal-Mart have sales all the time. In fact Home Depot has a Black Hills Spruce Evergreen in its own pot for 7.97, and a Cleveland Select Pear tree for 89.98, and a one quart Canadian Hemlock Christmas tree for 6 bucks on sale. Even Lowes has a 3-gal Southern Magnolia that will grow to 80′ for 24.95 and it comes with a three-year guarantee.

I mean, this is just embarrassing. To have one of our showpiece National parks with its own National forest and it only has 10 trees. You have got to be kidding. I guarantee if you go to Russia right this minute and look at their biggest National park, Siberia, they have over a gazillion billion quadrillion trees. They have so many they cut them down just for fun. They have a whole village called Bogorodskoe, I am not making this up, devoted to making wooden toys out of trees for like the last 600 years and they’re nowhere close to running out of trees. You’d have a hard time making a good supply of toothpicks out of our 10 trees.

OK, I didn’t mean to go off like that, it’s just whenever I see injustice I have to stand up and call a Ponderosa a Ponderosa. This is a national embarrassment and no one seems to be concerned about it. And to make matters worse, as if that could happen, I’ve been told that the big timber companies are lobbying Washington right now to log in Bryce Canyon. That’s right, to log in Bryce canyon. They feel with the price of lumber being what it is they can go in there with their big logging trucks and bulldozers and their hairy lumberjacks with their gang-saws and lunch buckets and take out those 10 trees and make a profit. Well I don’t know if that scares you, it scares the hell out of me.

We don’t even have any owls, spotted or otherwise, that like to live in these trees here in Bryce because they are too far apart. Owls want togetherness and neighbors to hoot at. So if those timber companies win we don’t even have an excuse to try and save those trees. I’m glad I got a picture of the forest when I did. Who knows how long it will be before there won’t be even those 10 trees to photograph. If things keep heading this way before you know it we’ll be friends with the Cubans again. No, that’s probably going too far, I mean, that could never happen.

Wish I had better news folk, but we call them like we see ’em here at *The Institute. If this makes you mad go to Home Depot or Lowes and buy a tree. Any kind of tree. Ship it to Bryce and say “Plant it.” maybe they’ll get the message. We can’t let those ex-commies have all the glory. Let’s make America great again.

*Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Never mind. Return to your daily activities. Thank you for your support.

Explosion In The Canyon

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Sometimes Nature just lets it all hang out. That’s what happened here at Bryce Canyon National Park this morning. Not this morning, morning, but the one in the picture. It all started out quietly enough. You’re standing there in the dark waiting. You’ve got everything set for a gentle little picture of the sunrise filled with all the normal colors you’d expect, waiting for it to spread its light over the hoodoos when Nature looks up and goes “Oh No Boyos, Not this morning. Hang on.”

That’s when the sun popped up with little or no preamble and all color broke loose. This picture always reminds me of that old Wisconsin joke where you’re riding shotgun and your buddy is driving down the icy road, 80 miles an hour, and he looks over and says “You want a see a neat trick. Here, hold my beer.” Things unexpected.

This is not your grandmother’s sunrise this morning as you’re well past the blue stage where everything is shades of blue and purple with just a little golden line to mark the horizon. Past the point where there is just the tiniest spot of orange to mark where the sun will come up. Past where the deeps reds and oranges fill the sky like a kaleidoscope filled with rubies. In fact there wasn’t any of that. It just seemed to go from dark to light. And instead of all the foreplay we’re used to from a normal sunrise we’re at the point where that big white spot over the mountain is soon going to be a white-hot sun. And it’s morning. Show’s over. Time for breakfast at Ruby’s.

Steaming hot coffee, 25 eggs over medium please, 4 lbs. of sausage crispy, pancakes the size of your face and toast, lots of toast. Then when it’s over and they’re carting you out to your car on the refrigerator dolly they keep just for these kinds of occasions (keep your knees straight please) and you point your stuffed little face towards the mid-morning sun like a big fat lizard, you’re thankful that this is what you do. This is your day job. Because as soon as your naps over it’s time to begin to plan for the next mornings sunrise. Work, work ,work, work, work.

Early Morning Bryce Canyon

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BryceMorning Splendor4103Bryce National Park                              click to enlarge

April in Bryce is a very good time to visit. The crowds are down, it’s not too cold for the sunrise. Alright it’s a little cold. You are at 8000′ after all and that can be chilly in the morning all summer long. But the air is bracing, it smells incredible with the scent of pines and cool breezes and it is one of those places that makes you glad you had the good sense to come and see it.

By this time of year you have the birds back and their songs carry along the cliff face and echo off the spires and hoodoos. Occasionally a mule deer will move silently across the meadows that lead up to  the canyon’s edge and far off the faint sound of a raven calling for its mate will travel down to you with the wind. If you’re still and watchful an entire image of how the canyon starts its day will enfold before your eyes.

Mornings are good in the park. Most morning people are not loud and boisterous. They’re here to see how Nature gets up in the morning and they don’t want to disturb her. Later on when the buses arrive and discharge the hordes who want to race around and see everything in the 15 minutes or so allotted to this view, things are different, but now it’s peaceful and quiet. When the noise starts it’s a good time to head back in for breakfast. Besides it won’t be all that long until sunset. That’s another good time.

Wakey, Wakey

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Wakey, wakey, doesn’t that just make you want to puke. It is always said by someone who has managed to get up before you and wants to spread the misery. For those poor souls who can not sleep as late as nature intended  and must get up and face the new dawn, you should not have to listen to someone who says wakey, wakey, especially not from those sadists who also include Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey. Consequently I have introduced legislation that will have every single person who says wakey, wakey struck with a hot frying pan filled with eggs and bakey at least twice somewhere about their head and shoulders. Twice, because it usually takes at least that many times before the offender gets the idea that they have offended. The first smack normally feeds into their glee from saying it to you (they know you hate it) and by the second one they realize they’re in deep kimchi. As for the soulless individuals who include the eggs and bakey part, they get their tongues spot welded to the top of their mouth. No three strikes and you’re out crap here. The first time you say it and mean it, out comes the Tig welder.

But it is a fact of life that you do have to get up and unfortunately that usually happens at the exact moment you want to sleep the most. You’re in your favorite position, the pillow is just right, you’re in that spot between deep sleep and wakefulness and the alarm goes off. Or worse yet the devil, the one seen in the paragraph above comes in and says, wait, I’m not even going to say it, but you know what I mean.

Here’s my proposal. Instead of the trauma described previously a soft mellow tone similar to the one heard from a point slightly down the valley from that temple just outside of Kyoto rings once. The one where they ring it early in the morning before the fog has even gently drifted away. The one that echo’s back and forth between the valley walls becoming fainter and fainter. The one whose resonance hangs in the air forever it seems, until it too fades slowly away. It is so beautiful that you want to wake up just to hear it one more time. Then your entire ceiling begins to lighten and the image above, or one like it, begins to appear until your entire room is filled with the magical, glowing light of daybreak. Huh? How about that?  Now you want to get up, if for no other reason than to fire up the welder in case that certain someone hasn’t got the message yet.