Reentry from the Red Rocks

Sedona red rocks, Springing cottonwoods along Oak Creek

I have to admit I'm finding the reentry from our week away in the Sedona, AZ red rocks (and a stop at the Grand Canyon) to be more than a little labored. Too much stacked up email demanding attention. Too much news already past tense but still news to me. I found being away from the political fray to be calming, centering, reinvigorating. A tense regimen of news scouting and instant reaction happily eroded into an unhurried absorption of astonishing earthly beauty and timelessness. I experienced a reopening of my senses, a reemergence of a proper sense of proportion. Time expanded, measured in eons in the rock. Brainwave frequencies slowed. Imagination and spontaneity replaced logic and planning. Faced again with information overload, I find myself shying away, retreating back to the images of cobalt skies and uncountable shades of red and orange and tan and green in the ever changing light and the warm, sweetly scented air of Northern Arizona in the Springtime. Ahhh.

Sedona from Airport Mesa. Can you see the coffee pot?

Okay, I admit I read the Sedona Red Rock News a couple of times and caught a few minutes of what passes for news on CNN while we were gone but, for the most part, I vegetated on the rocks and the vistas and the sunsets and the fluid energies within us and without us. I watched the Gambel's quail on their morning and sunset rambles near our room. I dipped into the local history books I picked up on outings. I studied photos of the area from eras past. I strolled along Oak Creek and meandered through the interwoven sycamores of Tlaquepaque in the brilliant sunshine and the respite of the cool, cool shade. I scuffled along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and delighted in seeing two massive, rare, endangered California condors rise up in front of us, soaring on a powerful updraft from the canyon's depths.

California condors at Grand Canyon & Northern AZ

The closest I got to real political thought was pondering Arizona's flawed (and very right wing) water and development policies whenever I saw "luxury" sprawl threatening to overwhelm the landscape, and the water supply to boot. There've been 11 straight years of official drought in the Sedona region, and miles of new water pipes layed in that time span. Slurp.

Grand Canyon shadows deepen as sun starts slow descent

But despite Sedona's exploding Californication, its beauty and dramatic setting still manage to outweigh the growing blemishes on its public face, at least for now. It was downright shocking to see an aerial photo of the area taken in 1971, when unsullied open space, fruit trees in their orchards, large working ranches and Western red dirt movie sets surrounded a sparsely populated, truly Western town. Most of the orchards are gone now, the filming moved to less developed areas, the spas, "boutiques," strip malls and condos filling in the spaces one by one, month by month -- crowding some of Sedona's most notable rocks, interrupting some of the town's most vivid vistas. Faux elegance and corporate blandness replace funkiness and natural textures. Mostly empty trophy houses take the place of bunkhouses and cabins. People wear sandals, not boots. They lunch on delicacies where once they grabbed some grub. The mules, burros, horses and cattle have given way to herds that carry Lexus, Toyota and BMW brands. But the rocks and caverns and creek beds and mesas whisper: this, too, shall pass.

Clearly, the red rocks will someday preside over yet another set of human-made ruins, like those of the Sinagua. Over-development fueled by the BushCo tax cuts and real estate bubble will stand silent in the gathering dust. Eventually, floods will wash away the evidence of 21st century greed and dishonor from the place. Perhaps a more transcendent breed of humans will rediscover its true essence. We take comfort in that. Like I said, spend a little time here and an appreciation of the vastness of geologic time -- and the changes and cleansing it brings -- tends to replace the concerns of our little moment in time. BushCo be damned.

Sunset nears in Sedona

(All photos by Mary Ellen. Click on images for larger versions.)