September 14, 2025
I walked through the fields, down the gravel road, and cut through a narrow track to reach my destination — one of those hills just south of where we’re parked that had captured my attention with its crown of jagged, black rock. I wanted to climb at least up to the bottom row of rock.
I made it about three-quarters to the beginning of where the rocks have pushed through the earth. I could have made it all the way, and then some, but it was getting steeper, and I was nervous about going back down. The hillside was a lot of loose stone, sagebrush, grasses, and ground cover, interspersed with larger stones and rocks, and even some small boulders.
Perched on a bit of earth and rock creating a narrow ledge, I’m watching the clouds and the interplay of light and shadow across the valley and the hills.
The sky is deep, deep blue. There are puffy white clouds scattered about — the kind that like to tumble and play at shapeshifting. But moving in from over the mountains and hills to the northwest are bigger clouds with dark grey bottoms. They mimicked the smaller shiny white clouds and created shapes. It seemed to be a competition.
I saw an elephant. He was slowly consumed by a massive, woolly grey cloud. To the west, I saw a mother holding her baby whose face was shining bright. Another of the Woolly Grey’s began to tug at the baby, who slowly sank into it, while the mother began to disintegrate until only the profile of her face remained, and she drifted away.
There was a seahorse, and then a bison pushed its face out of a grey pile and collided with the seahorse. Off in the northwest, an old man was blowing smoke rings, and two miniature dinosaurs who were facing each other experienced a black thing begin to grow up between them. It grew and grew and grew until they were consumed. A shining white human-shaped fetus was being born from a Woolly Grey. A huge Being with a blue eye and great jaws suddenly was blinded and morphed into a dragon with grey eyes.
Though I kept an eye on the drama taking place in the clouds, I also kept noticing the Light rippling across the fields below. Light and Shadow.
The hills and fields, all shades of brown, russet, yellow, sage green, light green, and here and there scattered through the valley and on the hills, the deep green of pine. Ribbons of roads and trails wound through the valley, crisscrossing the hills. Clumps of outcroppings of black rock, like bones, jut out from the soil these hills are made of.
The only sounds are the rustling of dry grasses, the whir and buzz of grasshoppers, the occasional chirps of a bird, and the ever-present trill of the crickets.
Someone once asked me why I had to find meaning, a lesson, a truth in everything.
Because it is food for my Soul.
As I observe all this magnificence below, above, and around me, I ponder how there will always be the interplay of Light and Shadow in my lived experience. The Dark clouds hold the rain. Rain cleanses, like tears. Water is life.
The Light of the Sun warms us, illuminates our path, activates the energy of Life in the Earth, and all that is of Her. Without the Light, our bodies cannot produce vitamin D. We need vitamin D for the body to absorb calcium to keep our bones healthy. We need it to support immune health and keep our muscles and brain cells working.
Without Light and Rain, things cannot grow.
Without the bones beneath the flesh of these hills, without the courage in our hearts, we would simply be piles of mud, clay, and sand, and soon would wear away.
I sat for a couple of hours. Then I carefully made my way back down the hill, down the track, down the road, back to my little home parked in this oasis of green grass and flowers.