The original purpose of this blog was to consider the world from as distant a place as could be, imagining it as a spirit seeing with spirit eyes; yeh, ok. But, that was the purpose, then things that seemed very serious, from a spiritual angle, started to happen in the world.
An attempt will be made to steer it back around: not abandoning the unfolding events, however.
A show on PBS last night about the Navatean culture in the Arabian peninsula. This was a city built at the "marshaling end" of a series of desert trade routes, where they converged and offloaded their wares for transshipment to the next stop, the ports of the coasts of Israel. The cargo was frankincense and myrrh, and the city was referred to as "Petra", bound for cities along the Mediterranean shores.
Frankinscence and myrrh, or at least what that is called nowadays, smells very pleasant. One plus, it is neither feminine nor masculine: not too flowery, but some flowery aspects. Not too "leathery" or too much pine-tar, but some of both of those. It smells nice, it is still available in something like what is believed to be its original form, although the original "myrrh" may not be what we refer to as "myrrh" today. It was burned in a great many different places as incense, and my thought is that it helped cut the stink of the various cities in which it was so popular, and because those cities likely stank.
At any rate, these trade routes were so lucrative that this city into which this highly prized product poured was greatly enriched, and was able to build elaborate means to transport, collect, reserve and distribute water. It was a hugely rich place, the rulers could probably hire artisans and architects from all over the world, and their was considerable local talent in the working of stone.
Because it was in the middle of a desert, they needed the water works. Although in the middle of a desert, it surrounded by the sorts of canyons similar to those that are called "arroyos" in the southwest US, where the water drains into when the desert monsoon comes.
Because when the desert monsoon comes, there is more water than anything in the desert can absorb, and it runs off in rivulets into rivers and rivers into unbridled torrents
If you have never seen a desert monsoon, it is a mystical thing. Like, truly mystical. When this was experienced by yours truly, it was a somewhat overcast, hot day in Arizona, east of Phoenix,
Standing on the driveway of my father's house, the clouds darkened, giant thunderheads bearing down like battleships on a dinghy. You feel like an ant. Actually, you feel like less than an ant. My father was there with me, and although I was an adult, I felt like a child. I couldn't believe how this giant storm had gently sidled up and materialized, full blown, with bits of warning thunder here and there.
There was a dry wind, strong; then a moist wind equally strong, steam-like, you could smell the Gulf of Mexico in it: it had traveled all that way. The wind was full of dust, and I had to avert my face. Various dried plant material was picked up in the wind.
But my father stood with his eyes closed, his chin up, feeling the weather, glowingly at peace: he grew up in that area. This was to be his last desert monsoon and he was drinking it in. He know that. I did not.
I realize that now, that at the time I was being so stupid. He had been undergoing treatments, so it seemed like time would be there. I was also deathly afraid of lightning, having had been caught in a near strike before. So I wasn't sure what this exercise was all about, this standing in a storm.
But right then, he was afraid of absolutely nothing, and although I know he loves me, he didn't want me bothering him while he had this experience.
With the moisture welling in the air, the plants on the hills in the distance radiated a deep green-- not the yellowish spring green, they were well past that, but a hugely thankful deep green. The overwhelming smell of this landscape waking up: the tough, gnarled trees, the creosote bushes, the newly green wisps of whatever else, all throwing their scent into this wind-- rough and gentle, irritating and smooth scents alike-- like an outpouring of gratitude, each plant clamoring for attention. The whole desert was sighing with happiness, just that bit of moisture in the air was what the entire landscape had awaited all summer.
Then it started to rain, and it continued to rain. For about three minutes. Despite the winding up of all of that grandeur, the rain was barely enough to wet the pavement. A summer shower anywhere else.
But we were just on the edge of this storm: the sun still shone brightly over our left shoulder. Turning away from the thunderclouds, in the opposite direction one could see the sun, and the postcard bright blue sky.
My father came around, back to mundane existence. We went inside. Later we would see news about various flash floods in surrounding areas, where the rain had been heavier.
This was the sort of rain that the city of Petra was built to store up and supply year round to its inhabitants, the population estimated to be eighty thousand strong at its height. The sort of rain that carves arroyos into the otherwise calm desert of the southwest. Like most ancient cities, it is now a ruin, but it surely holds many important secrets.
My father is gone now, like that brief rain. He brought life to us, his family, like that rain to the desert.
That I could only continually radiate in gratitude.
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