So it was that I came to be standing atop a remote mesa in southeastern Utah, peering down into a canyon -- the first canyon I'd had the privilege of visiting, a canyon that took my breath away in a vast region of sky and rock and awe-inspiring vistas that felt like home despite looking nothing at all like it. I shifted uncomfortably beneath the weight of my pack, peering down into the shadows and creases and cracked-wide-open spaces of this canyon that had somehow called me, reaching across hundreds of miles to pluck me like a fruit, ripe for this journey into self, into wilderness, into wilderness of self. And as I looked, squinting into the sun, I did what our guide suggested -- I imagined that my soul was waiting for me down there amongst the sandstone and the sage. Soul, that part of myself that knew why I'd come to Earth, and what I came to do here. Soul, my own unique manifestation of the universal Spirit. Soul, whose view is more expansive, even, than this one. Soul, the deepest richest essence of me. Imagine, he said, that you and your Soul agreed to meet here in this canyon. I did, and my eyes brimmed over with grateful tears.

            I went to the canyons because I had no choice. And perhaps I had no choice because this was the time -- the time my soul had picked to save me.     

            Which still didn't mean that I wasn't scared. So scared, in fact, that I had to deny any fear at all as we began our descent into the canyon, a single-file line of hikers snaking its way slowly along sandstone walls, past sharp drop-offs, ever-deeper into the arms of the Earth. I had to deny my fear because otherwise I might have crumbled to my knees or stumbled over the edge or simply stopped walking, my fear an obstinate ass unwilling to go further. And if I hadn't been able to go on there, how would I have been able to go on anywhere? So I walked, focusing virtually all my attention on the placement of my feet, grateful for breaks in which we removed bulky packs and gulped water greedily -- but not too greedily, lest we run out before reaching base camp and a chance to pump and filter our next few quarts.

            An hour or so later we reached the canyon floor, turned and hiked west -- west, the direction of the setting sun, of falling darkness, of introspection; the direction, some would say, of the vision quest itself -- our journey flatter now but no less long. For much of it, we hiked through thick undergrowth that became overgrowth as it stretched sometimes above my head, clutching at bare legs and leaving behind trails of itchy red welts and feelings rubbed more raw than skin. Unlike our guides, I had no frame of reference to know that when we finally emerged from this errant jungle -- we were in a desert, for god's sake! -- base camp was just a 20-minute stroll away. And because I didn't know, because I couldn't see the end of the journey, I felt fatigue crushing me like a giant's thumb.

            Fortunately, though, my not-knowing interfered not in the least with our arrival at the place where we would camp together for 2½ days, preparing further for our three days and nights alone: base camp. To the unpracticed eye -- mine -- it looked scarcely different from other places we'd passed, except for a giant cottonwood tree whose branches virtually begged to be sat beneath. But to the guides it offered the all-important if less-obvious attributes of a good campsite -- several spots that were relatively flat and surrounded by trees or rocks or straggly bushes, making them suitable sites for erecting tarpaulin shelters; and, of course, water. Our camp was adjacent to a running creek that had been our companion -- albeit an often-invisible one, its presence evident only in cracked clay and displaced vegetation -- for most of our hike along the canyon floor. Here, however, water emerged from the underworld to flow freely. Behind us, red rocks reached up in jagged king-sized steps to the mesa-top; across the creek -- an easy walk over the exposed sides of partially submerged rocks -- they did the same. We were in the bottom of a massive "V", cradled by the Earth, our thirsts about to be quenched. . . 

Copyright (c) 2002 by Elizabeth Brensinger.  All rights reserved.