July 28 Nighttime musings

July 28, 2006
I have a permit to camp on any of the land in this area, off road. It is part of the Bureau of Land Management, BLM. They allow dogs too., I drove a few miles down a dirt road from Kodachrome State Park. It is wonderful to see the open sky and I love they way you can watch a storm cross the landscape. It rained for about 15 minutes, 5 of it a down pour. This area I’m camping in reminds me of Israel. The terrain is different, with huge plateaus and sandstone cliffs, but I’m walking in a field with cows and bulls, much like the pastures behind Kibbutz Bet Keshet. I haven’t seen the news in a week. I know the situation in Israel has not improved and people are dying in many places. It is always in the back of my mind. But here where numbers like 50 million years ago are commonplace, my perspective is shifted. What will be the legacy of all this violence in 50 million years. I am also haunted by the book I read, The Life and Times of Michael K. It tells of a simple, uncherished man and how he is caught up in war in South Africa. He has nothing to do with it, yet his life in drastically affected by it. I am humbled, awed and delighted by the expanse and sights around me. The picture of the cow with the hillsides in the back showing the work of nature for millions of years makes me think of these two perspectives. Doing what we can in the here and now, preserving this incredible land, while at the same time our humanity or lack of it is also a part of nature. War has been part of our legacy, destroying people, civilizations and the environment. Is war part of our nature? Is there violence in all of us as well as nature. Yet the land continues to develop and erode around us.
Have you ever tried to photograph lightening. It is amazing how it lights up this landscape. I missed.