The Open Palm of Desire

Arizona 36 comments

There may come a time
When I will lose you
Lose you as I lose my light
Days falling backward into velvet night
The open palm of desire
Wants everything
It wants everything
It wants soil as soft as summer
And the strength to push like spring
Further to Fly -Paul Simon

Unless you know where they are, you will not find them. Tucked up under a solid rock overhang, protected for hundreds of years. These Native American  petroglyphs and pictographs embraced me many years ago, wait for me when I am gone, and welcome me back when I return to share secrets;  theirs and mine.

Photo: JoHanna Massey
Photo: JoHanna Massey
Photo: JoHanna Massey
Surrender Photo: JOHanna Massey
Photo: JoHanna Massey
Photo: JoHanna Massey
Photo: JoHanna Massey
Photo: JoHanna Massey
Photo: JoHanna Massey
Photo: JoHanna Massey
Photo: JoHanna Massey

 

WordPress has a Weekly Photo Challenge. I just began participating last week with Once You Have Tasted Flight. 

Enjoyed it enough that I am back for This Week’s Subject:

Happy Place: Show us where you go to get your groove back.

Todays Music is sooo good for getting your groove back. You really do want to take a good listen:                     Further to Fly – Almez Yebio

 

36 comments

  1. I really like the idea that the blowhole was showing how the Earth breathed. And science doesn’t necessarily preclude that the original thought isn’t still valid. It’s sort of semantics.

    I also love the story about how the Native Americans were able to simply vanish. It sounds like an ‘underground railroad” of sorts. It also makes me think of the idea that there might just be a portal to another dimension. The possibilities are endless.

    May the Light shine warm upon your hearth.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. There is a ‘blowhole’ in the area, a hole in the ground the size of a pie plate, and cool air blows out of it with the force of being able to keep a cowboy hat suspended in air, and other times it pulls air in. I always thought of it as demonstrating how the earth breathed, but I know scientifically it has to do with barometric pressure. Course why couldn’t that simply be another way of saying the earth breathes?

    I was told this story (whether it is historically correct I do not know): When General Crook came through the area in the 1880’s to round up and kill/relocate/control the Native Americans they kept disappearing on him. He deteriorated mentally over this, losing his confidence and that of his troops. According to the story there were actually a whole network of caves and underground tunnels that the locals could ‘disappear’ into and be safe. Back in the day a friend and I spent all one spring of exploration trying to find these cave entrances. The closest we came was the ‘blowhole.’ I rather like the idea we did not find them. That there is some secret underground network of transporting from one space to another.
    All my best to you.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. What a wonderful place to be able to go and sit and think. You didn’t hit the publish button. We’re on a similar wavelength. You reminded me of who I was back in time.

    The cave part is in my mind because I’m working on the Sandbox Writing Challenge these days, and Calen often refers to this kind of work as excavating and she uses the cave as synonymous with doing inner work; the place she spends time digging into. But I do remember vividly the idea of thinking that living in a cave – I was just a teenager – would be outstanding. I’m sure I wouldn’t think that way today, as my old bones wouldn’t take the cold. But I feel that there’s something ancestral about that desire. Plus, my favorite Tarot card from my favorite deck is a drawing that depicts the Cueva de las Manos in Argentina, so it hold good thoughts for me.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Oh thank you. That is one of my special places. I go there to sort things out, get inspired, be comforted, and get still. Your message gave me a start though…because I am right now working on a post that has a cave in it…and it gave me pause when you spoke of your desire for a cave…because I wondered if my working on draft had accidentally charged ahead of me and hit the publish button!

    Liked by 1 person

  5. I’m really glad I have this quirk of leaving notifies in my email when I have not had a chance to check on them. There are often such nuggets found and I’m always so happy that I have a Johnny-come-lately sense of following up, when life leaves me no time to do everything I want in a given day.

    I LOVE the photographs! I wish I had a cave when I was a child – I actually wanted to go live in one – where I could leave my little girl drawings which went with my little girl poems. The picture which really drew me in was the one ‘from afar’ which looked like faces to me. I have an affinity for rock and the spirits which reside there in!

    Wonderful post!

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Thanks for the reminder to keep my palm open…open and beckoning all that life has to offer. Even as I type, my palm is open…no wonder thoughts formed by my words fly out the end of my fingertips! PS…Thanks for liking Ginablueblog!

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  20. Oh Thank you so much. Yes, this is a very special place for me. I can tell by the telltale detritus people have left behind that it is better known than the time period when to ‘share’ the secret was a very big deal. However, the many years I have known these pictures, and their continuing ability to reveal themselves in new ways continues to make this my go to place for getting back my spiritual, emotional, and mental balance. I am sure they have a profound impact on anyone who spends time with them.

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  21. JoHanna — I LOVE this comment, because the rocks “speak” to you in the same was that stories in Torah speak to me — every year we cycle back to the same texts, but the part of the story that resonates with my soul changes every time, teaching me a new lesson about those who wrote the stories and about me, at whatever place I am in my Journey. The paintings are sacred stories…
    and I think that’s beautiful!!!

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Another bit of magic I have encountered is that I will take a photo, and when I bring it home and actually see what the camera captured, it will have images I had not seen with my eyes. This has held true through the years of film, and right into the current digital.

    Liked by 1 person

  29. One of the interesting, fascinating, and mysterious particulars about the images is that depending on the light, the season, or my perception…different images emerge from the rock. Different stories are told. And since we do not know what the true story or intent was by the creator, the stories have changed for me over time, and are varied by who is perceiving them. They are truly beautiful and haunting.

    Liked by 3 people

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