Sidetracked Charley

Epiphany is the end of the twelve days of Christmas. The Mayans had a 10 to 12 day period at the end of their year. Days which did not fit into another division of the year. Other cultures in prehistory have had this pause, as it were, in the regular course of the year. A vacation from time? A period of meditation and reflection? Epiphany on the Christian Calendar is when the wise men finally met the baby Jesus. It is also when God appears to someone as in Allah appeared to Mohammad. Or it is the profound and sudden understanding of something. The example used in one dictionary was when you suddenly know where your missing car keys are. Really? I always see epiphany more like satori - sudden enlightenment and a state of consciousness attained by intuitive illumination representing the spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism. I took just enough catechism to be entranced with the minor days of the Catholic Calendar. I loved Epiphany from day one. It was such a non-holiday. I also about th...

Dawn July 2, 2014 I rolled out of my driveway in the predawn hours of Wednesday pulling a Uhaul trailer with 50 of my best pieces of art. It was the first time I had driven at night in over six months. Now was the test as to whether the cataract surgery had truly worked miracles. And it had. I was in awe of the night. And the dawn. And the only thing I had to do for three hours was drive a route I had taken often. After a very, very busy four months it was wonderful. Much of the trip it was even too dark to look for photo opportunities. I could think. This is not my first revealed  truth article. There is something about the vast open spaces of the plains between Cimarron and Raton that invites introspection and epiphany. Do people with their smart phones and all the apps on board ever think? With Siri and email by voice and cell phone towers everywhere and hands free cell phones does the vast majority of this technically advanced society ever stop and hear themselves thin...

Hope of Rain by J. Binford-Bell Yesterday was another trip to Raton. Another two hours each direction to search the barren landscape for buffalo or antelope or signs of rain. Another opportunity to Zen Out as I like to call it. I have always been a chop wood, carry water sort of mediator, and trapping me in a car with the cell phone off is almost like taking a retreat weekend on the fly. And yet I so resist this repeat journey. I have the road signs memorized even. And the effect of the drought on the land has been painful to see. And yet drought comes and goes especially in the high desert. It is difficult to remember that with the extremes in weather we are now seeing. There is more and more proof of climate change. This drought might not end. And yet the trees think so. Their roots deep in the aquifer they have leafed out yet again. Their fresh and hopeful green a stark contrast to the dried grasses and barren soil. Toward the mountains on the north side of the highway there ...