When You Need Breathing Room For Your Soul
We park the car where the road ends, right in the middle of a neighborhood in Ahwatukee, in the foothills of South Mountain. The trailhead is posted behind red street barricades, warning us that, yes, the road really ends, and the trail begins here, just in case we were wondering.
We strap on our Camelbacks, tuck a camera and cell phone into side pockets and debate whether we need to wear our jackets.
The jackets get stripped and thrown in the back seat.
We hike the loose gravel, an easy trail among cactus, creosote and ironwood, until it reaches an intersection. We don't take the Pyramid Trail, we veer left, up the Bursera Trail, part of a 247-acre piece of land, purchased in a state trust land auction for $18 million in the spring of 2009 by the city of Phoenix.
The trails on this section of the mountain are remote. We see one other hiker ahead of us, keeping a good pace. She eventually turns around to head back to the trailhead and we have the scenery to ourselves. Mollie, our terrier mix, scampers to the end of her leash, searching out lizards and birds, her orange tail, a raised flag behind her.
My heart soon pounds as we ascend, following a ridgeline on a narrow, single-lane trail through the mountain reserve. We descend and enter a valley, both sides flanked by echoing ridgelines.
The evidence of winter rains splays out before our eyes.
Everything is green.
I am reminded of a passage from a book, Welcome to the Sea of Sand by Jane Yolen that I read each year to my second grade classes, a section of the book, where the author talks about the desert after the rain:
And---oh!--the colors then:
the spray of ocotillo;
the play of poppies in a field;
the long green fingers of mesquite;
the sea greens, pea greens, free greens, tea greens
of greasewood and palo verde,
brittlebush and cholla overlooked by rams;
and blossoms following cavities, cracks, and folds
of land where water at last holds
seeds to their year-old vows.
As we hike the trail in the valley between two ridgelines, I realize I am seeing with my eyes the words the author wrote.
We look until we find one: a bright yellow poppy.
The poppy is the first flower to appear each spring in the Sonoran Desert. The poppy seed lays dormant in the desert soil, waiting for the winter rain and then, only then, the seed remembers it's vow--the promise to bloom again. Soon the poppy will be joined by lupine, barrel cactus, fairy duster, saguaro and Indian paintbrush, but for now, the poppy is the solo voice of spring.
People often ask us how we find time to hike with our busy schedules. I know, for myself, that I cannot not find the time. My soul craves the breathing room of the desert and the lessons I find there.
Of beauty that struggles to thrive and grow in the midst of harsh realities.
Of seeds that remember vows to bloom again.
That life is seasons and spring comes.
Always.
What do you do on your day off? Most of us spend the day running errands, driving kids around and cleaning up around the house. What do you do to find rest, renewal and joy in your busy life? Where do you find breathing room for your soul?