SUNRISE / The Desert

Sunrise calls you here.  Winter's moon descends as the sun of an emerging spring rises. Tiny wildflowers face the light, and a lizard finds its rocky perch.  High above, a raptor soars to survey its terrain.  Welcome and bask in the coming heat's hypnotic spell. Over a cool and distant purple mountain, chill night air gives way to a palpable glow of warmth.  This is the new day in California's Coachella Desert, a moonscape on earth, once an ocean bay teeming with life.  Over millennia, its marine remnants are found in shells and fossils, dry riverbeds, and silt.  Shades of brown form a complete and changing palette the way an ocean's hues change with light.

Find yourself walking toward the canyons, through palm groves, past strange cacti and bushes with strong scents.  Breathe it in.  Let go and go with the allure of exploring what's beyond the human imprint in this prehistoric scape.  Snow-capped, the mountains stand overhead in such contrast to the dry gritty carpet of the valley's floor.  

The desert's backdrop is spare and spartan, seemingly uninhabitable and at odds.  Just being alive is the game and the score.  You are in Nature's open-air cathedral, a place of awe, where sidewinders sketch their moves and pack mules, outfitted, know the way.