Desert Ceremonial: Part One
Sunday, May 12th, 2024: 2024 Trips, Mojave Desert, Regions, Road Trips.
This is the story of a road trip I made to the desert, to visit people I love and places that are sacred to me. Nine months ago I had been asked to lead a ceremony there, and that was the main purpose of the trip.
During the intervening months I faced challenges and crises that repeatedly brought me to the brink of a mental and emotional breakdown, struggling daily with the cumulative effects of both recent and past traumas, and since January I’d been in almost constant pain. Nevertheless, I began planning weeks before the trip, preparing music I would try to play, songs I would try to sing, stories I would try to tell.
All my preparations were speculative; I had no idea what would work, or even what people would want. I wasted a lot of time on things I ultimately realized were off-target. Despite being the designated leader, I had no plan for how the ceremony would unfold. Maybe nothing I had prepared would be used.
The last week before I left was a whirlwind of activity, finishing the gifts I hoped to share with the group, packing and struggling to finalize my schedule.
Day One: Departure
On the day of departure, I still didn’t know how long I’d be gone, where I would be on most days, or when I’d get back home. I hoped to camp, so I loaded my 4wd vehicle with all the usual desert survival gear.
It’s a two-day drive, crossing seven or eight mountain ranges, the highest pass over 8,500 feet. The first stint was a six-hour drive, the last part on the interstate. I’m spoiled to live in a remote small town, and any amount of traffic makes me boil over with stress, so as usual I was a wreck when I reached my first destination.
For the ceremony, I really wanted one item I hadn’t been able to find, and didn’t have time to order, at home. The town at the end of the six-hour drive was where I expected to find it, but after that grueling drive, I ran the nightmare gauntlet of traffic jams and construction sites for three hours, checking five different stores all over town, only to realize it simply wasn’t available here. My only remaining recourse was the sole big box store in the next town, two-and-a-half hours west and half the size of this town.
I’d booked an affordable room in a new boutique hotel. It turned out to be popular with affluent, age-inappropriate couples from Los Angeles and arrogant, wizened tourists from back east. The only saving grace was the cassette boombox in the room, with interesting tapes custom-curated by the owners.
Day Two: Arrival
This was to be my last internet access before the desert, and feeling the pressure, I tried to make last-minute arrangements without committing to specifics. I checked out, and did my grocery shopping for the desert, because what we have at home is limited and I like to treat myself on these rare occasions.
Then I drove across the high plateau and descended to the desert. My luck was turning – the next town had exactly what I needed at a discount price, and I enjoyed lunch at my favorite Mexican dinner house. And I thought to fill my solar shower and strap it to the top of the vehicle so I could clean up in camp before going to bed that night.
My little 27-year-old 4wd vehicle is punishing to drive in any conditions, with its tall profile and big windows creating a greenhouse effect, its extremely heavy clutch requiring me to stand up in the driver’s seat to depress the pedal at every gear change or stop, and its light weight combined with stiff suspension that make driving a road with any imperfections like riding a jackhammer. But it’s also been having shifting problems for years, which may portend a transmission failure. The mechanical clutch had supposedly been replaced just before I bought it, and it soon became almost impossible to shift into first gear or reverse. I eventually discovered that adjusting the clutch cable would solve the problem, but only temporarily – it had to be readjusted every six months. And in hot weather it got much worse.
So before the trip I’d adjusted it in advance, but sure enough, when I reached the warmer weather of the desert it required up to 40 pounds of one-armed force on the shift lever to change gears, and sometimes the engine had to be shut off before I could shift. I had no time to stop and adjust it now, so I just suffered through it for the next week, relentlessly punishing my already torn rotator cuffs.
I’d brought plenty of water and firewood from home, so all that was left was to fill up with gas. Gas gets progressively more expensive on the way to the desert, from $3.50 to $7.00 per gallon, so I topped up my tank incrementally at each of the last three opportunities.
And at last, I was back in the land I love, the land I can only visit at long intervals.
Tomorrow, I’d been hoping to do some clean-up at the cave where the ceremony would take place. But I arrived in mid-afternoon, so I was able to get a head start. A friend had suggested the wildflowers might be good now, but all I found was beavertail and hedgehog cactus in bloom. I’d been warned of juniper mortality, and sure enough, I found many had died recently.
We’d never left valuable gear in the cave, and the cheap stuff that had accumulated over decades had been attacked by weather and woodrats.
I spent a couple hours assembling a load to carry out this first night. It was melancholy work, the end of an era lasting more than four decades, many items laden with memories of a loved one.
The sun was setting, and I was lucky to find a campsite nearby. I had just enough time before dark to lay out my bedding, shower, and warm up a can of chili.
The campsite lay along a deeply eroded dirt road that continued for another mile back to the foot of cliffs, and after eating, in full dark with no moon, I began walking down the road. I love night hikes in the desert; the ground is pale and even starlight is enough to go by. As far as I could tell, I was alone from horizon to horizon, and the night was still.
Near the end of the road, surrounded by the low, rounded silhouettes of dark junipers and pale boulders, I happened to glance north, and saw a hazy light in the sky, moving slowly from north to south, without making a noise. I couldn’t tell how high it was, but all round it, the stars were crystal clear and sharply defined. I could clearly see the tiny lights of jets crossing east to west behind it, but this light was much larger, and surrounded by an elliptical haze – an aura. Since the sky around it was clear, it was like the light was generating and illuminating its own haze – some sort of gas or vapor.
When I first saw it, it was about 60 degrees up in the northern sky, and about 15 degrees west of Polaris, the north star. It was moving north-south like a satellite, but slowly. For five minutes I watched it climb steadily, unchanging, through 30 degrees of arc. When it reached the zenith, directly overhead, it slowly faded out and disappeared over about 10 seconds. It completely vanished, with the stars uncovered in the space where it had been.
I call it the Aura. I welcome logical explanations – please just don’t mention UFOs.
Day Three: Work
The temperature in my camp unexpectedly dropped to 40 degrees that night, and even wearing thermal tops and bottoms, I was too cold in my summer sleeping bag. But next morning, a friend living nearby offered her dumpster for the stuff I’d hauled out of the cave, and I was able to return for another load.
Tramping out to the cave one more time, I sorted and packed up the really junky stuff, leaving our old cooking utensils neatly arranged around the hearth. Then I raked the sticks and cactus spines away from the floor so my companions could enjoy the cave when they arrived in a few days.
After disposing of the junk and trash and making lunch at my friend’s place, I drove over to my land in a much more remote mountain range for a couple days and nights of hiking and camping. The roads have gotten worse and worse over the years, which is a good thing, reducing both visitation and vandalism. It had been almost a year and a half since I’d been there last. High winds were forecast for the next two days, which worried me – it’s almost impossible to sleep outside in a high wind.
Our campsite, sometimes subject to vandalism, was in good shape. The air was still, and I was swarmed by flies and gnats as I set up camp. They had no interest in standing water or my open mug of beer – what they seemed obsessed with was my exposed skin, perhaps for the salts. They got so bad that I had to pull on my head net. I wondered if the invasive feral burros were responsible – they’ve only arrived here within the past five years. I tried to play guitar, but the flies and gnats crawled all over my hands as I played.
It was inconvenient eating and drinking with the head net, but I was in my sacred place, so I couldn’t complain. I could almost feel it starting to heal me, already. The flies and gnats disappeared at 7:30 – I assume it was getting too cool for them – and I had a wonderful night’s sleep.
Great reading, Max, thank you!
Perhaps the Aura was a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg?
I’m looking forward to part 2!
Ken
Great, so far. Looking for next installment.