The desert wind

I sat in the courtyard of a beautiful adobe home on the outskirts of Santa Fe, a few years ago and listened to the voice of a high desert wind.

The courtyard trees translated the wind's voice and pulled me into a meditation of awe and expectation. I had several minutes of being alone. It was magnificent and an eternity in a single experience.

The wind sound was not the rustle of an Eastern forest when the wind speaks through the trees.

It was not the clapping voice of the low desert where palm fronds applaud in a steady wind and clap their appreciation to the All That Is.

It was an undulating hushing voice of a canyon wind speaking through the Pines and Cactus and Sage. This is the same wind that has forever honored the native people of the southwest, and it honors each of us for we are the sister and brother winds of breath.

I’ve spent time in the desert camping, hiking and just listening. It is an experience of stunning silence. In the morning and early evening the wind is present and, as I mentioned, the wind brings its own sounds. In the stifling bright hot of the day all is quiet. The only movements are the translucent and distorting heat waves rising off the baking-sand in the sun.

I think about these things, mostly in the winter.