Today felt like a little bit of heaven

After a long afternoon trying to arrange a play date with no success, we headed yet again to Rock Canyon. How can one resist the call of the canyon? My mind filled as we traveled there. My Department Chair at work wanted me to take my Geo class on a field trip there, and I haven't done it. I began to deliberate... is that ok? Should I? What would I point out anyway? "Here we see the Tintic Mountain Quartzite." "Here we see an igneous intrusion." "See how the strike and dip have changed here? What does that tell us?" They don't have the structural or stratigraphic understanding so really I'm doing them a favor by not dragging them up here and asking the fateful Geo 1010 question "Where do you think the fault line is?" Perhaps it's my job to build that foundation. But then I think, the class didn't visit the canyon when I took it, so they are probably ok.

We walked along a small branch off the main path, mere feet from the parking lot. This particular branch leads to Aeryn's "house," but today we didn't make it that far. We haven't taken this leg of the path in a while, and a bridge now stands where once there were only foundations. As we sat along the stream, sipping our McDonald's chocolate shakes, I pondered the serious beauty that surrounds us. The blue sky, so greatly anticipated after days of rain. The stream bed that was dry last I visited her. The wildflowers, bumblebees, and my very favorite; the scrub oak. I am one of probably one person in the world who genuinely loves scrub oak. The untamed rawness of it, how it can be trimmed and trained into small trees, the prolific acorns dropped in the fall, the rounded lobed leaves, the inviting unpretentiousness of it. If only I had a camera. The phone will have to do, though it's photos are barely tolerable at best.

My heart swelled as I read this sign, announcing the commitment of my mentor Junior High Science Dept. maintaining a length of trail. My mind raced as I was overwhelmed by new ideas and possibilities for projects to be implemented with my students. Opportunities to help them become good stewards of our world. The fear that has been growing in my soul for this coming school year was replaced with anxiousness and a return of the idealistic naivete that screams to my consciousness that I have the power through commitments such as this to be an influence for good in the lives of the kids. For good, hard work that benefits the planet and/or other people has a healing effect on our hearts. Who more than junior high kids, who are searching for identity and belonging, need to get outside themselves and feel a connection to something greater? I love this project.

As the cold water ran over my resting feet, it imparted some energy and liveliness into my step. Invigorating, refreshing, and enlivening, it rolled over my toes in continuation of it's journey and leaving me touched by the beauty of transition. Not long ago, this water was immobile, waiting for the suns energy to send it along it's journey nourishing the landscape, wearing down sediments, and keeping living things living. Ah, sweet, blessed water. How I stand in awe at your power and uniqueness. Are we not all in a similar process of continual transition?

Then I looked across the creek and saw Aeryn completely at peace in nature. How happy that makes me. I smiled, snapped this picture, and dropped my phone in the water.

Ooops.