The ravens followed us, I’m sure of it, moving off their perch on a nearby hog trap and into the pines. And the dandelions are bigger here - they say everything’s bigger in Texas but I think New Mexico has us beat with this dandelion thing.
Fall colors peek through the surrounding trees and the late blooming flowers mingle their colors like an impressionist painting - a Degas or Monet. A breeze moves in and I close my eyes for a moment, to hear and feel nothing but the rhythm of the horse, the sound of each hoof step, the wind in my hair.
At 8500 feet above sea level we approach our first aspen, and as if it calls to him, the horse suddenly wants to run uphill - so we do – stopping only to rest at the next trail fork. I find a seat atop a speckled rock and sit, gazing out from the ridge of this 2.1-million-year-old volcano toward the Sulphur Canyon in the distance. Pondering that age-old question of how much further to go.
But the gates will be closing soon, so at 9,000 feet we turn and retrace our steps down to the lower valley. As if following our lead, the grass along the trail waterfalls, leaning and spilling into the basin below. A winding brook glides through the sedge grass and wetlands like silk, tarnished only by the muddy prints of cattle crossing here and there.
We arrive eventually at the San Antonio corrals where I pause for a moment taking one long last look, then load the horse and drive toward the park exit.
The spirit speaks to me here, in this ancient upheaval of earth and stone, as it did to thousands before me. I hear it in the fir and aspen, in the ‘kee-aah’ of the hawk, in the crunch of pine needles underfoot. The peace I know rests in the natural world, not in granite countertops or custom cabinets. It’s not hiding behind acrylic nails and pedicures, diamonds or gold or any other jewelry for that matter, but rather it falls like a gentle caress from the blue above. It rests in the intertwined branches of oaks and elms. It rises from the rocks below my feet, and lives in the air between them all. It has always been this way for me.
A few miles down the road we camp nestled in the Jemez Mountains where the mosquitos are thick, the crickets sing, and the pines stand tall in the moonlight. Lightning flashes in the distance and there’s a rumbling – no rain, but a rumbling - it could be the horse’s belly, I think. We are a short distance from the forest road where cars pass oblivious to our presence, and I’m okay with that.
Maybe I prefer it even.
I prefer nature as well.