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CROSS COUNTRY #10 How Did Teddy Bear It?
Barry: We drove through mountain passes at 10,000 feet elevation. It was snowing lightly,
the air was fresh and invigorating. It was an opportunity for more bad puns - "The
gorges are gorgeous." or "look - the mountain is playing peak a boo."
Goldie: The names of towns fascinate as our roadway flirts with railroads and the rapidly
running Colorado River.... we passed the villages of "Parachute", and
"Rifle" and a place called "No Name".
Barry: For my part it was an opportunity to reflect on geology - how the mountains have
shifted, risen, ancient seas come and gone. The west makes it impossible to think of
nature as permanent and stable. We stopped to hike in the desert in western Colorado,
learnt to identify dinosaur bones imbedded in rock. Colorado means "color red"
because of the red sand that results from the weathering of rocks and is washed out to sea
(now dams.) I never thought of rocks as having lifespans, births and deaths just on a much
slower scale than humans.Somewhere I remember reading that if planet earth's life was one
year,
humans have been on it since the afternoon of December 31st.
Goldie: Ever since entering this part of the country a vision I once had keeps recurring.
I often wonder if everyone gets visions, this one was so powerful I had to go out and lie
on the grass to get grounded.It happened during a chanting service led by Rabbi Shefa Gold
at the National Havurah Summer Institute. We were chanting "me olam ad olam, at
Eyli." (From world to world (or eternity to eternity) you are my God.....taken from
Psalms which uses the masculine "atah el" (you are God).
A phenomenal awareness of eternity overtook me, endless cycles of birthing and rebirthing
of planets and stars, creatures and civilizations. Then the earth beneath me shifted and I
found myself slipping down the tectonic plates, sliding furiously toward the center of the
earth....splashing into the swirling magma.There is no pain as the roaring redness reveals
layers of happenings.
I see dinosaurs trapped between layers of rock, breaking down into fossil fuel.
Then civilizations are decaying before my eyes....Incan, Judaean, Roman,......the republic
yielding to the democracy......a voice says "remember I am also thus, the decay of
each civilization becomes the fuel to energize the next level....remember for me to
destroy is also to create...." Then I met that which I had only heard of......from
beneath me huge gnarled hands lifted me up through the magma toward the light of
day.......the image of a great huge crone seemed connected to those hands.....a wise woman
side of God acknowledging aging as natural, decay as evolution. Could barely stand, sank
gratefully to the earth.
BACK TO EARTH
Barry: Vincent Van Go did fine taking us over the Rockies. In the past, I had always
chosen a vehicle for its features - "Does it have a light in the trunk" No?
Sorry, we'll have to keep looking." Now, as I've grown older and wiser I realize that
like a good woman, its not the features that count. It's the staying power and upkeep that
is important.(If I was really wise I would
keep this thought to myself.)
Goldie: What woman would dare touch that line!?....
Barry: Two years ago we were offered one thousand in trade for our van. We declined and
now, thirty thousand miles later it is still going strong. We have a very good person at
the dealership, who takes a personal interest in Van Go. At the SAC museum we learnt that
the B52 bombers, 30 years old, are going to be kept in service for another 30 years, must
all be in the
maintenance.
Goldie: Enough machinery, next we'll be having an organ recital (like how my back and buns
are sore from all the riding.)
Barry: Anyway we finally come to Glenwood Springs, Colorado the home of the largest hot
spring pool in the world. We stay in the Victorian treasure the Colorado (not to be
confused with the El Coronado in California.) Turns out to be birthplace of the teddy
bear. Apparently Teddy Roosevelt returned to the hotel disappointed after a failed hunt. A
woman on staff made
him a teddy bear to comfort him. The hotel is located behind the hot spring. The
receptionist cannot tell us the exact way to walk there - she has never been there.
Doesn't it kill you.
Goldie: In the huge hot spring pool regulars recline with Newsweek in hand and red faced
babies look ready for naps...me too. The heating system knocks all night in the elegant
hotel tarnishing it's glory for me.
Barry: Actually we can't complain - the room only cost us $44 with the national version of
the Entertainment card.
Goldie: Where to next honey?
Barry: Moab.
Goldie: Whither thou goest, I will go.
Goldie: Ruthlessly bought a Moab t-shirt when we arrived and we went to town to catch a
bite. (Moabite?)
Barry: We found the same waiter that served us last night, working in a different
restaurant where we ate tonight.
Goldie: We are traveling with a mitzvah consciousness, trying to do little things like
clear the dishes off our restaurant table in one horse towns, cut down on stress for the
waitpersons. Need to become aware of more little things like that.
Barry: I read about Butch Cassidy over lunch - he used to hide out in this area. This
evening Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid plays on TV. Talking about lunch, after a
morning of hiking the Arches National Park, I craved a hamburger and a good beer so what
better than to go to a microbrewery restaurant. They were out of beer!!!
My friend Les calls from the east , he tells me of his favorite
restaurant in Moab. It's the one we just ate at.
It is all getting a little weird.
Goldie: The silky feeling is not fabric, it is the wind. Giant urns, temples and stelae
fashioned by ancient upheavals and constant erosion greet us and point toward red walls
higher than the imagination. Devil's Garden makes science fiction notions look tame....no
where on earth have I met such an astonishing magnitude of landscape..........a landscape
on which can be read
time in millions and billion of years......here was a layer of salt and sand one mile
thick which cracked and a world was remade. This place, Arches National Park, how did I
not know of it previously?
Meditation would be redundant. To be here is to be creation, to redefine recreation.
Breathe.
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