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Show : THE ZEPHYR/FEBRU ARY-MARCH 2005 Curiosity turns to surprise, turns to elation, turns to exultation. With an entry into this Place, my emotions were dictated by the landscape - as it usually is, maybe should be - yet unprepared for how it grabbed me, how this Place runs through me. Not a visitor, a component. Was I a component of It, arrogantly assuming symbiosis; or had It become a component of me? The question is mostly irrelevant. I can answer that when I'm finished counting the leaves in a forest. | was held, maneuvered; descending off the mesa as I was, it wrapped itself around me as I drew geographically closer to the heart and liver of this Place. I processed the Event logically, detached emotionally as I considered the lack of visibility in my windshield, noting I hadn't seen these washes and ditches run before. How this morning I dismissed the rain as a passing fancy toward the hind end of monsoon season. The thrill of the Desert running, flashing around me grew as the drainages neared their termination. Slick sandstone bespeaking the trail of water upon it, yet usually only offering an ancient record; now it is being etched again. The urge to be in it tempered by the last eight hours deep within canyons north of Monticello; my clothes now starting to dry as I register the uncommon event of both places sharing the same storm system. My home is somewhat like the hole ina weather doughnut, storm systems slipping above and below us but rarely sharing them with the communities to the north or south. JUBILATION wa DRY PLACE By Bill Downey of Transient River Energies and the Alignment of Power Zones and whatnot. I would still be careful to discount the influence of Rock and Water upon myself, and those around me. When that arrangement changed, so did we. It is not a Yin-Yang, there is no equanimity; this is territory of Rock, of Heat, of Dry lands in a well choreographed and practiced balance. Even so, the River is the heart of these canyons. The culmination of epochs, all is drawn to Her fingers, the sinuous limbs reaching off from one another, and to her backbone. The sustainer of life in a dry place. I live in a town tied to its landscape. This attachment seemed alien to me, having come from a large city in the Midwest. | was unfamiliar with the sense of landscape and climate being intimately wrapped in a community. Water held our attention that day, affecting what we did and where we were; sometimes who we were, or what we held onto. If one listens long enough, She teaches transience. Her voice is spoken from the moment, changing. with each drop passing, changing over every cobble, different tones of speech around every bend and point bar. She flowed hard, as she hadn't in a long time as some of the elders told me, truthfully or otherwise. She took with her thirty-foot cottonwoods, tractors, debris and detritus of unexpected enormity, slicing cutbanks and reordering river cobbles; she rearranged some things within us as well. We awoke the next morning to find it hadn't been a dream as some expected, but as the days passed and the waters receded, both She and we returned to our eccentric doldrums. 1 live near a town tied to its landscape. This attachment seemed alien to me, having come from a large city the Mid-West. I was unfamiliar with the sense of landscape and climate being intimately wrapped into a community. Being touched by a river behaving in a natural fashion was a source of Floods and Fear where I come from, but our jumble of hovels along the River was electrified by this abrupt mutation. Those who really had nothing to say to one another now had a The rains hastened late summer blooms. Tansyleaf aster, snakebroom, takes an occurrence of great magnitude to remind us that we do, too. Bill Downey lives along the San Juan River, deep in the loins of San Juan County, Utah. topic of conversation; but it would diminish.and misrepresent the situation to dismiss this as a mere conversation piece. It was an Event, something critical to us all. There was concern of flooding and property damage, both soon justified. Yet it was a joy that ran through here. Mostly. Dominance of Rock and Heat temporarily subdued by Water, driving rains all day spilling down the slickrock back of this Place. ~ ap ive Quail Out-of-print, used and new books, documents, and ephemera —— relating to Se Grand Canyon National Park history, hiking, etc. Colorado River een river running,e Fred Harvey Cpe Santa Fe Railroad , to a board since before I was born. She used to speak in this fashion more often, before the Dams. But we won't get into that. I must digress. | know many of my neighbors here see the River as He, and I respect this; I differ in my own conceptions, and perceive the River as She. Let it be to you what it is to you, it matters little. We're all only anthropomorphizing anyway, tucking this into terms we can grasp; compartmentalizing into a comfortable metaphor. We always create god in our ownima ge. This oe makes it easier . comprehend profound abstractions, and to aia f iS thi ¢ larger th ourselves That's enought hil IE She rose, fed by the waterfalls erupting throughout the drainages. Reclaiming the alluvial plains, a display of strength developing as we watched. The community joining at the riverside, in scattered transience or key knots that maintained a vigil, albeit often drunken. PO Box 10067 Prescott, AZ 86304 Squail@GrandCanyonBooks.com 928-776-9955 Call or write for latest catalog On-line catalogs at: www.GrandCanyonBooks.com Cause for celebration, for surprise and amazement. Old timers were already recalling that they couldn't recall the River like this. Cameras in the fading light and the in the break of day. Movement, exhilaration flowing through us, the sense of the River as it ran, Her intensity and intimate connection to the denizens of this place. Always impacting our lives, but we may be more subject to Her moods than we might realize. To elaborate would be to wander into places more suited for publications in Sedona, pseudomystical meanderings oO ee Colorado River, Colds Plateau, ndndee The River spoke witha voice not often heard, not often anymore; She's been a snake nailed the fear of and rabbitbrush tempered our parched landscape. They share an intimacy with this place. Sometimes it ean CON TI £ MR 6TH & RAILR@ AI Ae DOLORES, COPOR AIRS Gi52> OPEN 11AM FO OPM, Fae su e Glen Canyon and Rainbow Bridge g United States Geological Survey bulletins, professional papers and water-supply papers River guides — Belknap, aaa: Lindemann, Stevens Martin/Whitis 5 |