Two Moments In New Mexico

(Please click on the title for a reading aloud by the author.)

The month was November. On the rim of the canyon, high above the Rio Grande shrubs and grasses faded into the colors of cold weather. The sky a slice of lapis, the air was calm. Dead calm. Alone in my thoughts I was hiking the trail, when a voice from some far reach of my consciousness said, “stop,” and so I stopped. It was then I realized I was surrounded by complete, utter silence. This was the first time this had happened in my life. I closed my eyes; the beating of my heart, the warmth of the sun on my skin, the pressure of my feet down upon the earth were all I had. My heart became almost unbearable to listen to. For a few moments I persevered and stood still. The experience, reducing the external world to almost nil and thus expanding the internal shook me deeply. I moved on.

[Since then, I have had one other encounter with complete silence in a remote grassland of North Dakota. That time, as I attempted to take notes the sound of the pen point on paper was more than I could take. I stopped writing.]

. . .

The month was July. The sun was going down and I was sitting on a picnic table at a campsite in Chaco Canyon. All day, exploring the ruins, the sun and heat and still air had bore intense and sharp. The temperature had hovered in the low 100’s (°F) and the relief with end of day was welcome. I was waiting for the stars. I’d heard being so far away from any source of city lights, the night sky over Chaco was spectacular.

High thin cloud cover formed as sunset turned to twilight. This was a disappointment. The curtain was falling just as the show was to begin. I continued to sit on the table. The space around me, the stillness, the clear failing light; something was building in the quiet, as a bell in the moment before the clapper hits. Hoping the clouds would dissipate I watched the sky, and it became apparent. The clouds were not clouds at all. This was the Milky Way. The air so clear, the stars so bright, they had been fully visible well before nightfall. Fantastic. This was a look back, a glimpse of something ancient. I have never seen anything like it since.

Gordon Bunker