Photo Safari Road Trippin’ with Mi Madre

To celebrate remodeling, furnishing, and finding my first two rad roommates for the House for Human Flourishing (and to fulfill one of my goals for the year to take a photo-safari road trip with my mom), we spent five days in the desert heart of the Southwest last week.

In the wake of unprecedented rains, we found ourselves in places like Monument Valley, the Needles of Canyonlands, and Valley of the Gods, with soupy clouds, crisp air, and deep solitude abound. We stood at the center of Monument Valley without another soul around. Conversing with the owner of the Needles Outpost, we learned of the wild lives of cowboys who popularized and protected the park (and I was invited back for a work trade/remote work stint from a tiny home with Stalink currently being built). We traded tunes as we cruised the surreality of southern Utah in what is now my mom’s Honda Element home on wheels.

Our last night, the clouds cleared, and a full moon rose over the ancient and holy-feeling Valley of the Gods. I can’t remember a landscape ever having such an effect on me. Walking a dirt road in the moonlight, we had this… full-on mother-child reckoning. I thanked my mom for giving me life and raising me with such gnosis that I was loved. She told me after she someday passes, if I ever have a feeling she’s sending me a sign, she is. We marveled at the vast mystery before us of which we were fashioned and emanated from.

The trip was a peak life experience for me, rife with meaning and wonder and emotion. I haven’t edited any photos from my camera yet, the above are from my (airplane mode) phone.

WAY:

Turn the Tech Off

Cell phones are to the mind what cigarettes are to the lungs.

Rambling Utah’s high desert beyond phone service, and again, when the power cut to my place during another storm this week, I felt a peaceful-easy-feeling wash over my being, minus engagement with electronics.

Note: we are swimming deep in an age of totally unprecedented and ubiquitous technological addiction.

Remember, from time to time, to pull the plug. Your awareness will slowly parachute back to reality and nature’s long-perfected pace.

INSPIRATION:

As Predicted: The Yesman Climbs Up to Get Down @ Burning Man

Back in September’s Collected Goodness, weighing the costs of Pouring Oneself Into Intuitive and Heartfelt Things, I lamented:

“Tonight, I was supposed to be four days into Burning Man with my best friend, the Yesman. He's there right now. Probably rocking a bird onesie, juggling fire, and dancing in a crow's nest thirty feet above some pirate ship themed art car he talked his way onto with a real-life-peg-legged man at the helm and a DJ playing tech house from the bow for a big ole' crowd of burners gettin' down in the dust.”

I was off on the specifics:

Not a crow’s nest, but atop a funky art installation
Not a pirate ship, but a ship in the shape of a running elk
Not some DJ, but Jan Blomqvist

But otherwise spot on! And a dancing Yesman literally became the (pictured above) thumbnail image for Jan Blomqvist’s YouTube Short promoting the set.

I am deeply inspired by the sends of the Yesman (and recommend playing it with the volume up):

Watch It

THROWBACK:

15 Books That Changed My Life

Published in 2021, Google’s algorithm has increasingly loved 15 Books That Changed My Life. and this October, it’s become the most viewed page on my site.

I’m particularly jazzed because books have the transformative power of transferring insights that can tremendously reshape our lens on life, and this is the very list of books that did so for me.

Dig It