Tag: Mojave National Preserve

Despite (Across VI)

This last in the series of Across posts returns to the Hole-in-the-Wall Rings Trail in the Mojave National Preserve. Today we try a different format:

DSC 1688

This is the reason for the name of the trail. There are holes everywhere.

DSC 1717

There are also gaps. So this could be a post about negative space.

DSC 1707

Instead, this post has a desert-worthy theme: It’s about what is there despite the presence of everything else. We could also call it resistance.

DSC 1771

Besides all the holes and cracks, there is the vegetation, that somehow manages to survive, even after a long and hot summer.DSC 1756

Sometimes it helps to hide, sometimes to be invulnerable. We humans can learn. 

DSC 1731

Sometimes it also helps to pretend to be someone else. Or, could it be sufficient to be just oneself?

DSC 1710

Nothing to Take (Across I)

Let’s enter here:

DSC 1675

The space we are entering is the Hole-in-the-Wall Rings Trail in the Mojave National Preserve. As a loop trail, it suggests that we are surrounding something by walking this trail. The opposite is the case, the landscape of narrow canyons seems to surround us.

DSC 1684

The walls of this enclosure contains molds — for whom?

DSC 1706

We need to be here early in the morning to experience the near total silence. This silence is paradoxical, too: It is not the absence of sound that asks to be filled with sound, it is the sort of silence that invites us to be quiet, too.

DSC 1680

The holes and cracks are signs of what we need most, protection and growth.

DSC 1701

 

The Mojave is the driest desert in North America. There is nothing here for us to take but beauty. 

It’s time to leave, for now:

DSC 1683