Week 9: Reverence and Reprieve

 This was at the very top of a hike, where we collapsed for a while. The day had been mostly clear, but when we got up top there was some cloud cover. This is from a couple weeks ago, because this Sunday I spent the day in St. George and regrettably the open sunlight was powerful and bright and overbearing but I couldn't think of much to say about it. 

When Europeans immigrants got here back in the day and, well, founded the Mormon faith, they were so in awe of of Zion and the surrounding area that they believe Jesus himself walked these lands. A lot of the paths and locations in the Park have spiritual names like "Angels Landing." I keep looking for when the lighting feels angelic and reverent. I feel like sometimes it is open, harsh and desert like, and sometimes it feels like Angels really have come down out of this same sky and walked all over this red rock. This was one of those moments. You can tell, because Connor is obviously in some state of bliss. Partially because we had just reached the top of a mountain, but also, look at the light. There is deeper shade below him, underneath the humongous rock he climbed to lay on top of. The light was cool and soft and a gentle reprieve from the rest of the day. It was very quiet and still up there. It instantly had us all in the most peaceful, respectful mood. We all just picked rocks to climb up and chill on. Around 10 of us and we maybe laid around up there for 45 minutes- not talking, just looking at the sky and thinking quietly.

It's incredible the way the surrounding light can impact us. The way we feel, what we want, what we even believe it would seem. Light can make us think of new things because it frames and alters our perception of our surroundings. Things change meaning altogether based on the way we are lit.