It’s cold in the morning here this time of year. The desert wind is usually calm and still at the beginning of another day.
And as it rises, the sun not only brightens our world, it also gradually warms it.
There’s a gentle feeling of a living force all around you as you experience the birth of a new sunrise in the desert.
In complete contrast, it reminds me somewhat of swimming in cool ocean waters in my earlier days.
You feel the sting of lower temperature on your skin. You bounce and roll with the surging waves. You get the taste of salt on your nose and lips.
You touch and experience a cool liquid environment. You communicate and merge with it. It’s a vast body of living, moving and ever-changing world. A world of water.
But those were experiences of my previous years. These days I live on dry land, high desert ultra dry land where water is precious and hard to find.
So back here, later in the day, the wind shakes the sage brush. You can see the motion and action of the breeze from a distance as it flows down the hill like an unseen stream.
It can be totally calm where you stand, still you see the current of air progress across the landscape rustling the brush as it moves.
It sometimes looks to me like an invisible train in motion.
Violent and sudden gusts occasionally raise clouds of dust whipping them right across the land. Brown, round, bouncing tumbleweeds hop along their way sailing with the desert wind as if they have some special destination picked out and are heading off there.
Rambling deer, lizards, cottontails and jackrabbits eke out a meager existence from this dry and parched land.
Survival is harsh and water is ever so scarce. Extremes of heat and cold and the dangers of lurking predictors make life rough for the inhabitants of this environment.
The desert is a mighty and awesome force of nature. It’s a raw, rugged land of beauty.
Like the ocean, it can be ever so peaceful, serene and pretty, yet ever so deadly if not treated with reason, caution and respect.
There is life in abundance in this world of rocks, canyons and mountains. And after a while you may get to really feel, communicate and merge with it.
Even though ever changing with heat and cold, winds, floods and storms, it has remained in such a state since time immemorial.
It’s only been in relatively recent years that man has made but a tiny footprint on its vast wilderness.
It is crisscrossed here and there by highways and railroads. Goods need to be transported from state to state. People feel the need to travel and often find it necessary to drive across the desert in order to arrive at their destinations.
Little towns spring up sometimes in far flung corners of this territory. There’s a flurry of activity for a while as companies mine and dig valuable minerals out of the ground.
But, as the ore is depleted in due course, the people pack up and move on. Soon little is left of the town as it is gradually reclaimed by the desert.
Here in Nevada, for many years now, the US Federal Government has sadly been using, abusing and wasting land. It retains and holds on to some eighty five percent of the entire state’s allotment of land.
The US military uses this property as a giant playground for bombing runs, war games, supersonic aerial maneuvers and such.
I hear Air Force jets off and on as they roar across the sky shattering the air and bombarding our otherwise quiet little town with their thunderous noise pollution.
The government’s development and testing of weapons of mass destruction and planning nuclear waste disposal sites here, are not in our best interest.
These actions do not look to me as showing any kind of respect for this, our land.
Homesteading and development of this state’s territory by private citizens, if originally allowed, could have resulted in vibrant and productive communities through all these past years.
But government “solutions” always seem to result in greater and more numerous problems for its citizens.
Just as an example - What other nation would be so reckless, mindless and so self-destructive as to nuke its own territory?
Well, the Us Government did and they did it right here in our desert!
But the desert rocks, canyons and mountains are still here.
They were here long before the pilgrims, before the wheel and the its human inhabitants.
And they will, I’m sure, continue in existence to outlast us all.
Dan is at danhughoconnor@gmail.com