Picture: The view from camping spot on the Colorado River
A pilgrimage can hold many different types of adventures. The common thread in the weave of a pilgrimage is the sacred nature of the journey. After leaving Yuba Lake south of Salt Lake City we climbed and climbed until we motored over a pass that was nearly 8,000 feet above sea level; instead of being covered with trees it was desert sage and rocks. We descended to Green Lake, and the next morning we were on to the town of Moab, closely located to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.
We had planned on meeting Rick and Judy in or around Moab but without naming a specific time or place. Carla and I followed the road up the Colorado River where there were some camping sites dotting the river. Passing one campground after another with each one showing full, we finally came to one that had just a couple of very nice sites open next to the river. We selected what we thought was the best one for us and started to set up camp when Rick and Judy pulled in and took the site next to us, the only one in the campground that could have accommodated their larger fifth wheel trailer and the only one of two left along the entire canyon. Judy had just been commenting to Rick that they had lost phone connection in the deep canyon and how would they ever find us since they were now miles from Moab. And then they recognized our Big Foot motorhome, and a free campsite next to us; it brought tears to her eyes! God arranged everything without cell phones, through a much more reliable and secure form of communication than man ever invented, His loving Divine care and sure guidance!
Although the Temple at Salt Lake City was a definite interest of mine to experience, the real draw for me from the beginning was to be in nature’s cathedrals of expansive desert. Today we entered into the unique geography of Arches National Park. Over millions of years a salt bed was laid down by a shallow sea filling the area and then drying up. This repeated filling up and drying out built up an immense layer of salt. Through plate tectonic motion the earth rose, the salt, now under layers of sandstone rock, bulged up; then the rains dissolved the underlying salt which collapsed the earth in this area. This collapse stretched the surface layers of sandstone that made them spread and crack. Now rain mixed with carbon which made for an acidic combination sculpted the sandstone into the most unusual shapes.
Upon entering the park it was clear that we were in a most fantastical place. Columned towers, great walls rising up hundreds of feet and stretching for many many miles, great round rocks balanced on narrow tall pedestals; there seemed to be no bar to the creation of every fantastic shape you can imagine by the master Sculptor who used sandstone as his medium, and acidic rain and wind as His carving tools. We arrived 18 miles at the end of the road, a place called Devil’s Garden and walked the path toward the many red sandstones shapes.
Although I was easily winded by the small hills, I was able to walk further than any time in the past weeks. Earlier my physical health had seemed to take a dire turn, I had no coloring and Carla was very concerned. Inwardly I felt that I could give up the body any moment. However, I had a stern talk with God and told Him it would be very wrong to take me now and leave Carla with the R.V. and to have to handle all arrangements for this body in such a remote location as we were in at the time. I told Him under no circumstance should He put her into that situation. Thankfully He did not.
We continued our way back through the park and drove by natural sculptures, and with very little imagination one reminded me of Horus, the Egyptian bird, another of the Egyptian Sphinx, and yet another of the face and body of an immense serpent in an area called the Garden of Eden, and then there was stone in the shape of the Buddha. As we drove on immense sentinel warriors rose hundreds of feet high to stand guard, striking pillars fit for the palace of any king or a temple to God were everywhere, only multiplied by many dimensions; all them colossal, dwarfing man’s tiny attempts at art or architecture. Art was etched into the walls of these mighty corridors. It seemed that all man’s efforts at creation had been anticipated by the Creator in this marvelous setting.
Finally we came to a stop at the Fiery Furnace. The bright red sandstone reached up in columns that must of reminded someone of flames leaping up. However, this place was both physically and energetically a cooling place. As we sat in its midst a great sense of peace and calm came to me. Ah, this is the pilgrimage spot to which Divine Mother had brought us. From here we could look out over a vast panorama of sculpted shapes dotting the landscape below, in the eastern distance high snowcapped mountains in the state of Colorado rose up on the horizon. It was a surpassingly lovely view and the Fiery Furnace brought the gift of awakened spiritual energies. It is a pilgrimage spot chosen for us by Prakriti’s Mother Nature.
And now, as I write this to you we sit next to the Colorado River in a deep ravine with red rock cliffs soaring above and jagged peaks all around us. The campfire is burning, the vivid stars are shinning, gentle rapids next to us sing their continual song and we are serenaded by the crickets living nearby. A wonderful sense of peace like a warm blanket settles around me as I think of you; separated by distance, but not in Spirit.
So I send to you this gentle peace, the peace I felt at the fiery furnace (perhaps it is misnamed) and here by the lapping waves of the Colorado, and I am filled with gratitude for God guiding us so perfectly and truly in this pilgrimage of His natural wonders.
Picture: David & Carla @ Fiery Furnace