The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--14. Dante's View

Dante's View, Death Valley National Park, November 2022 Steve Brown 

Bare-bone, rock-solid beauty.  That's what Death Valley is.  Stunning silence.  Earth.   Sky.  Distance.  Nowhere are all these attributes taken together as a whole more profoundly than from Dante's View.

It's a long way around to stand 5,575 feet directly above Badwater Basin.  In fact, you must travel 37.6 miles, which takes forty-nine minutes, to stand a few miles to the southeast of where you started.  Such a journey would be ridiculous if the park was flat.  But, of course, it's not.  Death Valley National Park is anything but horizontal.  Out of many places in the park that make that oh so apparent, Dante's View is perhaps the most spectacular.  Only Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park has given me an equal sense of the grandeur of stone and distance and depth combined, and I've been to the Grand Canyon a few times.  

To stand at Dante's View is to begin to comprehend the vastness of time through the pores of your skin.  There's just something about being there in that silence and looking down on that long rip in earth that lets you know you are a part of something so much more than your individual self.  Other than love, it is perhaps the greatest feeling one can know.  It's so perfect and pure and has nothing to do with you, or grocery lists, or shopping malls.  You are an eternity away (it seems) from interstate freeways and smog-blotched urban skylines.  It is a world void almost entirely of us.  

I've got nothing against humanity, but for some reason it is important for the human soul to know more than our own fowl, nesting grounds--to feel the great sweep of creation beyond our chaotic dens of electric light, mechanical noise, and polluted air.  We need to touch the bedrock reality that was us before we stuffed our nests with our own crap.

That is the purity we get to glimpse at Death Valley.  

Marci at Dante's View, April 2022 Steve Brown

Almost, of course.  That hot day in April when Marci and I made our ascent, the sky didn't look quite right.  It could have been dust, but I don't think so.  We have altered our sense of distance, even in the most remote spaces, because we have altered the air we breathe.  Smog is everywhere.  It extends so far beyond the limits our cities.  Except on rare days, it is almost impossible to take in stone and space in natural light.

Out west, that is an unspeakable loss.  It is perhaps something we can regain though.  It won't come easily because of the massive annual fires we've caused through global warming, but with electric vehicles, it is possible that some day we may know our sacred places again in their natural light.

I don't know if that will ever be so, but I do know it's worth voting for.  Quality of light could and should be a political issue.  It affects how we physically observe our word.  And it is foolish to believe our mental vision is disconnected from our physical vision.  A well-trained mind knows happiness ultimately comes from within, but there is a reason our holy houses isolate us from the chaos and clutter of the manmade world outside.  Pure environments are a necessity for the human soul.  We have created a world that filters out the divine.  It's getting harder and harder to know who we are because there are fewer and fewer opportunities to stand in holy places.  As a species, we need to know what light looks like untainted by smog.  If we lose that knowledge, we will have lost far more than we will ever know.  We may survive.  But there is no way we will ever be alright again.  

Light is everything.

The Ghost of Tom Joad Knocking at the Door: A Pilgrim's Journey into the CaliforniAmerican Heartland--13. Working Days 7: We Are Built to Do Good

Love Surrounds Hate, acrylic on canvas, 12" x 9", Steve Brown 2023

I woke up this morning from a dream. I was in high school.  I don't remember all the details, but I do remember this:  I'd fallen into a group of young, radical intellectuals.  They didn't fit in, but they didn't care.  They were too busy thinking and doing to care about anything less than solving all of the world's problems.  

Lunch was a busy time--a working time, a swap-meet of ideas, a time to jot down notes, to make to-do lists, to laugh and argue and laugh again, before everyone went their separate ways to do their part in changing the world.  

I remember walking home with a girl after school.   I didn't think she was much to look at.  She certainly was not someone I was physically attracted to.  But I just couldn't stop looking at her as she went on and on about this new idea she had--her joy and her laughter and her absolute certainty she would do something positive with her life.  Her eyes glowed with hope and promise and a healthy anger towards a humanity starving itself of its own potential through glutenous greed.  I remember thinking, I think I could love you far more than the prettiest girl of my imagination.  And I remember thinking, and the most beautiful thing is that you don't care.  You may let me in, you may really let me in, give me your whole soul, but you don't need me because you know who you are.  I wanted to be like that.  And I thought I could.  More importantly, I thought I should want to be like that.

A vague goal formed in my mind--I would tire myself out living a life attempting to do good.  I knew, just from watching her, that one thought, I can do good, had the potential to change everything--if not for the world, certainly for myself.  I realized if I clung to that, even in my most trying hours, I was free from the boredom, restlessness, yearning, and self-loathing that plagues most of humanity.

Most of humanity simply has the wrong primary goal.  The vast majority of people yearn to fit in more than anything else in this world.  Even the flamboyant, the jet-set, the rockstars, who on the surface may seem like rebels--what most of them need more than anything else is the accolades of men. Yet, none of their fame seems to fill this giant hole they have.  They overdose; they have affairs; they commit suicide.  Nothing seems to sustain them.  

This is because we are built to do, to become, to be.  Like God.  Divine purpose has nothing to do with fitting in, nor with standing-out.  It has everything to do with losing yourself in the service of others in your own unique way.  That service can take on numerous forms.    A chef is a servant.  An artist is a servant.  A mechanic, a dentist, a politician--they are all servants.  A mother is definitely a servant.  A father should be a servant.  A waiter is a servant.  That person at the drive-thru window has more potential to impact humanity than almost anyone.  It's not so much what you do, but rather how you do it that matters.  There's a catch though.  It needs to be your unique, divine purpose.  A concert pianist will never be happy handing out sacks of burgers at a drive-through window, no matter how kind she is.  Likewise, if handing out joy to total strangers is your gift, crunching numbers at a desk in the back room is probably not going to bring you joy, no matter how wealthy you become.  You may be the reason people line up at that drive-thru window.  If so, you might as well own your own burger joint, but you will want to hire someone who touches the divine through numbers to be your accountant, so you can be at that window greeting people.  We each have unique ways to serve humanity.  It is very unlikely you will find yours by trying to fit in, or even by trying to stand out.  No, it's the quiet, individual moments when life sings through your whole soul that are the key--and then stopping, recognizing, and naming those moments.  When you've done that, you can then ask yourself, Okay, now how do I share this joy mankind?  How do I make this my life?  If you do this, you will be reasonably happy no matter how successful you are in the eyes of the world.  As far as happiness goes, it's not how much impact you make on the world, but rather how focused you are on becoming who you are at the core that matters.  Are you fulfilling your spiritual genetic code?  Happiness is ultimately about how you use your time.

My soul sings through a silent horizon, through open spaces, when distance is stunningly clear through clean air.  It is a deep, intrinsic need for me.  I recognize I cannot be happy without such places.  I know I am not the only one.  I will dedicate the rest of my life in claiming that need--not only for myself, but for others.  I will tire myself defending the right to experience raw, untainted nature, where the mind is open, and like a well-watered plant greedy for sun, we thrive to become.  

If I remember this, I will be happy regardless of what life tosses my way.   If I do not, I will suffer the same fate as most my fellow human beings--a life of boredom, of restlessness, of constant yearning and purchasing, a life spent trying to fill some nameless void at the center of one's soul--that emptiness that is meant to be named, that must be named, in order to find joy beyond circumstance.

I pray this day that I remember to do good--especially in my own unique divinely appointed way.  I pray the same for all sentient beings.  A world of fulfilled individuals is a world without hate, dictators, war, or starvation.  A happy man wants the world to experience joy.  A miserable man wants to burn the world down--one person at a time, or if he has the power, entire civilizations at a time.  When we do good, we do our small part in lowering the temperature of a heated world waiting to explode.