In 2008 Tim DeChristopher, a University of Utah student, courageously raised his paddle as a bidder in a Salt Lake BLM auction. With no intention of paying, he bid for oil and gas leasing of Utah’s public lands in protest. As he received his sentence to federal prison, he looked the judge in the eye and said six words that instill wonder: “This is what love looks like.”
As we stepped foot into the unknown of the expansive wildness of the desert southwest as students for this course, with distinct lives, backgrounds, and passions—I keep coming back to the question of what my love will look like for the land, and creation as I share my one wild and precious life. We descended through geological time, with abrasive sandy boots, packs filled with our lifeline of gear that facilitated our survival in a hostile environment, and into the ancient canyon we will call home. Six days after our confluence in Green River, Utah, we find ourselves nestled in the Pinyon Pine and Juniper country that defines upper Horseshoe Canyon. Our instructor of 20 years says, “This may be the best day hike in the world”— as we traverse this humbling landscape, I am starting to agree. We cross dinosaur footprints, arches, Indigenous pictographs, and silk-smooth sand caves. Finally, we reach a slot canyon forming in the sandstone, and are given the option to explore down into this young and motherly passage: yonic. We consider, and as one we enter as light becomes obstructed and stone narrows with every step.
Inhalation
Exhalation
My peers’ breathing accelerates, heavies.
Their senses are telling them to turn back – NO
It’s closing in, confined, and claustrophobic.
So we back out and change our order and pace, and move again real realll slow.