Wait for the car to pass. Now go.
I grab my camera bag and tripod from the back seat and quickly cross Mt. Lemmon highway. I'm low on the highway, around milepost one or two. It really doesn't matter if others see me or not, but I feel more comfortable if I can just slip in and out of the wilderness unseen. I step over the guardrail and head up the steep wash.
The canyon smells of dark musk and wet sand. It rained yesterday which is unusual for the Springtime. The Palo Verdes and the Mesquites have soaked it up, as well as all the plants here. This smell is three months early. Neither the trees nor I are complaining.
I rock hop up this anonymous canyon. The Full Moon is large and bright. I need no flashlight. There is no trail. It doesn't matter. I just wind my way up through the large granite boulders. Step up, then to the right, then jump a couple of feet to another rock, hop to the left and up again. Hop and jump.
After a few stops along the way, I find the angle. I've come with an idea but maybe I'll try something else. I have the Zippo and my Pentax and the 28 mm lens, for my idea is to create a wide angle flame spiral. But wait a minute. There's a small puddle of standing water in a depression on this boulder. Hmm.I do a practice drawing or two off to the right. This'll work, I think.
I set up the angle and the shot and focus on a spot and then, with my index finger, I dip into the puddle of water and begin to draw a water spiral in the rock. It takes many minutes and many passes back and forth from the puddle, but this is working. I return to the Pentax and look through the viewfinder. Yep.I open the shutter, draw a flame spiral and then wait 10 minutes before closing the shutter. Then I notice something. Something unexpected. Over the ten minutes of exposure time, the water almost completely evaporates away, leaving barely any wet spiral at all on the boulder. I just stare at it as it disappears. I close the shutter at the end of ten.
I redraw the water spiral, open the shutter, do another Zippo pass, and step out of the frame for another ten minutes. Cars pass way below on the highway. Cold air comes down the high mountain wash. And the water spiral evaporates away. I don't have to be Buddha to recognize how this vanishing water spiral shows me that Life is temporal. That nothing is permanent. That everything changes and is changing. An old lesson that can't be taught enough, to this Western White Boy from the American Middle Class.
It's the Wednesday before Easter. I'm aware of the Christian Holy Ghost that is moves around this time of year. Yet my staring at this water spiral evaporating before my eyes truly resonates inside of me, more than a suffering Jesus or a cross made of palm fronds or a dinner of bread and wine. This water spiral is my vibrating Holy Ghost, and I can feel a vibration between me and it. I close the shutter. I draw another water spiral. I open the shutter again. Feel the vibe. I'm loving this.
The Holy Ghost was always a cool thing to me as a kid. The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost. Amen. I didn't trust God the Father all together. My own dad was a distant man who rarely praised anyone and often had a look of silent scorn on his face when he was looking at me. Hard to rap my arms around an image of a Loving God the Father, with a Dad like mine. And I didn't know about the Son, Jesus. He seemed a little weird to me, getting himself crucified and what was up with the drinking his blood on Sunday. Ick. But the Holy Ghost? Now that I could get behind that as a six year old. Mysterious. A little scary but I always had a feeling that the Holy Ghost was on my side. A wispy piece of God that was everywhere. A part of God that liked me. Sort of like Casper the Friendly Ghost but bigger.
I can still get behind Casper. I feel him here tonight with the Zippo, and the little puddle that keeps disappearing, and the musky green smell that's early in the year, and the cold mountain air from the Winter above.
After a bit, I pack up and rock hop back down to my truck. When I reach the road,I look back up the canyon and thank it for the good night and the little bit of magic it gave me. And the little lesson that everything changes, and that nothing stays the same.
From Casper the Friendly Ghost.