I'm lying on my futon couch, watching Bad TV when I get a strong intuition. "Go to Red Ridge, Stu." Can't I just lie here and obsess about how my life isn't going well?, I think. Or just watch Bad TV and avoid thinking about my life altogether?
I hate my day job, with its unremorseful criminals, unmotivated drug addicts and a bureaucracy that treats communication like a childhood game of telephone. But it pays the bills, the way the art isn't right now. So I go to work in the mornings.
I like the inside of my apartment with its wall to wall and I love the beautiful night city view off my back balcony, but I have this neighbor to the east that has this huge TV with surround sound, that sounds like planes are landing next door. When I politely asked him to turn it down, he looks at me like I'm taking away his civil rights.
And then there is Annie. On again off again love affair for the past twelve years, with us off again. I usually can end my love affairs pretty easily and then segway into the shallow polite friendships, but not with Annie. I love her but I'm not in love, but I can't fully disengage. I don't want to and neither does she. We're screwed.
So can I just stay here on the futon, and watch TV? I think to myself again. "Go to Red Ridge, Stu" says the quiet voice. Shit. That rising feeling to go and create something, just won't go away. And I know it's a day or two pass Full Moon and I only get some many Full Moons in a year with clear skies. I'll feel inadequate if I don't go. So I raise from the futon sofa, put on my boots, grab the Rollei and the hula hoop and walk toward my front door. Another 747 lands next door. Son of a bitch.
I give up.
"By the planet's arc, by the falling dark, by the state of the art, by the beat of my heart." Bruce Cockburn is rapping as I ascend Mount Lemmon highway. The slow dissolves from one flora to another is still magical to me. From Saguaro to Ocotillo to Manzanita to Mesquite to Ponderosa to Aspen, from the high desert to the Alpine forest.
I arrive at the Red Ridge trailhead and unload the truck. Put on the purple fleece I always carry in the truck, sling the hula hoop like a bandolier over my shoulder, grab my camera and tripod and go.
I surrender.
I surrender a lot when I shot. Sure, I come with a rough outline in my head most times, but my own spiritual and artistic experiences have shown me that the spontaneous inspirations and the blessed accidents are better artists than an ego that is afraid of being wrong or a rigid idea that must be seen at all costs.
But tonight is a little different, as I walk through the chilly Ponderosa forest. I'm thinking I need to not only surrender up the shot, but I need to do some big surrendering tonight. Surrender up my job, my apartment, my love life, and ask God to direct me. Ask for the willingness to walk through the open doors if and when they come, or to accept the closed doors, and try not to knock them down.
The just past Full Moon is raising over an eastern ridge, gently for a change, not like a headlight. Just a bit of cloud but not enough to matter with the exposure. I wander around without my camera, through this forest I know so well. I'm less than a mile from the road but it could be ten. I then see three Ponderosas in a line and think yea, three trees, three surrenders.
I pray for right relationship, right livelihood, and right domicile as the Zen Buddhists say. I make multiple passes with the hula hoop, behind the three Ponderosas, each pass an active letting go. First pass, Annie. Second pass, the job, Third pass, the apartment. Help me to move or accept, God. Or just stand still and let the changes comes to me. Or to be active in my own choices, and forget my fears and just do what I need to do. Help me to know which is which, and what is what, I think. When to stand and when to move. When to hold firm and when to walk away. Help me, God, as you have some often before. I close the shutter. I slipped on some pine needles, I think. I open the shutter again. Reshoot.
I do three more passes with the hoop and then move outside the frame, placing the lit hoop twenty feet from the trees. That felt right, I think. I then walk up to a northern outcrop of granite on this part of The Red Ridge and sit on a rock and let the Moon fill in the details of the shot. About 15 minutes. It also gives me time too, to simply close my eyes and breathe in and be with my prayers and be with the forest.
I open my eyes and look North. Stars above and stars below. Even on full moon nights, at high elevation, you can see stars. Lots of stars. Miles away I see the stars of Oracle, the streetlights that mark the little town's few streets. I love The Red Ridge, I think. For so many years. I love this place.
Hours go by. Many passes of the hula hoop. Many surrenders. Many times sitting on that rock look north at stars. I feel good, feel better, knowing that I don't know what the surrenders will bring but I like surprises. And I know it'll be OK even if it isn't OK and I don't think it's OK. It's OK.
Around Midnight, I pack up and walk up the Red Ridge trail. I don't even use the flashlight. Don't need to. Past the North rock, where many women have been kissed. Past the little stand of Aspens I shot in the snow years ago, for an assignment in a photography class. Past a Baby Blue Spruce that I shot for a Christmas Card. Up and up and around a bend and down and back to the Pathfinder. Load up the truck. Take off the purple fleece. Open a can of Tab. Start the truck. Put on Bruce Cockburn again.
"Don't forget about delight. You know what I'm saying to you, don't forget about delight. You know," he sings.
I surrender.