![\"\"](\"https:\/\/earthwalks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Wupatki-Breathing-Hole-1.jpg\")
<\/a> Indeed, I had visited such a breathing hole at Wupatki National Monument near Flagstaff, Arizona. (Photo at left) https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/wupa\/learn\/nature\/geologicformations.htm<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps the site was meaningful to the Indigenous Hopi who it is told have their own story about the wind deity Yaponcha. https:\/\/mendotadakota.com\/mn\/native-stories-hopi-yaponcha-the-wind-god\/<\/a>\u00a0 Our hiking group was more interested in the Hopi version.\u00a0 The Hopi story brought these words to Ron: \u201cInhale and exhale\u2026live life to the fullest.\u201d<\/p>\nWe made our way through the dry northern New Mexico desert, the Jeep bumping its way along rough dirt roads and endless open land filled with sagebrush and cactus.\u00a0 Finally, we came to a spot to park.\u00a0 As we scrambled up the rough volcanic hillside, Ron stayed behind, not feeling well, and I stayed to keep him company.\u00a0 Later he felt like hiking and we decided to rejoin our friends.\u00a0 The wind curled around us and patches of bright yellow flower cheered our way on as we happily sang tunes.\u00a0 Up the volcanic hillside we went, picking our way carefully around blackened basalt and the high desert pinon and juniper trees.<\/p>\n
There was trouble ahead though, as we couldn\u2019t find our friends anywhere on the jagged rocks and it was starting to get dark.\u00a0 We turned around, carefully threading our way down to where the car was parked.\u00a0 By the time we got to that area, it is inscrutably dark, even though there was some lingering light left in the sky.\u00a0 No friends, no Jeep, just the vast silence of the northern New Mexico desert, punctuated by an occasional bellow of cows acres away under an infinite ceiling of stars.\u00a0 Were we or they lost or had they left without us?<\/p>\n
Without much food, water or warm clothes we were literally sitting ducks, afraid to walk anywhere in the darkness for fear of falling off a ledge.\u00a0 Strange sounds put us on edge as we huddled together against the increasingly chilly night air.\u00a0 In the darkness we lost any familiar boundaries and landmarks and entered an inexplicable liminal wilderness.<\/p>\n
We finished off the pesto pasta and pretty much were out of water.\u00a0 The sky sparkled with a blanket of endless stars in a moonless night. It was spooky but spectacular and Ron noted how amazing it was to feel dwarfed by nature.\u00a0 Then a sliver of moon rose over the distant eastern Sangre de Cristo mountains.<\/p>\n
Finally, dawn came and the rising sun.\u00a0 Just as we thought, this was the exact place the vehicle had been parked. What to do?\u00a0 We climbed the nearby ridge for a larger perspective and saw in the distance a dome shaped dwelling with Tibetan prayer flags flying. Slowly we made our way to what we hoped would be friendly inhabitants.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey there!\u00a0 You guys must be Doug and Ron,\u201d a man shouted at us as we got close to the house. \u201cYour friends were out here last night several times honking the horn, flashing the lights and yelling for you.\u00a0 They\u2019re about to call Search and Rescue!\u201d Norbert and Suzanne and their children Shanina and Nurya welcomed us inside the dome home.\u00a0 Norbert was a wood carver and Susanne a massage therapist who also directed a private school.<\/p>\n
It turned out that during the long night our friends had driven to the area several times, honking the horn and flashing lights.\u00a0 But all we heard that dark night was a few lonely cows acres away.\u00a0 No honking horns, no light.\u00a0 Inexplicably and as amazing as it seemed, our friends and we had all been there at the same time\u2026wherever \u201cthere\u201d had really been. It was as if we had passed through some doorway to another time or place.<\/p>\n
Ten years later in 1995, Ron and I returned to the site to hike it again, drawn magnetically to the mystery of our experience.\u00a0 We discovered a Buddhist community had grown up near the volcanic hill and we stopped by the place out of curiosity and interest. https:\/\/nobletruth.org\/<\/a> \u00a0The elder Buddhist Lama Karma Dorje Rinpoche, spiritual leader of the Kaguy Shenpenh Kunchab (KSK) Tibetan Buddhist sangha, happened to be there and inquired as to our visit.<\/p>\n \u201cTo hike the hill over there,\u201d we said, pointing in the direction of our intended travel to the volcanic hill.\u00a0 He paused noticeably, then fixed his gaze upon us as if he knew all about our story, and said, \u201cBe careful.\u00a0 Distances can be deceiving.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Will we ever know what really happened? We were at the same place as our friends but in a different time dimension.\u00a0 There\u2019s no question we would have seen and heard them were it otherwise. It’s complicated, fascinating and multidimensional.\u00a0 Science says it isn’t that time does not exist, but it has more to do with space than the absolute of time.\u00a0https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/what-is-spacetime-really-made-of\/ \u00a0<\/a>The Rio Grande River near Taos and Santa Fe follows a rift in the north American continent, a place where the continent is slowly tearing apart.\u00a0 Great tectonic plates are grinding against each other creating physical shifts of monumental geomagnetic proportion.\u00a0 This is a volcanic region in which forces of nature are at play, unseen energies that perhaps could have an effect on the time space continuum as well as our own consciousness. The Taos Plateau, scene of massive molten magma flow, is now frozen in time, inert, solid.\u00a0 Or so our limited minds think.\u00a0 Actually we, like it, are in constant molecular motion, porous, energetic waves of light ever changing.<\/p>\n “Distances can be deceiving!”\u00a0 Distances between you and I, between the sub atomic particles in my body, between one thought and other. It’s all <\/strong>a bit deceiving, this dance of mirrors, smoke and multi-faceted prisms. Each of us are a part of the elemental forces though sometimes our daily routines seem so small in comparison. In ordinary consciousness we’re wondering how to pay the bills, who’s texting us at the\u00a0moment, what to eat before rushing off to work.\u00a0 Then we are thrown unwittingly onto the precipices of another world, upended and confused without the habitual markers, trail guides and electronic calendar sync and apps.\u00a0 Fear takes over–or, wonder and awe.\u00a0 Like a roller coaster ride we can go with it or fight the flight.\u00a0 It’s bigger than we are but we just might find out how much bigger this thing called “I” actually is. After all, just one flap of a butterfly wing can set in motion a chain of events sparks a rainstorm half a world away.<\/p>\n Ron and I were in a \u201ctime out of time,” on a journey that wasn’t listed in any of the guidebooks.\u00a0 The distances were indeed deceiving as the venerable Rinpoche said, and we were glad we found our way home.,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a warm and sunny July day in 1985 with no hint of the frightening and mysterious hike that was to come in the volcanic hills west of Taos near the depths of the Rio Grande gorge. My friends … Continue reading