Sea of Cortez…Part One

Friday and Saturday…July 17th & 18th

If the sky from Pensacola to Atlanta on the evening flight can predict how spectacular the trip to the Sea of Cortez will be, I can relax. The towering clouds of red and orange are magnificent and perhaps the most amazing sunset sky I have ever witnessed. But I am paying close attention to my ears as there is still the lingering respiratory bug caught on a flight from Bonaire just two weeks ago. If my ears won’t clear I cannot dive…on a dive trip.

I like to space my trips out but this opportunity came up and I turned it down twice before a woman cancelled and another spot opened so how could I say, “No.” When things happen like this I just go with it and trust that I’m making the right choice.

The midnight arrival (Pacific time) at my Phoenix hotel room makes me crave sleep but the internal clock awakens me far too early. I feel miserably tired and like the cold virus caught a deeper hold in my immune system from lack of rest. In meditation this morning I relax and visualize my body healing with blue-white light.

Breakfast, lunch and then time to catch the shuttle to Rocky Point, Mexico.

The journal comes out as the shuttle passes through the Sonoran Desert of Arizona…and Mexico. This place of desert inspires solitude, a deepening of the inner experience of quiet. The elemental energies of wild places call to me.

Why do I like the desert so? Perhaps because there is no place to hide, a person is totally exposed. The desert drys the bodies of wildlife, cactus, humans until there is only white bone left…and that also disappears eventually.

In the distance, a streak of lightning hits near the mountain. Dark, blue-black clouds hang near the earth bringing life-giving water to the thirsty desert. Or floods.

Can’t hide in a desert, there’s so much light. Shining so strong, Oh, so bright. Lay bare these bones.

Let the storm winds blow ancient dust, where I have been buried, to the four directions. Lightning strike the mountain and bring down the rocky fortress that has been my protection, my prison. Sheets of rain release me from this grave of fear. Lay bare these bones so I might quench my thirst as I drink in the fullness of life.

Dry river beds…geometries of water and currents…swishes and bumps, last remnants of carved sand and stone. Spires reaching toward heaven, eroded from centuries of wind and water. Etched and worn. I feel like that today.

Arrival at the marina creates chaos…loading gear and casting off from land. People are in frenzy-mode setting up dive gear, camera gear. The rushing and intensity of this makes me want to crawl up on a warm rock and bake in the sun in solitude. Instead I find myself nearly tossed off my bunk from heavy seas. I set up only dive gear I might not even be able to use. Clothes are in drawers. Underwater camera equipment still locked in the hard case, unassembled and still in multiple pieces. I feel like that….little bits and pieces.This is not a nice sea this night. It is bumpy with waves over six feet and torrential rains and lightning.

I feel exhausted and unprepared for rough seas after being opened and laid bare by the Sonoran Desert.

What am I doing here? I feel exposed and the sea demands more. And it punches with heavy-handed blows and lightning that makes me yearn for safety. Somewhere around 3 a.m. I awaken to water pouring on my bunk and wonder if we are sinking. A quick trip down the hallway to the dive deck affirms we are still afloat and in a horrible storm.

The sea calls to the deepest, buried emotions within and they come out like the full force of the storm. I tell the Sea Mother, “You called and I showed up. What now?”