As my days tend to go yesterday wasof the more reflective type. I had the opportunity to drive a couple hours to the north west and visit the Carlsbad Caverns of south east New Mexico. Like most experiences I had anticipated it’s value as being strictly adventurous but found myself progressively drawn in to the metaphorical value of the place. It begins abrubtly. Within 30 feet of the cave entrance, you are hit with a 20 degree temperature drop and the gagging smell of bird shit. You look down and all you see is darkness interrupted only by the occasional camera flash. A person with very deep religious interests such as mine can only descend so deep in to the earth before we start wondering where the entrance to Hell may be. The descent is long and gradual. It felt as if my mind was on the same path as my body, progressively descending in to putrid darkness as the last glimmer of sun light faded in to the distance behind me. Looking at the jagged formations on the wall, I begin to recognize the grotesque images that my imagination shapes using the darker pieces of my mind. Everywhere I look, there is a contorted, mangled face, a gaping mouth filled with needle tipped spires and a razor tongue, or maybe an engorged and mutilated arm reaching for my soul but frozen in agony. Between the lit corridors, there are numberless dark ones in which I half expect to see a pair of tortured, glowing eyes. But then a sign draws my mind away from the demons and back to the empirical explanation of the towering calcite formations that have grown drop by drop over the last few million years. Awe sets in. The Biblical suggestions of my past are suppressed and my eyes are pried open and filled with the wonder of this incredible place. There is no evil here. This is a temple carved and shaped by the most meticulous of natural processes. Once I had allowed myself to be absorbed in to the spirituality of the place, my first impulse was to meditate, but the peace of the place was destroyed by the incessant hum of electrical lines coursing the entire cavern. I thought about finding a way to cut the power but the ensuing pandemonium would be significantly less peacefully than the buzzing. One interesting piece of a caverns character is the acoustics. Because it is a relatively sealed environment with only hard surfaces, you can hear someone sniffling across the entire cave system. It only takes once for anyone to realize how effectively any noise they make will carry and from then on there is a concerted effort to keep the noise levels to a minimum. This results in a cathedral like reverence that further amplifies both the spiritual character of the place and the sound of water constantly falling from the ceiling. All things considered, after 3 miles and 2 1/2 hours of this, it begins to feel as claustrophobic as it does repetitive and all I could think about was getting back in to the sun light. I thought about taking the elevator, but I’ve been on too many trails to deprive myself of the entirely unique experience of “going back”. It’s always written off as redundant, “if you saw it coming in, you’re just gonna see it again on the way out!” This couldn’t be more wrong. Somehow, even though you follow the same path, nothing ever looks the same on the way back. There is no sense of familiarity, it’s just a completely new experience with things you’ve never seen with the added satisfaction of having some semblance of home at the end of it, so I walked. Wet paths seem steeper on the way down. I guess the prospect of a fall is just a bit more daunting when the path is falling away from you. On the way up, I let the endorphins take over so that the pensive mentality could fall into the meditation I had been deprived of earlier. I didn’t stop. Not for a picture, a breath or even a drink of water. I kept my eyes on the path and my mind on the sun. I couldn’t tell you how much I missed it, or why I missed it so much, but I felt like the darkness had somehow taken a piece of me away and only the sun could give it back. It felt so far away! So I walked faster. The headache that had developed either from the inevitable gasses in the air, or the fact that I hadn’t eaten in far too long acted as a raging indicator of discontent once I got close enough to the cave entrance to smell the bird shit again. It hit me like a ton of bricks this time and made me a bit queasy. It was made even worse by the deal I had to make with my respiratory system. I could either walk slow and breath it in less deeply for a longer period of time, or I could continue quickly, deep breaths and get it over with. It felt disgusting, but I wanted to be rid of it so I continued to hoof it. And then I saw it! Just past the darkest part of the entire cave system, the first golden cascade of real, natural light. Excitement pushed my pace a bit until I got to it, hand stretched out so I could feel it as soon as possible as if I was the first patient ever to receive the newly found cure for vampirism. I didn’t care that I was acting a bit like a crazy person.  It felt positively incredible!  

As Excited as I was to get there, I was glad to be done with it.  It was an absolutely incredible place, astonishingly beautiful, majestic features.  I couldn’t turn my head without discovering something amazing and the sense of scale involved in both the size and age of the place absolutely boggled my mind.  But none the less, there are few animals built to withstand prolonged periods in the deep darkness of such a place and I am not one of them.

Of course as a cruel trick, a few minutes after I emerged from the cave, a gigantic storm system swept through just far enough to block out the sun.  I didn’t take it personally, but it hurt a bit, just enough to re-excite the sun thirst I had felt in the cave.  On my way back to the east, I could see a sliver of sunlight clipping the hill in front of me.  It looked like it was close enough to catch, so I stepped on it!  Luckily the speed limit everywhere out here is 75, so I went 84, passing oil and water trucks left and right,.  I looked at the storm system behind me and could see the sun just behind the lip of the clouds and felt the sun setting just fast enough to push the border between daylight and dusk just out of my reach.  By the time I made it to the top of the hill, the darkness had pushed on, but I could still see the sun light on the side of a water tower in front of me and so the race continued!  It seemed like every land mark I picked out was overtaken by the darkness just as I got to it and I had a terrible thought.  “You can only chase the light for so long before you have to consider that you may be the darkness.”  My foot lifted off of the accelerator a little bit and the car slowed with my enthusiasm as I considered that maybe some things just aren’t meant to bask in the sunlight.  Some things may just be inherently dark.  I had the image of an anthropomorphic cloud, with a broken spirit chasing the sun rays across the landscape.  He tried and tried, but they always seemed out of reach.  The faster he flew, the faster they ran, and so he slowed… then they slowed.  He screamed into the sky, “WHY ARE YOU TAUNTING ME!?” to which the sky replied, “You are a cloud.  You will never be in the light!”.  The cloud was broken by this and began to violently sob.  He sent his tears raining down on the ground below and his fists slammed lightning bolts in to the mountain side.  And then it happened.  He had finally rained enough that a pillar of light shot through his chest all the way to the ground beneath him.  When he felt what it was like, he finally understood what he was and that in order to achieve his dreams, he had to let go of what he wanted, and just be who he was and do what he was meant to do.  The cloud held this beautiful thought in his heart, raining tears of joy until he had completely precipitated, back into the ground, where he watched the sun set basking in the sunlight with me.