On Transmutation
I say I need time away
I say I need sunshine
I say I need peace
The truth is
I didn’t know what pulled me here
To the red rocks
The snowy mountains
The never-ending miles of sand and cacti
The purpose never reveals itself easily
I’m not chasing theoretical knowledge
I’m digging with both hands
I am dirty and I am hungry and I am tired
But I come back
Changed
I put myself into situations that incited true fear
If I hadn’t
I could never have comprehended the opposite state of being
As trust
In the rocks I grasped during a climb
In the branches I’d hold to regain my balance
In the salty water I’d gulp to feed my hungry heart and legs
Above all else
In myself
Miscalculations and missteps
Didn’t matter once I found total trust
In my ability to adapt
To endure
To find another way
If I was made from the same elements as
The dirt
The water
The mountains
The cacti
The lava
Constants that endure
It could be that the same can be said of me
I am the soft, malleable dirt
I am the cold, flowing water
I am the looming, quiet mountain
I am the thriving, impossible cactus
I am the destructive, blazing lava
I am a constant that was made to endure
Could it be that
If we consider the universe to be an entity
Then we, humanity, is the cognizance
The meta-cognition
Could it be that
We are the eyes and the ears and the mouth
Giving the universe a lens
Through which it experiences
Beauty
Pain
Love
Music
Dancing
Laughing
Could it be that we are simply the mirror
Through which everything around us can admire the absolutely astounding miracle
Of its own existence?
And if I am simply the universe in a human body
Translating its messages through metaphors
Until it all makes sense on some random sunny walk through a vortex
A space where the Earth itself feels
Alive
Pulsing
Breathing
Then I too was never meant to end
Earthquakes and tornados and volcanos and wind and lightning
And not only does the land endure
It changes
It is worn away
It is elevated
It is split apart
But it endures
I dropped myself to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
Not really knowing why
Until the last half mile
Crawling out of the same hell
I descended towards with a smile
I wanted to die weeks ago
But maybe this is the last half mile
I didn’t quit climbing
I cannot quit climbing
If I am the universe then I too am the canyon
Just as much as I am the creature who survives it
Steep walls and breathtaking beauty
Carved into being
Transmuted
By what I once thought was meant to destroy me
No, I endure
And when someone decides the descent is worth the climb
They won’t walk away unchanged
If I am the universe then so are you
And maybe I am meant to walk away from people
The same way I walked away from Bear Mountain
Maybe it hurt me
Maybe I thought it broke me
Maybe I thought I would die
But I trusted myself above all else
Rewarded not by material gains
But by that very same
Transmutation
Collect the metaphors spoken in Universal tongue
Translating messages as old as the Earth itself
Look at how the lichen grows
Atop the cool lava flows
Where the Earth split itself open
Bled fire
I, too, was meant to sprout anew
Among the charred remnants
Where I split myself open and bled
Wondering why I wasn’t worth love
But the mountain doesn’t ask if it is loved
The river doesn’t question if it is beautiful
If I am the universe
I am here to endure
Not to be consumed
I am as limitless as the stars
As never ending as the horizon
Learning all the lessons this life has to offer
If I only take the time to dig
With both hands
Dirty, hungry, tired
Returning home
Having endured
But no longer the same person I was