Voices

The cliffs and canyons are alive.  Ask anyone who lives around them.  They are the home of living spirits who emit not just light, but sound.  Voices.  You need solitude, away from the visual clutter and noise of today.  I heard those voices as a child growing up in Arizona and often since.

Artist Greg Weismantel dreamt of the great canyons.  He drove west with cans of paint salvaged from a DC fire.  There, in southern Utah, he reached for the spirits of the canyons and listened to the stories of Joe, a Southern Paiute Indian.  He climbed to the ridges to absorb the wisdom of the 3000 year old Bristle Cone pines.

You hear the songs of the wind that carved the canyon walls for eons. They echo the music of the Archaic peoples and the trickster flute player we call Kokopelli.  We feel the lives of the wild creatures that shared the canyons and rivers for thousands of years.  They lift you into another dimension.  You can leave your PTSD and sorrows behind—if only for a while.

In Antelope Canyon on the Navajo Reservation the spirits whisper and the light shimmies and moves constantly.  It teases your senses.  But you don’t have to go to the far West.

The paintings of Jay Peterzell are links between the language of the earth and the spirits that soar. Plants are rooted and growing.  Water is seeping through aquifers.  Billions of life forms come together in a collective wisdom that we can join.

Vincent Van Gogh became one with the earth and leaped to another dimension.  He reached for the secrets of eternity and was lifted to that magical realm.  A wheat field was the home of living spirits who emit not just light but sound. Voices.

Find any place isolated from the visual clutter and noise of today. There is magic in the ground beneath your feet. 

“Enchanted Canyon”  - Greg Weismantel  - Facebook

Vermillion Cliffs – AZ - Photograph by James John Magner

“Dancing Lights”  -  Antelope Canyon,  AZ. - Photograph by James John Magner

“Holly’s Field” -  Jay Peterzell  - www.jaypeterzell.com

Wheat Field With Crows – Vincent Van Gogh

James John Magner jamesjohnmagner.com