News from Jules | 05.09.2022 | Just Follow

Since I decided to push through Salt Lake City and all the way to the Needles District in Canyonlands National Park, I arrived at dusk around 7 p.m. on Friday night. Sure enough, I saw that all the campsites were claimed already as I slowly drove through the campground closest to the trailheads I wanted to explore the next day.

I also noticed there was a Park Ranger Talk about the night sky at 8:30 p.m.—oh la la, another great reason to stay.

Rather than backtrack out of the park to find a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) campsite, I summoned the courage to ask a retired cyclist couple if I could also pitch my tent on their site.

Of course.

“And no, you don’t need to pay us anything,” they replied.

They shared recommendations about the nearby hikes, including the eight-mile Big Springs-Squaw Canyon loop they did that morning, and then pointed me in the direction of the campfire pit for the Ranger talk they were also attending. After driving for nine hours, I wanted to stretch my legs.

“Is the trail pretty obvious?” I inquired.

“No actually,” the wife replied. “There are only bits and pieces of trail. Just follow the cairns and you’ll find your way.”

“Okay, great! Well, if you don’t see me by 8:30 p.m., you know to come looking,” I half-joked.

Distracted by the amazing sunset and the epic rock formations, I arrived at the campfire pit at 8:29 p.m. My new friends were sweetly glancing over their shoulders on the lookout.

They waved me over to the bench and later I gladly squished into the front seat of their overflowing minivan for the dark ride back to our campsite.

As I lay on top of the chilly metal picnic table and felt the hot breath of the wind pass over me, more and more stars turned on across the night sky. It could be hundreds of years and several lives ago for all I knew. I had already lost track of time.

Was it possible that I woke up in Portland just yesterday? That I was already three states away? That I had come this far in only 36 hours?

Yes.

All that is known and familiar was now yesterday. The present was all unknown, ready to be discovered.

Here in the middle of the desert and 35 miles from civilization, the night sky was alive. According to the Canyonlands Park Ranger, what looked like static stars in the constellation of Andromeda was actually a whole galaxy, traveling at 70 miles per second and set to collide with the Milky Way galaxy in 4-5 billion years. I had lost track of space.

Living in cities for most of my life, one of the only other places the night sky seemed so vast was at Outdoor School when I would escort 20 sixth-grade students and their high school counselors across the field and through the woods back to their cabins each night after campfire. I shared their awe as we’d spot Casseopia and Orion’s Belt hovering overhead.

The same awe that explorers had experienced for millennia, navigating the seas and deserts with these bright lights as their guide.

How could these be the same stars? The same moon?

Because it is the same sky covering all of us.

For all of time.

The perspective of deep time.

These were some of the deep thoughts that arose as I hiked the eight-mile Big Springs-Squaw Canyon loop the next day, pausing every few steps to spot the next small pile of rocks as the way forward just like the “trail” the evening before.

We don’t need to see the whole trail.

We don’t need a plan.

So many others have gone before us.

We just need to pay attention. And connect the dots. Just follow.

• When the shopkeeper in Manzanita, Ore. a few weeks ago noticed and asked about my beaded earrings, then highly recommended visiting Sante Fe, New Mexico—before she even knew I was going on a cross-country road trip.

• When I met up with a fellow-outdoorsy-friend-of-a-friend on Sunday night before departing Portland who’d recently spent a couple of months hiking around the monumental Needles District on the way to New Mexico.

• When I learned about one of the country’s oldest health spas, Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort & Spa with iconic communal pools, rich in lithia, arsenic, iron, and soda just north of Sante Fe, during a pelvic massage the morning of my fifth IUI last Wednesday.

• When I noticed an Iconik Coffee Roasters sticker on a fellow spa guest’s water bottle and then saw the same logo in the Google Maps list of coffee shops in Santa Fe.

• The coffee shop where I had WiFi, electricity, and green tea to send my one lesson about the everyday journey toward integrity to your inbox this Monday.

Twinkling little stars. Small piles of rocks. Specific suggestions in conversation.

Is it possible that the Universe is always showing us the way?

The present ready to be discovered.

That all we need to do is follow.

May you pause every few steps to spot the way forward this week.

Love,

Jules

P.S. If you’re curious to follow along in real-time, check out My Story on Instagram.