A Letter to my Beloved, the Desert
One year in Sedona.
The first and only time I’ve seen a four leaf clover in the wild was as a response to a question I asked my ancestors. I was on a road trip, and stopped in the Redwoods in Northern California. I had recently discovered the ability to connect with and relate to with my ancestors. As I began my hike, I noticed the carpet of clovers. I asked for them to show me a four leaf clover if I was supposed to go to an event I was contemplating attending the following day. (Who spends their time in the Redwood forest focused on the ground?) I was overwhelmed by how many clovers there were. I kept looking and looking, for miles. When I saw it, I burst into tears. A concrete answer from the ancestors! What magic!
Last summer, I was living in Portland, OR. It became very clear very quickly that Portland was a temporary home. A thing about Portland is that in the summer: it’s covered in clovers. Everyday, on my miles-long walks, I’d ask to be shown a four leaf clover if I was supposed to move to Sedona. Weeks passed. Months passed.
Increasingly frustrated, on a walk midsummer, I asked out loud for added impact: “Show me a four leaf clover on my walk today if I’m supposed to move to Sedona.” Instantly, I got an echo back, I heard: “Why are you looking on the vegetal ground of the Pacific Northwest forest for a sign to go to the desert?” That night, while sitting on my friend’s community rooftop in Downtown PDX, a neighbor of his controlling the outdoor speakers, the song “Sedona” by Houndmouth started playing.
“I’m think I’m going to move to Sedona.” I texted my friend Shelby.
“I knew you were supposed to since the first night I met you.” she replied.
2022 was a year I found parts of myself hiding in plain sight. I was nomadic. 4 states, 5 cities, 10 homes. I shed 95% of my belongings. I started the year in a 2 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, New York and ended living out of 2 suitcases. Along the way my entire life went up in flames: romantic relationships abruptly ended, work opportunities dried up overnight, and the realities of my childhood trauma could no longer be avoided, numbed, ignored, or denied.
I spent a lot of time on mountain tops. Carnal grounds. Vulture medicine. I managed to spend more time with dogs than humans. I spent more time on the land than I ever have in my life: in oceans, in forests, at volcanoes, and in the desert.
It became clear as I was kicking and screaming that the only option, the only priority, the only “thing to do” was to go descend inward. It wasn’t about making money— I’d continue to stretch a very meager savings account. It was not about being social— I had to find safety, love, and contentment within myself. It wasn’t even about figuring out what was next—I’m still barley sure.
On October 5th 2022, exhausted and deep in grief, I moved to Sedona, Arizona. The most inexplicable yet inventible move I’ve ever made.
I always knew I wanted needed to live in the desert. It was exotic compared to the post-urban/suburban mess of Metro-Detroit I grew up in. When bracing Polar Vortexes in New York City all through my 20s, taking prescription strength doses of Vitamin D, I’d promise myself I’d opt out of brutal winters at some point.
I’d go to the Mojave Desert for music festivals and bachelorette parties. I’d travel to Scottsdale, AZ sometimes on business for my corporate fashion job and always go directly from the airplane to hiking Camelback Mountain while my coworkers lounged poolside. Every time I was in the desert, I was stunned at how good it felt. Maybe because it was novel. Maybe because it was beautiful. Or maybe because it was home.
I met Shelby in the spring of 2022, in Santa Fe, NM, about 12 hours after my entire life imploded. She lived in Sedona. An anomaly. I didn’t live anywhere at the time. I was staying in Santa Fe for what would be a wild 6 weeks. We were introduced by our shared mentor. It was a very slow burn, but in the coming months we would bond and begin a truly incredible sisterhood. Went I left Santa Fe for Portland (had some karma to complete there), I knew I wasn’t done with the desert. I had never been to Sedona, and still barley knew Shelby, but it felt like the only choice. I would sit on this choice-less choice for months, as mentioned, begging for signs of confirmation.
From the moment I stepped foot on the land here, I felt settled. You know when you’re sitting in a room with an appliance that’s running? The dishwasher is on, or the dryer is on, or the refrigerator is running. The room seems quiet and suddenly the appliance shuts off and you realize the white noise was actually incredibly irritating? That was what the difference between Portland and Sedona felt like.
Sedona was deliciously quiet.
I came to visit in August 2022 for a retreat Shelby was hosting. I walked to the creek first thing in the morning and asked if I could live here. I heard back “You’re here, in a house, how does it feel?” “It feels so good. Can I do this everyday?” “You’re already doing it.”
The first month I lived here, I stayed in a friend’s RV in their driveway. I thought I had long left my pride about where I’d live behind during my nomadic year, but this did feel like a low point. It was a deeper spiral around “home is not a place, I am home.”
Then I rented a room in a house with two other women and a boisterous husky for four months. It was the longest I’d stayed in one place in almost a year. I slept for 12+ hours most days. I actually unpacked my 2 suitcases.
In February of this year, a miracle: my own studio apartment. (Right around the corner from Shelby and her partner Chris.)
It’s a trite line to say that Sedona has been significant in my ~hEaLiNg jOuRnEy~ and yet, I’ve never felt more held and held more accountable than in the Coconino Forest. This is the traditional healing lands of several tribes including the Yavapai, Dine/Navajo, and Zuni peoples. No tribe actually lived here, it was neutral territory used for ceremony and healing. It’s a known energy center. A vortex. A hub for spirituality and the esoteric. As my teacher Daniel Foor says it’s a “unified field.” One of the first lessons I heard whispered in the winds was that what is accessible here, the felt connection so many feel, to take that everywhere. All land is sacred. All land is stolen.
It’s worth noting that this place I love so much is far from perfect. This is a small town, less than 10,000 people. It’s not a diverse place in terms of ancestries represented. The rich, textured Southwest architecture, fashion, and culture that might be the image in your head are notably absent here. In place of adobe and tile and color are strip malls and cookie-cutter, builder-grade subdivisions. It’s difficult to find fresh, organic, and/or local food at grocery stores, it’s rarely an option at the restaurants. The airport is 2 hours away. The main source of industry is tourism, which does a great job simultaneously fetishizing the native population and erasing the actual history of the blood shed to colonize the land. “Sedona was founded in 1910 by a white man!”
The population is bifurcated: there are the ones here for the spiritual community (I fall into this category) and then there are retired white folks who probably also wanted to escape colder winters and maybe enjoy mountain biking. The former is full of folks deep in their personal process (see also: me.) Many are drawn here to complete something on their healing path/journey/spiral. This makes relating and community building a notch more difficult than in other places I’ve been. “Want to hike?” “Can’t sorry, started my moon today and am honoring my body by staying in bed for the next 48 hours as I process all that I’m shedding from this cycle.” (I have both sent and received that text, tbh.) From my diligent discovery process there are approximately 7 men that live here, all of which are either healing their relationship to the feminine by avoiding women, or already in a committed, monogamous relationship. (I’m being a little dramatic, I’m sure there are 11 men that live here.) Like so many other places in the country, Airbnb has made the long term rental market a battlefield not for the faint of heart. It can be a transitory place, often because it’s “intense” — which is to say, you can’t hide from yourself in the desert for very long. Everything you’ve ever heard about Guru and Goddess culture is true. There’s a lot of bullshit, ya know? Some a parody and totally harmless, and some straight up dangerous.
Sedona, just like us, contains multitudes.
I’ve never felt more companionship, reflection, co-regulation, and accountability than I do here on this stolen, sacred land.
For the last 12 months, there is no where else I’d rather be.
6 weeks into living here, I wrote in my journal notes app:
“I’m cold and sad in the desert.
This is where I’ve longed to be. This is where I want to be. It only allows me to be as sad as I need to be. Not more— like in a grey, dark, leafless place. Not less— like a place with palm trees and the ocean.
It’s a place to get grounded and to continue to expand. Life. Death. Rebirth.
This is my rebirth. I’ve died in many places this year.”
(Tell me you’re a Pisces Sun AND a Pisces Moon without looking at a birth chart.)
I don’t have a car. I’ve never been this hyper local. Not since before I got my license as a teenager. I left the state once, two weeks after I first got here, for a brief trip to the East Coast. This wasn’t the plan, but it was, it is, exactly what I needed/need.
As I reflected on my time here: how did I end up here, why did I end up here — largely useless inquires— it comes down to relating with the Earth. My direct relationship with the Earth as an elder force has been functioning to address my deepest wounds related to belonging, nurturance, and love. I’ve consciously invited healing from the Earth for the parts of myself experiencing ongoing loneliness and pain. Earth as Mother (and sometimes Father.) Every facet of the Mother. 10,000 different Mothers. It’s not all warm laps and hair braiding.
I have a rich community here. Not many human people, yet some of the most profound relationships I’ve ever cultivated. As I’ve greeted and spent time getting to know my other than human neighbors, so much wisdom and love and beauty has been revealed.
Some other-than-human kin I’ve been relating with:
I’ve healed my relationship with Rocks (iykyk). The first 5 months here, I’d have coffee while staring at Schnebly Hill. On hikes around Airport, I’d perceive the Hill as a council of elders. Witnessing me in some of my deepest pain. I’d offer my tears to the land. “Thank you” I’d hear. “You don’t have to carry this anymore.” I’d hear. “This process is nourishing for us.”
You can get to summits at high elevations rather quickly here. It’s almost always a psychedelic experience, once upon a time this was the ocean floor. It’s a paradox you can tune into: at once being on top of a mountain and at the bottom of the ocean.
The first time I hiked Courthouse Butte, I was brought to my knees. I met the most powerful mountain spirit I’ve encountered yet— so friendly & regal. Want to know a great antidote for anxious attachment? Spend a lot of time with the same mountain. It’s literally always there. And they recognize me. My longtime friends laugh but also validate that I have this thing where humans often don’t remember that they’ve met me, or recognize me. These red rocks? They say “hello, again.” They say “welcome back.”
In the spring, the ground was covered in the dignified, elegant evening primrose. Visually, they popped off the red dirt. The green leaves a perfect compliment. Their scent so subtle, you really have to get up close. The closest association I could reach for is Clinique Simply. They are pollenated by moths at dawn and dusk, no bees in sight. When in their presence, their energy is such a gift. I find them to be the opposite of another beloved, Datura. They are the Maiden to her Mother. So airy. Sprung up after a very snowy winter, and a very wet spring. They can open and close their petals daily, to conserve and protect themselves. Each time I admire them, a few folks walk by remarking at how shocked they are there are flowers in the desert in the spring. How could something so dainty and sweet be so prolific in the face of so much harshness?
The juniper trees here twist. Contorted in a way that makes me believe that the first yogi’s were surly trying to be like the trees, expressing the energy of the ground from which they rise. A different kind of movement than we usually see from trees (i.e. dancing in the wind) and if you stand before them long enough, a larger invitation to see all bodies as beautiful.
The javelinas! Previously I’d only known “Javelina” as a Mexican restaurant on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. These little “danger pigs” take some warming up to, in my experience. Their sound is unsettling at first. Their babies are some of the most precious little babes you’ll ever see. Family people, always shuffling around in “squadrons.”
The lizards. The smalls! I’ve found them to be a reminder to slow down. They are so tiny and so skittish, always making me aware how big and scary I must be from that perspective. Plus, the little dinosaurs feel timeless in a way we can rarely access with our own eyes.
I’m sure that Shrub Jay’s are lovely, but to be frank, I find them belligerent.
Datura, a beloved ally. The first time I saw her this year, after her winter hiatus, in mid-June I shrieked with delight. It was exactly like seeing a friend I hadn’t seen since the fall. Stunning and strange. Will hurt you if you don’t respect her boundaries.
Vultures—my longtime allies that I could now commune with daily. I could go on and on... A sign of a healthy ecosystem. A place where it is safe to die. A sign of death, but not killers. A necessity in the system, transmuting. Rebirthing. Protectors. Community beings as well that go by many names: a kettle if in flight, a committee when in trees. (When they are in trees, they look like they are imitating Christ on the cross: wings spread wide atop branches, soaking up as much sun as possible.) A group of vultures that are feeding is termed a 'wake'. Their early morning spiral flights are hypnotic.
Tarantulas! Part of my spiritual path has been a deeper exploration about the nature of what is scary, or evil, or unsettling. Inching towards non-duality. Nothing is outside of us. Nothing is separate. Mostly when I see them, they feel scared to me. I’m this huge being traipsing through their home. They stop, the scrunch up. I stand still. For as long as it takes for them to un-scrunch and keep walking past. Deep healing happening with each passing second. What I used to be the most scared of is actually terrified of me. Here we are, repatterning.
On a more subtle, energetic level, the summer has been a teacher. It was so slow and so quiet. This was a new experience for me: the opposite of a lifetime of non-desert-summers. Summer in the more temperate regions I've spent my time was frenetic. Everything, everywhere, all at once was crowded-- for it would soon be cold, dark, and rainy/snowy again. This was also my third summer removed from the corporate world, and I still find myself detoxing from the late-stage capitalism/patriarchal pace. Deeply grateful to be held by a place reflecting and amplifying a nourishing slowness. Around the summer solstice, I found an existential dread push up from the depths of my body—usually reserved for the long stretches of evening darkness near the winter solstice—happening in the seemingly never-ending morning hours after my now up-with-the-sun 5am wake up time. Another season, another opportunity to welcome ourselves home. Regulate in the light, and the dark.
So I just continued to drink it in. Quench my bottomless thirst for slowness. Again and again the message comes through: there is nothing to change. Stay slow.
There have also been teachers I thought that would be here, but haven’t appeared as I thought or wanted or planned. Notably the monsoons. This was a unusually dry summer. Sure, it’s the desert, but typically there are weeks of daily monsoons in the summers in Sedona. This year, I could count the number of rainy days on my hands. The tension I felt, the tension the land felt, felt like edging. Even the storms wouldn’t come this summer. The sky would darken. The wind blew in big, anticipatory gusts. The lightening was there. The sky changed into the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. But the wave never crested. The rains never dropped, only to be admired and desired from afar. The sheets like Nature’s store window displays. Look what we have. Look what’s possible.
For years when I would daydream out loud about moving to the desert it was always met with the same response: it’s so miserable to live there, it’s so hot in the summer. As someone with exactly one desert winter and one desert summer of experience, the theory that I’m currently working with is that every location has a couple/few months where it is miserable to be outside. In the Midwest and the East Coast where I’ve spent the most time, this was approximately December though February. It was so cold, that if you went outside without proper precautions, you’d die. It wasn’t uncommon to not see the sun for weeks at time. Here in Sedona, yes, it’s hot in the summer. In July and August it’s over 100º most days. And that’s okay with me. I’d trade an Arizona July for a Michigan February anytime. It’s about picking your preferred extremes, not avoiding anything. I prefer the sunny, cool winters with some snow and the hot, dry summers to brutal blizzards and humid summers.
Since I’ve been here, I’ve started my ritual and healing arts business. I’ve started quilting again. I’m writing! I’ve loved. I’ve processed. I’ve accidentally/on purpose become celibate. I’ve cried. I’ve danced. I’ve fucked up. I’ve lost. I’ve stayed sober. I’ve vowed to give my self and my life to the Dharma. I’ve hiked nearly every day. I’ve healed my relationship to the sun and my skin is the happiest it’s been in my entire life.
I don’t know how long I’ll be here. It doesn’t feel like it will ever be long enough. A beloved time with a beloved teacher that I’ll carry with me for the rest of my days.
