25 years ago I accompanied a friend on a cross county trek to L.A. I wrote a song about it while on the way, which will be included on my upcoming album. True story! Be on the lookout for “Me and Leslie”. (at Grand Canyon National Park)
I looked out on the canyon at 25 years old thought, "My God, something incredible happened here! Something destructive and violent"; yet it left me in awe of its breathtaking beauty. What is it that makes it so beautiful? Is it just that it is? So vast. So mysterious. Is it the wonder of how it was created? Canyons inside canyons, further and further down and a skinny little river like a thread way below at the bottom, cutting through, this way and that, against that crazy mangled and abused crater like rock. Then, years later, you realize at 50, "That is my life!" Destruction, annihilation, enormous loss, gaps so big if you fell through you'd be lost forever, no one could retrieve you. Yet, through it all, deep down, the sometimes sparkling blue, sometimes muddy brown, powerful waters of determination, inner strength, a quest for life lived true, an undying passion to fulfill a lifelong dream, the stubborn refusal to lay down and die, cleansing renewal and healing of God's love, and your own self love, flowing through the dry battered walls of what feels like an empty lonely desolate canyon. The canyon is life, and the river is the human spirit. We stand in awe of the miracle of the creation and evolution of the canyon and we forget that we and our lives are miracles just as breathtaking and worthy of our wonderment. Everyone of us. We evolve if we free ourselves from the experiences of life that have crushed and mangled us. We don't have to erase the scars, or pretend they never happened. But they don't need to keep us in bondage. They represent the process of becoming our true radiant selves, they are the evidence that something incredible, destructive and magnificent happened here, which in itself is beautiful. In fact, it's a natural wonder.