Sunrise over Volcanoes

Sunrise over volcanoes

Four friends are the fares for this cab ride.

We are five friends, at Dark early in the morning. We traipse out to a view unavailable where many of us live out our daily life experience.

Rain clouds from the night before are broken into scattered pieces this morning. We anticipate they will glow brightly as if on fire.

We stop for sweet rolls, everyone with their 'cupa' to hold onto.

Atop the high desert mesa (5700’ elevation) we arrive at our perch like birds awakening in the dawn. The sky lightens and has begun to glow. Camp and folding outdoor chairs are spread out close but not perfectly placed, so each arranges themselves and their chair for the ‘show.’

This is only 35 minutes from where we started. In the desert beyond the west edge of Albuquerque, above the edge of the mesa, we wait. There is a little early moaning and mumbling, all sharing the dawn.

We are overlooking the tops of ancient volcanoes and petro glyphs and have, across the Rio Grande River Valley, a view of the Sandia Mountains on the east edge of the city.

A spiritual event for some. A missed experience for some. A crisis for one causing an interruption for another. All experiences sound different and that is of interest in itself.

We all 5 share a bond of knowing each other extremely well. We in the past, via an intense shared life altering experience, had been unable to hide our real selves from each other. This few days is a chance to possibly reconnect as just a few years before. Or not.

We can see the horizon full around the four points of the compass. This is the desert. It is flat. We can see lots of developing sky color now. One of creations own displays from a place strikingly and beautifully unique if we only open our internal eyes, give up our expectations and not prejudge. The beauty of the stark terrain and the inhospitable dessert at sunrise are refreshing to me. I learn later this beauty is not appreciated by all the others.

Some want to talk, some to whisper and some just be. Differing combinations of this experience are rolling through us and are palpable when the sun is up.

A sunrise with friends, as almost anything done together with people who see each other only once a year, can be filled with wonder. At the same time it can be fraught with disappointment. Another possibility is ambivalence. It was.

The pale, and at the same time rich colors of the rising light are cast over a flat grayish dun desert. The rising dark chocolate colored tips of ancient volcanoes outlined in front of the farthest-in-the-distance fog laced blue and purple back-lighted silhouette of the mountains was one of those sights to be remembered.

Four of us later topped this same mountain taking a tram ride to be able to look back where we were observing this oft forgotten daily ritual that is as old and as wondrous as the earth and sun.

How can people let this spectacle occur and not be moved?

Sunrise is different for each of us. For some it is a reminder. For some it is an event. For some it is _______. I chose to see it as often as I am allowed and am always stunned.

If you are still reading, you know I have gone on far too long. It is a good thing the fare is paid, it would have been a big one.
CABBY