Where Resilience Meets the Sun

I was searching for life in the desert and instead found cracked mud.

I had been walking now for 45 minutes in search of a perfect, humble bush nestled in the sand dunes. These scenes typically produce nice ripples in the sand and mountain vistas in the distance. But I hadn't found the perfect scene yet. I had heard from other photographers there that it had rained as much in January of this year as usually rains the entire year. I was finding the witnesses of temporary ponds and lakes here with wetness in the sand. As I rounded a corner, I suddenly found this majestic sand dune lined up as a wall heading toward the setting sun and a huge area of cracked mud, dried by a record heat wave the week before. I know, record rains, then record heat wave in the desert all in 2 months. Resilience was saying hello to the wild.

I could feel the earth move. The dune behaved like an ocean wave rolling into the cracked mud. In the distance, a mountain range split the sun into a starburst. Orange sand and sun complemented the blue sky and mountains, warm meeting cool.

I thanked the earth, sky, and water for a sacred ending to a perfect day in the desert.