while it seems like forever since i returned from the grand canyon, the insights i had on this trip make it seem like it all happened just yesterday. over the years, i have found that immersing myself in a setting that is as far removed as possible from my daily life, seems to pause my ever-racing mind. as the initial static from the pause settles, gradually, my mind flashes on the rainbow lines that come from being paused for long enough. and it was just so, on my 8-day 137 mile white-water rafting trip down the lower section of the grand canyon. while i could go on and on about the white-water and how scary and thrilling the rapids were, i choose to reflect on the few moments when my mind paused and flashed on something removed from its usual monolog.
i hadn't really ever thought about rocks. they stood in place and i saw them. that's all, not much anything to it. by the end of day 1 on the river, i couldn't but help think about rocks. my first few thoughts were about how big they were and how they had been shaped. 'had been' being the key phrase in that thought. i was assuming implicitly that the rocks were dead, waiting to be worked on by the river. i was wrong. somewhere along the way in my education, i had gathered that the canyon had been formed by the eroding action of the colorado river. curious though, i had picked up a book on the geology of the canyon. as i read the book i finally learnt that it was the joint action of the sea floor rising and the river eroding that had crafted the canyon. what's more, as we saw flashfloods run rocks and silt into the river, i could see for myself that the canyon was still forming. finally, on day 3, as i stood on a brittle sandstone shelf that i could easily break with my bare hands, i knew how fragile and changing the rocks were. on day 1 if someone had told me that the rocks were not dead but that they were changing all the time, i would have accepted that as an intellectual argument. on day 3, i could 'see' that they were so alive!
by day 5 on the river, i had gotten to know a few other folks in our group of 17. we were comprised of 4 families, a few couples and me. one family had survived katrina, we had one criminal detective with his son and niece, a ceo who lived in NY and his son, a couple from california, a lawyer and his girlfriend from paris and a local family from arizona. if you had blindly drawn cards, you couldn't have created a group that was such a smorgesboard. on day 5 though, it didn't seem to matter who were were and what we did in our routine lives. we were all dirty from the muddy river, we were all getting burnt, we were all always wet, we all had to lay out our own camp every night and we all had to pee and poop in a bucket! something about being in the wilderness had reduced us to being so very similar -- all just human making peace with the elements. rich, poor, young, old, pretty, ugly, fat, thin, male, female, it didn't matter! being with nature had returned us to our basics (well, as basic as it could get). i appreciated how being in the wilderness does that. it strips us of all the frills that we identify ourselves by in our daily living.
i had one other flash in a paused moment. it happened as a cumulation of going through tall, fast rapids. we went through lava falls the largest rapid in north america. while the details of going through each of the rapids is a story worth telling, what has stayed with me is the awe i felt at experiencing and seeing the sheer force of the river. i was helpless and humble in the face of it. i could do nothing but 'hang on' as we hit 10 foot waves. all the control that i seem to have in other parts of my life came to nothing in a situation where i could very well have lost my life itself. that, and the sheer enormity of the canyon, 1 mile high rock faces above me, made me feel like a drop in the river. a drop that goes around thinking it is the ocean until it cowers in the face of 10 foot high waves.
few things strip me of my outward face like being in the wilderness does. i am humbled by the force that is nature. i bow in respect.
is what the billboard for 'Ambition' from the Foundation For A Better Life says. it tells the story of Marlon Shirley who lost his leg as a young child. inspite of that, he went on to become a world class athlete owning world records for the 100 meter dash and long jump. 
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