I feel, shortly after reading The Doors of Perception, 1954, by the great Aldous Huxley, I have, finally, the words to describe the experience I have repeatedly been recalling for the past month. The experience, feelings, awareness, I am attempting to re--collect into symbols, language, is of the valleys in Sinai. Specifically on a warm December afternoon, during our, me and my closest friends, stay at Al Karm Eco-lodge, South Sinai, Egypt.
I woke up many hours ago, when the sun hid shyly behind the furthest and tallest ridge in sight. Which now I recognize to be the most northern ridge of St Catherine. Its shape from a Satellite’s perspective similar to the curved birds I drew flying under the circular sun of my childhood. From my perspective the walls seemed infinitely carved with swelling curved longitudinal lines flowing rapidly towards my bare feet. My toes floated atop the finely crushed granite which collected at the bottom of the Valley‘s curvature. Their sharpness reminded me of stepping into a hot bath with cold feet; a shock to the senses forcing you to tread lightly--to float.
The sharpness rose into my crevices, a dusty granite cube shuffled and squeezed itself between my toes. As it warmed against my skin it began to change color, the dust washed away by the sweat that puddled in the crack between my big toe and its neighbor. The cube, once as pale and freckled as a quails egg, turned deep crimson brown. My eyes squinted as I squatted to pinch the cube out from in between my toes. With the sun to its back, the saturated cube fit perfectly into the cracks of the ridge beyond; I could especially see this when I shut one eye and compressed the space between them.
I squinted harder and harder until I could divide the cube into smaller symmetrical shapes. Its faces covered in microscopic crystalline worlds, were infested by tunnels and caverns, shaped over millions of years, much like the valley in which I stood, by water. This cube belonged here. And I as much as it, belonged here. My form, softer than the rocks below me, fit into the spaces between.
My mind viciously attempting to navigate the "labyrinth of endlessly significant complexities", swirled out of control.
Suddenly I felt dizzy, my mind having grasped the spiraling hand of nature, looped with over stimulation. And with a gentle nudge by a passing gust of wind, I was off into the valley ahead.
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As I was, you might be, lost in the words chosen. Simply squint and squeeze, feel how hard you are trying to concentrate, and then release.
