CRETACEOUS SCAPES: A reflection of my being mortal, the land immortal

CRETACEOUS SCAPE 1. A reflection of my BEING. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for the inner and outer scapes of our BEING! Hallelujah for how we might project our internal thoughts on this beautiful EARTH's surface and see ourselves reflected in her horizons.

CRETACEOUS SCAPE 2. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

For eight days in July, I spent all of my waking hours outdoors in the Two Medicine Formation, the rolling Montana badlands. I saw purplish dinosaur bones eroding out the limestone underneath my feet and Cretaceous invertebrates revealing their presence along rock faces in a heiroglyphics of horizontal and vertical burrows. 

Time and time again, after being fully engrossed in studying the ground searching for patterns that would disclose some aspect of a creature that lived here 75 million years ago, I would suddenly look up. The broad open landscape engulfed me. Points along an infinity continuum converged--that of deep geological time represented by the fossils, my presence, and the ongoing future of this landscape. And there was complete silence, mostly...a stillness--even when the whir of flying grasshoppers grew loud or the wind started moaning.

CRETACEOUS SCAPE 3. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

During these days of endless roaming up and down hills, I experienced myself expanding. The vast sky overhead and the land continuing on forever. Does this state of BEING have a name? Rocks pierced my wool-socked feet through the thick soles of my hiking boots. Often I lost my balance on the rubble, sliding, and sometimes falling. The flesh on my hands bled. Temperatures varied. When it was hot, I suffered and drank water until it ran out. Often the days were cool. Then I rejoiced.

CRETACEOUS SCAPE 4. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

I meandered in this vast Cretaceous world while my dear husband, studied and recorded the presence of traces fossils in a particular location. I also prospected for trace fossils in these meanderings but allowed myself the luxury to indulge in playing with my imagination, my connection to the Earth, and my BEING an artist.

With delight, I experimented with this cow skull in the wide landscape. Moving it around, turning it over, and examining it, I once again felt all of existence converge--the past (this time the more recent past of this animal's life), the present (my examination of the skull), and future (when I too have gone). Oh to sip from the NOW of my own mortality and to have my feet grounded in the immortality of the Earth.

CRETACEOUS SCAPE 5.  (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

CRETACEOUS SCAPE 6. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

CRETACEOUS SCAPE 7. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me. Does a walk in your garden, neighborhood, mountains, or wider world expand you? 

Other blog entries about my July 2014 experiences in Montana, as well as my husband's can be found on my blog page "Cretaceous Summer 2014."