The image caused me to take a deep breath as the weight of the grid bore down. I escaped through wooded oak clusters, brushing imaginary cobwebs from my hair. Sanctuary is not found within four walls but high on a ridge where, lying on my back, I take long breaths. Echoes of the five o clock news fade. The sky trail of jet airplane wisps away.
Blue sky appears.
The resonant call of a hawk echoes off the ridge top. He soars above the hay meadow where the burrows of prairie gophers ripple the land. The winter-brittle stalk of a sage plant pushes into my back. I begin to feel the dawning of connection not to our fast-paced life of politics and economics, but to this high ridge and rusty sandstone soil. I am linked to the earth s skin through the ashes of my ancestors, a blood relative to the wind and woods.