Crossing Over

Temperatures plunged to five degrees while setting up my tent in a snow swale in Wisconsin. Winter can be challenging for some, but I had gotten to a place where cold weather no longer stopped me from being outside.

I stepped out of my tent onto a soft pillow of snow into the chilly air. A ray of sunlight delicately crawled along a row of barren trees, a radical contrast to the storm the night before. Into the solitude of it, I stood at the threshold of morning.

My first winter camping trip nearly a decade ago dropped me into a state of near-panic — below-freezing temperatures, midwest wilderness, nothing but what I'd brought to survive. The bitterness of air on the nose. If I fall asleep, will I wake up?

Upon waking that first morning, nestled in my down cocoon, my perspective had changed. Since then, I learned the truth. Preparation is key. So is being present.

One of my favorite books is The Razors Edge by Somerset Maugham.

The title comes from a verse in the Katha Upanishad. "The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over."

Exploring the edge allows one to experience and see transformation. I had been to a cold, snowy wilderness, and now a hot arid desert, where there is no greater extreme.

Arriving felt like traveling into a landscape of things that did not leave. Dusty, ancient, archaic. Death Valley National Park was the opposite of cold — the hottest place on earth in summer, an artist's playground in winter. Badlands, canyons, and mineral-rich basins offered varied landscapes of shapes, lines, patterns, and hues. It was hard to believe there was so much life. But watching the changing light on a sea of dunes was transcendent — nature shifting from soft repose to harsh contrast in the blink of an eye.

After a half-mile trek in the dark, I arrived at my lookout. The light on Mesquite Flat Dunes was already in motion as the sun began its daily journey across this desert Shangri-la. I knew the sun's angle would soon alter everything, and I wouldn't see things the same way again.

The wind left a dry taste of earth in the air. The quiet that only nature keeps slowed everything, and held anticipation. I stood in the midst of a tsunami of dunes — a different solitude, an ocean frozen in time. I didn't want this moment to disappear. As the light ascended toward the horizon, a soft rippled blanket revealed itself, and velvety dunes transformed from blue to pink, then gold. Shadows shapeshifted, creating the hard edge of a razor — soon crossing over to alter my view.