Legendeer | Zion
Last spring, I was in the capstone class of my English degree reading, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. The creative exercises in Cameron's book led me to new creative projects and research. During one of these activities, I stumbled upon a trip called, Legendeer: Zion. Scrolling through the Legendeer website, I felt I had wandered upon my dream trip. It was adventures through Zion National Park, mentorship by respected artists, and collaboration with other participants who housed a multitude of talents. My capstone class was on the topic of creativity, causing me to returned to a more consistent painting and drawing practice than I had been previously maintaining. I also took up ceramics and wrote often. I was finding my creative self again after a few years of head down, institution-pleasing work in college. Legendeer offered a jump start back into a lifestyle of creating.
Legendeer describes this week as an, "incubator" seeking to embed artists back into the world. Initially, I did not fully grasp this concept or realize how much I needed it. Even though there was an application for Legendeer, it felt like a must do, I had to go, no matter what. It felt like I was approaching a point of convergences, like lines of my life with a variety of trajectories were about to find a meeting place. A house in Zion with a wrap around porch became the point of convergence and setting for me to breathe in and out as me.
The founder of Legendeer talked about the idea of breathing in and out. To create, you first breathe in the world, take it in, let it sit with you. Then, breathe out onto paper, canvas, or whatever media is necessary to best communicate your story. Before Legendeer, I was at a place where I felt like art was failing me. I think it is why I picked up writing, because I couldn't figure out how to tell my stories through the art practice I began with: painting. It had become methodical, structured, rules, the freedom and joy was missing. I needed to breathe in, but didn't know it or even have the space and time to do so. I'd forgotten why I began creating, especially with painting, because all I'd been doing was trying to breathe out to meet other people's standards.
I was accepted to Legendeer, then thrown into a blur of graduating, moving, and starting a new job. Before I could finish unpacking my boxes in San Pedro, I was at the Las Vegas airpot loading into vans with complete strangers headed for Zion. Forty of us from all corners of the world were going to spend a week together, starting with stuffy van rides from Nevada to Utah. After entering Zion Nation Park, my van rounded the bend to the majestic view of towering canyon walls bathed in hues of red as diverse as the people in the van, silencing our chatter. I knew in the second it took me to let out a small gasp it would be no ordinary week.
Trying to write about Zion feels a lot like the canyoneering expedition I went on the first day. After a short, but challenging, uphill hike to where we would begin rappelling, I sat for a while and talked before descending into the canyon. I rappelled down, a rush of excitement, then walked the canyon floor, running my hand along the grooves of tan, red-ish brown, and light pink sandstone. This excitement then stillness pattern of canyoneering is what my writing about Zion feels like. I've describe an adventure like hiking Angel's Landing, then began detailing the time I spent sitting at the top of Angel's drawing, and that moment of stillness is the story more personally important.
It is hard to detail the excitement and adventures, then write about the small moments. To some they may seem insignificant in comparison. The small moments are the melody of my week in Zion: slow meals, conversations on trail and in the vans, lazy afternoons watercoloring, pingpong, and a porch swing. Days in Zion were mainly composed of a consistent beat of these little moments, with the occasional measure of rest on a plush couch, and a crescendo or two upon tackling another trail. There is this other driving force, though, of people. If the small moments are the melody, the people are the piano that allows for the melody to fully live. One without the other is possible, but together the sound is full and exuding life.
A small, but pivotal moment occurred in a garage while getting my portrait taken at 11PM at night. The man behind the camera noted how I often look down when I start to smile and asked me what makes me look up.
The people here, I answered, without having to think and without hesitation.
It was uncanny the need we all had for one another and the solace we found with each other among cacti and sketchbook pages. Trying to sit here and write about this feeling involves a lot of deleting, because no one word seem to encapsulate it.
When I spread all of Zion out, take a step back and look at it, I see reds and greens and blues, white mugs, afternoon light, cream colored paper, soft pencil lead, hikes, drives, walks, laughter, tears, stories, talking, and listening. Spread out, I see the Divine all over. "Coincidence" isn't strong enough of a word, "fate" feels to trivial. No happenstance of a week produces this effect of people being led to what they're searching for through other people. It can only be because of grace from the One who created us with a deep need to create.
It wasn't only the thin lines of my life converging, it was the lines of all our lives converging in a way where holes were filled, hope was rediscovered, and for a few moments, the darkness fled.
