It's 98 degrees.
It's 98 degrees and it's 7:30 a.m.
It's 98 degrees and it's 7:30 a.m. and I'm hiking in Arizona.
And the temperature is rising.
Everything is dry.
The earth looks like its craving a drink. The brittleness of each step is heard as I walk through the rock and sand of the path. The quail run across my path as if the hot dirt causes them to move faster looking for shade.
As I look at my phone I realize at 8:15 it's is now 102 degrees and I feel the dryness in my bones and my mouth and I'm thirsting for water so I pause and take a drink. In that moment I hear the sounds of what has created their home in this treacherous heat and how they have adapted. I find a rock and I pause.
I take a moment to reflect in this heat searching for life. Asking how can anything live here. It's so damn hot. I'm looking for some vibrancy. Then I see it. A pop of color other than the brown and green from trees and cactus.
This bush with yellow flowers thriving in the midst of a dying tree and rocky road. So I sit and marvel at its beauty and how it stands out in the midst of everything else.
We wonder how can we live in the midst of it.
We are thirsting for water that can quench our thirst and nourish our very being.
We are a people, what seems to be in a dry and desert land.
We are in a place that seems baron of any morality and hope.
I agree that we need to address, push back, end, resist and stand against the tyranny that is happening and not just play nice. But in the midst of the treachery of a desert one must take care of one self and pause.
For a drink.
Whatever that drink is for you - please pause.
Reactionary tactics is what got us here.
Response to the tactics is what can take us somewhere new.
My pause for a drink allowed me to see the beauty that is around me in the midst of what seemed limited.
My pause for a drink allowed me to see the beauty reflected back at me.
Drink your water. Stay hydrated. Pause in the midst of this desert of tyranny and allow that pause to guide your next step. Hopefully that next step will be done in love.
Wake to love. Wake to you. Wake to each other. And like Nelson Mandela said, "I dream of a (Africa) world that is at peace with itself."
❤️Imani