10 ... Gabriel Morrisinto the desert to sleep for the night, a pickup truck pulled over, with
a Native American couple in the front.
“Hey man, hop in the back,” said the man in the passenger seat, as
he rolled down his window a crack.
I threw my pack into the back of the truck, and saw that they
already had a couple of riders, a young man and woman also with
backpacks, leaning against the back of the truck cockpit.
“Hey, you guys, how’s it going?” I said as I climbed in, recognizing
them as fellow wandering souls. I was elated to have some company
for the ride—and even more so when I found that they were headed
to the same Mayan ceremony a few days later. It turned out that the
Native couple driving the truck belonged to the family who owned
the land around Four Corners, and they both worked there. They
invited the three of us to sleep on their land out in the desert that
night, and said they could give us a ride straight to the monument
the next morning.
I leaned against my pack in the back of the truck as we contin-
ued down the road, thankful for more synchronicity as guidance and
protection—and yet feeling simultaneously overwhelmed. Things in
my life were happening too fast, making me feel like they were com-
pletely out of my control. I felt carried along by some invisible force,
and I wasn’t altogether sure that it was taking me where I wanted
to be. I needed to just stop my constant movement and rest, with-
out worrying about where I was going or what I was doing next. I
wanted to simply be—in the present moment—for a long while. But
I didn’t know how to find or create a place where that was possible.
I wasn’t even sure if that which I sought was possible to be found,
period. I wasn’t sure where I was going, I wasn’t sure how I would
get there, and I didn’t know if I would recognize the right place when
I got there anyway.
After driving miles through the desert beneath a beautiful starry
night, we eventually arrived at the couple’s home, a trailer parked
in the middle of the vast desert. They made dinner for the three of
us weary travelers, and then led us outside to sleep in their “guest