Wash Our Spirits Clean

Starry starry night

The desert sky is pink and subtle, muted like a faded postcard. I miss the astrophysicist, who used to tell me things about scattered light and black holes, gravitational waves and string theory. I understood little but loved the magic — a universe filled with wonder and beauty, particles colliding.

As the pink sky becomes blue black, manmade fireworks conclude for another year, and the real fireworks reveal themselves — first a scattering of stars — blink — then more — blink blink — then millions, sky sparklers, shooting through the night, an infinite tiara crowning the cosmos.

The buttery moon is big and its face bemused. I stare at it as if to never forget what it looks like in this moment. I am asked if I have a vision of heaven. I respond, “Yes… it’s this moment.”

I see heaven in moments such as these, and I don’t want to miss a single second of the wonder and beauty.

“We come and go, but the land is always here.”—Willa Cather

I come to the desert to wash my spirit clean, as John Muir wrote of our national parks.

I trade fireworks in Palm Springs, for the stillness of Joshua Tree.

In this stillness, in this moment, I feel clean.

I have learned to be very still in the desert — it’s this stillness that allows me to see its true and subtle magnificence. It is inhabited by things that endure. From the cacti that store water to survive the dry periods, to the coyotes — opportunists who adapt.

It’s 2:22 a.m., and I am blanketed by stars in Joshua Tree — I don’t want to sleep because the moon, and the stars, and all the night creatures. I am of the desert. I think of Tucson, where I fell in love with the Saguaro and javelinas. I think of Monument Valley, where the coral winds whipped nature’s flute music throughout Navajoland. I think of Silver City, New Mexico, and the infinite lessons of the Gila Cliff Dwellings. I think of the Grand Canyon, and how when I left — a fear-loop played in my head of a Big Wind carrying me over the edge. So I had the astrophysicist take me back to the same spot days later, and I stood firmly at the edge. I was not going anywhere.

I felt the wind protect me, blowing me gently away from the precipice, away from the abyss. I was never unsafe. But I just had to know it.

I can’t step away from the moon tonight. It’s just too beautiful.

The desert is perfectly still in this moment. The desert endures.

The silhouettes of Joshua Trees — exalting up to the sky — the moon, a klieg light for these spiky celebrities. The tree, which is not a tree at all but an exquisite yucca, is endangered. Which means the Scott’s orioles that nest in them and the yucca moth that relies on them — and in return pollinates them — are in trouble, too.

So I see heaven in this moment, and I wash my spirit clean.

I have been on the frontline of an invisible war for seven years and have learned to step away to refresh my soul — the war is still there when I return, and I endure like a Saguaro — spiky but with reserves.

I see my bros out there on the battlefield relentlessly exposing the liars of the lie factories — people with spiritual maladies for how else could they spread harmful toxins and not hate themselves. The lie factories are destroying our world, and it’s time to declare war on them. Time for propagandists to be challenged in a court of law. The problem won’t go away on its own. Declare war on the lie factories so we can live in peace.

In the desert, I am reminded that we are small and the universe is vast.

I wish for a day in the future when I can look back and realize a turning point, when the global community came together to be better stewards of the land. That day will not come unless we defeat the fascist creep.

Do it for the stars and the coyotes, the Saguaros and the orioles. Nuclear blackmailers can go to hell. War is hell for the birds.

In the desert oasis where I am staying, there is a book of Pablo Neruda poems — ‘Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair’. I flip to a random page and read the poem ‘Juegas todo los días’, which translates to ‘Every Day You Play’…

Here is an English translation excerpt:

Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water,
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a bunch of flowers, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind.  The wind.
I alone can contend against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky…

As long as there is poetry, we endure.

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Save the dates: our next Bette Dangerous ‘Speakeasy’ Zoom for paid members is on Sunday, July 16, 4 pm PT. Also be on the lookout for an invite to our weekly Bette’s Happy Hour wellness checkin for Tuesday, July 11, which will be at 5 pm PT. Our July 4 checkin was incredibly special. Thank you to everyone who joined.

We just have to see that the battle for democracy is broader. It's deeper.—David Pepper

I need people to see they're on the frontline. Wherever you live, if you’re doing this work, you are the frontline.—David Pepper

Because the true force that will win democracy is all of us figuring this out and going to work. That is literally the thing. That's the majority.—David Pepper

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“I say a silent prayer of thanksgiving as I walk upon the earth.”-Audrey Peterman.

“May the viral hope for truth and humanity wash away the chaos of these years.”-S.C., Bette community member

“Something Sacred never dies in almost all of us, who can hear the invitation of Truth…”-words from a Bette Dangerous community member

“Nothing but blue skies from now on…”-Irving Berlin

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