Equinox sunrise prayer paddle

The Church of the Double Bladed Paddle equinox sunrise prayer service is at Lake Caballo.

A light wind combined with monsoon full creeks flowing strongly from recent storms in the mountains, tickle the lake surface into tiny bumpy breakers. The yellow Scrambler Ocean Kayak, built for surf, prow turned into the slightly choppy water, rides with eagerness cresting and gliding in a way no flat bottomed lake play boat ever could. Paddling this now vintage vessel designed with such inimitable grace and beauty to surf ocean waves, is a sacrament. All kinds of nostalgias for salt water paddling wake.

Do this in remembrance.

I lose myself in the fluid, magic dance of light on water.

Another sacrament.

Gulls mew overhead.

Buzzards (turkey vulture - Cathartes aura) stretch wings and gather into lakeside cottonwoods to warm themselves in the first rays of sun, setting this oasis solidly in the northern Chihuahuan desert.

Lest, in all this abundance of water, we forget.

As the rising sun crests the mountains it gilds the western shore, making the old Scrambler translucent and briefly, radiantly new.

The eddy line is full of charred debris washed down from the burn scar of that terrible Black Fire in the Gila National Forest a few months ago.

The early morning desert air smells of woodsmoke.

Even waterlogged, after having travelled miles in rushing storm torrents along creeks and arroyos, this debris still carries a strong scent of wildfire. I inhale lungsfull, grateful to be here now, in a kayak, on a lake, at sunrise.

Then it's back to more fabric printing. With just over two weeks until Southwest Print Fiesta, I am a scurrying hamster on a wheel with all I want to do.

I do, however, carve out some late afternoon time for an equinox hotsprings soak.

It is still pretty sunny and warm out there but summertime highs are tempered now to tolerable levels.

Time to sow coriander maybe.

Slo-bolt or not, my spring sowing certainly didn't like the long hot summer.

The summer crowds are gone gone gone. The lake is all my own again.

Equinoctial greetings wherever you are. May balance be yours and the light always mesmerizing.