OUTSIDE MOAB, Utah — Sometimes, the earth speaks to us.
When it does, it offers a lesson.
I’m in Canyonlands National Park. I stand now on a mountain that once was an island. I look out at a high desert that once was covered by water.
Clouds and haze cover the sky. They diffuse the sunlight, making it softer. It’s warm and dry. The temperature at the top of the mountains slides from the low 90s down to the high 80s. Down in the valley in nearby Moab, it’s 100 degrees or more.
The canyons below me stretch to the horizon and beyond. They’re broken up only by other mountains, by natural spires and spikes thrust high into the air and by improbable arches that seem otherworldly.
The soft sunlight illuminates the red rock of the mountains, the reds, the browns and the tans of the canyons and the near-black of the deep crevices. Elsewhere, there are patches of green in varying shades and an occasional surprising blue.
I’m not alone on the mountain that was an island.
Others have come to look at these sights. They have traveled here from many places.
Around me, I hear people speaking in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin and some Eastern European tongues I cannot identify with precision.
They point at sites and talk with each other, their voices hushed but fired with excitement. They take pictures. They pose for selfies.
One little boy from China walks toward the vista, breaks into a scrambled chase when he sees a tiny lizard scurrying across the ground and then stops, stunned, when he comes close enough to see the vast stretches of canyons, crevices and mountains before him. His mother catches up to him, takes his hand and they stand, breathless, as they look out over the landscape before them.
That is the way it is with all who visit.
At some point, the chattering, the picture-taking and the posing stop, and everyone stands for a moment in stunned contemplation of a place created by the power of nature and the unceasing inertia of time.
What a force time is.
These mountains, these canyons, these spires, these arches and these crevices were carved over millions of years. They were produced by disruptions in the landscape more powerful than any weapon yet created by humankind.
Once these canyons were covered by fresh water and the spot where I stand was an island in a vast lake.
Now it is all rock, sand, sediment and silt, pounded into its current shape by the elements and the weight of time.
Not far from the spot where I stand, one can find petroglyphs, rock art carved into the walls of mountains and canyons by Native Americans. Some of the art is 3,000 years old. The newer petroglyphs are 200 to 400 years old.
It matters not.
As these mountains and canyons measure time, 200 years or 400 years or even 3,000 years are but an instant, a puff of breath carried away by a wind that never slows or ceases.
I stand on this mountain that was an island and marvel at what this land has seen and known. It was here for millions of years before I was born. It will be here for untold generations after I have breathed my last and everyone and every earthly thing I have loved is as ancient and obscure as the primitive art carved into these walls of rock.
I look at the people around me. They come from many spots upon this globe. They speak different languages and pray to different gods than I do.
But for this moment — this brief, brief moment — we are linked by a deep appreciation of something so much larger and more enduring than ourselves, by a world that has such wonders in it.
Sometimes, the earth speaks to us.
It teaches us to walk through this world — to live this life — with a humble heart.
