There are places in Colorado where the water comes gushing out of the igneous rock at temperatures exceeding 110 degrees. These spots were well known to the Native Coloradoans: Utes, Arapahoe. For Chief Ouray, the hot springs that issue from high in the mountains at around 8,000 feet were a known place of healing – both physical and spiritual – for decades.
Water is an amazing healing agent. Walking beside it is calming. Swimming is cooling. Soaking in a hot springs, you can absorb all the mineral nutrients and warmth Mother Nature has to offer you. And rain, yes rain washes away the things that are past, maybe things we would like to forget, and carries them on down the river.
I have only recently learned to be a water baby. A variety of factors caused me not to favor swimming in my youth. But when I returned to the high desert of Western Colorado as a middle-aged woman, my favorite get-away was Chief Ouray’s old haunt in Ouray Colorado. I would go there tired and bruised and come away healed. The vapor cave I frequented was once a hospital and it became mine – and sometimes my church – my place of spiritual renewal – because it evoked such peace and gratitude in me.
This summer-in the desert of Arizona- the temperature inside my car clocked 120 degrees. The water bottle in the console was beyond lukewarm, beyond tepid – it was hot enough to pretend I was drinking tea. During a summer like that, it is important to find a beach, walk into the water, and thereby escape the temperatures over ninety or 100, or 110. What is the use of living next to massive Lake Powell if you never venture in the water? For the hottest days of June, July and August, I went to the beach more often than not. Yet, sometimes my habitual swimming and cooling is interrupted by travel or urgent business.
I returned to the lake in the desert the other night. The last time I swam was on a weekend trip to Ouray. It had been nine days. I missed the water. It seems water is a thing I must have daily just like a walk, or meditation, or prayer.
When I was growing up we had everyday clothes and Sunday clothes; workday activities and Sunday activities.
Ouray is my Sunday place, my church. But Lake Powell is my daily maintenance. One is natural and one man made. One is Sunday best and the other is for everyday.