Man Needs Colors

At the Valley of Fire in Nevada the rocks are amazing shades of brilliant red, some almost pink in color.

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Some of the mountains of red sandstone can easily crumble to the touch while others have lasted for thousands of years.

Scientist suggest the Aztec Sandstone formed 150 million years ago from shifting sand dunes.

The park was designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1968.

The park in its brilliant red has reached record temperatures in the summer of 117 degrees.

Record lows have bottomed at 12 degrees during the winters.

The average temperature in the summer is between 100 and 105 degrees (June, July and August). The average winter low is 38 degrees in both December and January.

“Man needs colour to live; it’s just as necessary an element as fire and water.”

— Fernand Leger, French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker (1881-1955)

The Joshua Tree

A tree of twisting and turning with roots that grow deep into the desert inching along for water that other plants cannot reach.

The tree has leaves that stab like little daggers.

The Joshua Tree is named after the Prophet Joshua from the Bible. Like the tree, Joshua was known to be a man of strength. He was the leader of the Israelite tribes up until Moses died.

The trees only grow in one place... The Mojave Desert. That massive land area consists of 47,877 square miles and is the driest desert in North America.

Amazingly, the Joshua Tree can survive for up to 1,000 years.

The English name of Joshua means “Yehoshua” in Greek. The word Yehoshua means Yahweh in Hebrew and “Yahweh is Salvation.”

“Desert sky, dream beneath the desert sky. The rivers run but soon run dry. We need new dreams tonight. Desert rose, dreamed I saw a desert rose. Dress torn in ribbons and bows. Like a siren she calls (to me)”

— U2, Joshua Tree Album - Song: In God’s Country

In the song that was written by lead vocalist Bono, the desert is used metaphor for "spiritual drought".

Just Listen

He could have talked for hours, never asking me for a penny. It was as if his sign was a disguise for friendship or connection. I simply tuned in at the right time. 

One of the things he talked about was his injured leg. He told me that he got bit by a spider and the aftermath landed him in the hospital.

Today, the spider bite is healing. However, he still has trouble walking for long distances as the pain radiates from the outside of his skin inward and down to his foot. 

“One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say.”

— Bryant H. McGill

Looking at what most refuse to see

Everyone passed her by, most refusing to make eye contact. “Sir, have you got a cigarette,” she asked one man as he shook his head and continued. “Ma’am, do you have a smoke,” she asked a woman who refused to even acknowledge someone spoke to her. Never asking for money, she only wanted to continue her love affair with nicotine.

“We lived in Las Vegas back in 1978 and left… but we came back in the mid 90’s,” she told me while sitting in her husband’s wheelchair. “This is his,” she explained while pointing to a man sitting upright against a trash can. The woman then stated, “He has no legs – lost them both due to cardiovascular disease.”

I asked her what the dried blood on her forehead was from. “I tripped and fell, busted my head wide open. No one helped me, but the paramedics,” as she went into detail she talked about the ten stitches under her cap and how she spent 15 hours in the hospital.

Why do so many turn away from unpleasant, sad or dirty? Why do some refuse to take it all in as an effort to learn what others go through? Why does a mother or father not stop and talk when being spoken to as a way to teach a child courtesy should be offered to everyone until proven wrong. Then, perhaps courtesy should be offered again and even again.

“To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.” ― Stephen R. Covey (1932-2012). Dr. Covey died 5.5 hours away from where this woman sat quietly on the streets of Las Vegas. It was a bicycle accident that took the life of Dr. Covey at the age of 80 in Provo, Utah.

Addiction happens long before the injury

He sat quietly with his dog on a bridge over the bustling Las Vegas strip. Alone. His hat sat in front of his knee in hopes of those passing would drop a dollar to help him survive.

“I use to play professional poker,” he told me. As our conversation continued I realized it was not the poker that he lost to.

It was an accident that sent him to the hospital with a back injury. He then almost whispered as he told me that he was prescribed painkillers that he quickly grew addicted to. When the prescriptions ran out, the heroin began.

Methadone is his next step in life as he aims to get off of the heroin.

“My opinion: Opioid addiction happens because of previous trauma long before the injury that led to the prescription.”

— Scott Walker

Why do some grow addicted to drugs and alcohol while some do not? I do not know, but I can guess. That guess would be a previous trauma long before the injury.

The traumas could be any number of pains in life, from domestic violence to war. From child abuse to sex abuse. From witnessing a loved one murdered to watching a friend die a painful death. We all have our own trauma that we learn to medicate without proper help.

Once that medication wears off, the pain comes back greater than before. More detailed than first remembered. More real than reality.

“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”

— J.K. Rowling

A room of her own

She shares only a bedroom with a local resident, but you would think she has a palace. When she describes that room, her eyes light up like a child inside a candy store for the first time.

Previously living on the streets of what some call “Sin City,” she has a special appreciation for clean sheets and a pillow to rest her head on at night.

It is interesting... Today we can look around while standing in a crowd of 1,000 at a large church and see smiling faces from every walk of life wearing their Sunday best. But inside, we are unable to tell what they hide.

Some of those that you see daily have a past that is more painful than your past. Some are struggling with current pain that is undeniably ugly, dark and scary… but they hide it in public to an extent that you would never know. I am not talking about their sins that they participate in outside of the church walls, I am talking about pains thrown at them.

American actor Will Smith once stated, “Never underestimate the pain of a person, because in all honesty, everyone is struggling. Some people are better at hiding it than others.” Truer words have never been spoken.

A Las Vegas Death on a Sidewalk

A Las Vegas Death on a Sidewalk: Her hands were swollen, her face like leather from the overly dramatic Nevada summers, her voice had a quiet whiskey sound to it and her hair a dirty blonde. Just behind her though, the shadow of a younger her… no lines, no age and perhaps a forgotten past. Her words were simple and thoughts non-complex.

She is tucked away on a Las Vegas side street, away from the eye of the public. Everything she owns is within an arm’s reach. Her makeshift home is the sidewalk of a closed down business next to a convenience store.

A bottle of urine sits next to her left leg, two empty cans of beer against the wall and an empty purse under her left arm. Behind her is a “Personal Belongings” bag from an area hospital.

“She wasted and grew so thin that she no longer was a little girl, but the shadow of a little girl. The flame of her life flickered so faintly that it appeared sufficient to blow at it to extinguish it. Stas understood that death did not have to wait for a third attack to take her and he expected it any day or any hour.”

— Henryk Sienkiewicz, "In Desert and Wilderness"

Broken Vegas

The faces on the streets of Las Vegas... some young, some old, some desperate, some excited.

Love Vegas or hate Vegas... you can see the painful side of it by simply walking out of your hotel.

“I only ever play Vegas one night at a time. It’s a hideous, gaudy place; it may not be the end of the world per se, but you can certainly see it from there.”

— Robin Williams

The Natural Wonder

“In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

The Valley of Fire

I took this photo this past Saturday in the "Valley of Fire" park just outside of Las Vegas in the Mojave Desert.

The formations of red rocks are artistic in the way they bend, drop and overlap one another.

On a side note: The Valley of Fire was used as the secret headquarters for the fictional black militant helicopter known as Airwolf. The TV show aired on CBS from 1984 to 1987.