Sedona

If you want to take a road trip, you could do a lot worse than drive around in Arizona.



That's what I've been doing this week, with a friend. I've been to the state maybe a half dozen times over the years, but never with as much freedom to explore as we had this week.



These photos are from what many in these parts would agree is one of the most spiritual places in this state: Sedona.



If you are moved by nature's endless ability to inspire, go to Sedona. It is a desert town with enough water to support deciduous plants and fancy resorts. But we didn't go to the fancy resorts.



If you are on a budget, (as I always am) there are lovely and affordable places to stay in this town, at least briefly. The best thing, when you arrive after dark, is to wake up and see the outcroppings that ring this place.



There is so much variety in these formations, each of which have special names I will not burden you with here, and so many different angles from which to view them, that Sedona is a photographer's dream.

It is even more a realm for painters.



Like the Grand Canyon, the sun lights the stage in Sedona. As the sun moves in its inexorable arc, ever higher in the early part of any year, and always lower in the latter half, it illuminates each and every crack and crag and cave in these uniquely red rocks.



Red is a color that elicits strong feelings inside all people. As a writing teacher, one of my favorite exercises is to tell my students that I will name a color, ask them to write what they feel about that color in five minutes, and then hand that writing in.

My favorite color for this exercise is red.



The answers to that particular question tell a lot about the writer's age, class, gender, ethnicity, national heritage, but most of all, about that writer's imagination.

As a writer, I never presume to have any useful words for any other person about their personal quest for spirituality. That is as deeply personal as any journey one takes. But my feeling while in Sedona is that this could be a very good place indeed for you to visit if you are searching in that sense.

Meanwhile, since this is Thanksgiving Day, I'd just like to say thanks for Sedona.

And thanks for red.

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