On Desert Time

Doing Nothing

Hello My Dears ♡

I’m so happy to be writing to you once again. I hope you have all had a beautiful eclipse portal during this past month. I gave myself permission to take the eclipse season as a holiday. I didn’t know ahead of time that I wouldn’t feel like writing or engaging much in the online world - and I found myself in a heightened state of observation and presence for the past three weeks. My inner narrator, the voice that comes online so strongly when the inspiration and urge to write is undeniable, went into silent retreat. It felt really good to honor that withdrawal, and to stay present for the unfolding of life in real time. I wanted to send out full moon and eclipse reports, as these seem to be really popular with many of you readers - however my primary allegiance is to my inner guidance, and all insight pointed towards being present without the need to categorize, process, or report.

Sitting here now in this present moment, I can feel how much benefit I received from being able to integrate the eclipse energies on a cellular, bio-molecular level, before returning to the world of words. Now that I am back, I feel such a renewal of passion for sharing True Nature with you all.

This issue is a bit of a catch-all catch-up with tales from our current roadtrip in the desert southwest. There’s a song recording I am happy to share with you, and video footage from the end of our ski season in Lake Tahoe.

✨ Podcast Alert: I had an amazing conversation with Dan Elwood and Elise Palmeri of The DEEP Life podcast. We spoke about Consciousness, the elements, and astrology as a framework for making sense of our human experience. You can listen to it at the link below, and catch a sneak peek via the video clip. Find Dan and Elise on Instagram @thedeeplife_ and on Apple Podcasts.

Understanding Our Human Nature Through the Elements of Astrology

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On Desert Time

I am sitting in the desert outside of Taos, New Mexico.

There are clouds lazing across the broad, blue sky, and the warming, sweet smell of juniper is wafting on the breeze.

The sun is hot. The shade is cool.

Over one shoulder, snow capped mountains peek over the hills.

Over the other, a plateau unfolds like an ocean - all the way to the edge of the horizon.

Two weeks ago we left the Carson Valley. First we traveled south, along the rim of the eastern Sierras. We soaked in hot springs, met interesting characters, and navigated one last blizzard before turning eastward across Nevada, into the deserts of Arizona.

We stayed two nights outside of Kingman, a place well-known for its by-gone, rich deposits of turquoise. At our camp on the eastern slopes of the Hualapi Mountains, the ground was a bejeweled field, littered with quartz of all colors. Jack-rabbits trounced through camp, unconcerned by our presence. Coyotes yipped during the day. The ever-present ravens kept one eye on our doings, another on the Void. We were reacquainted with dear friends - the prickly pear, cholla, and juniper. And together, we took part in a very important activity:

Doing Nothing.

We call it “the desert reset” and I can hear it happening when winds die down and the steady electro-ecstatic¹ hum of my being pierces the silence.

We did nothing for a full day. Oh yes, we listened to the birds and wind. I cooked food and did dishes. We wandered aimlessly around eyes glued to the crystal-rich ground. We hiked to the top of the nearest bluff. We meditated. We laughed. We attended to the most basic of our needs, and then left space for everything else that is possible when the mind and body are not directed towards accomplishing something.

The next day was the day before the total solar eclipse. We took the long way around to Sedona, using a paper map instead of the satellite algorithm. I drove, satisfied to be in the road-trance, surprised by a new song that came into my field. At first it was just a tune with a certain rhythm that I toned over and over again at a low hum. Then words came along and the song took shape proper. With one part of my being I drove. With another I received a new song. With yet another I gasped and gaped at the spring flowers in full bloom - the highways transformed into a magical garden. The hot-pink penstemon and the whip-like ocotillo with its scarlet flowers were my favorites - juxtaposed against the endless purple lupines, orange desert globemallow and Mexican poppies. The route I chose happened to be the Joshua Tree parkway, and we drove for many miles surrounded by these yucca-family elders. As we traveled south, the unmistakable saguaros came into view, and my heart skipped with a certain delight only these cacti can bring me.

Eventually we turned east and north, the flowering desert giving way to gigantic boulder-strewn foothills, and high-elevation forests of pine still in late winter. We descended into the Verde Valley vía the cliff-hugging, mining town of Jerome; made it to the health food store in Cottonwood just before closing to pick up raw milk, collard greens, and tortillas; and headed into the Red Rock Mountain Secret Wilderness to set-up camp for the eclipse.

Back outside of Kingman I had decided that I would be satisfied being anywhere for the eclipse - wilderness or gas station parking lot. All land is sacred - any place can be a place of power. Still, I reveled in our easy flow to the pureland of Sedona. From our camp we could see the landmarks designating the hidden cathedral we had found two years ago, that I wrote about in the most recent True Nature article: The Arc of Fire. In my heart of hearts, I knew that’s where I wanted to spend the eclipse climax. Yet, I also didn’t want to force our flow in the morning. We both agreed that we would wake up and have our usual routine, and see about the hike.

I am ecstatically in love with the way things flow perfectly when I do not force, push, or coerce the present moment. When I relax, I can feel the energy of Life pulsing through me. This energy seems to orchestrate the very electrons, the dancing particles, the waves of light that condense as my unfolding life experience. Conducting the song of harmony between me and everything else.

Such as, our feet on the pathless path to the secret raven cathedral at the perfect hour in the morning.

Such as, arriving in plenty of time to set up a Juniper essence co-creation for the total eclipse moment.

Such as, holding the vision in my heart of us perched along the red sandstone rim during the totality - then being there in physical five-senses form.

As the eclipse came to its climax, we sat in silence while a dog far out in the desert barked the entire time. My body felt perfused with lightness and a subtle euphoria.

And that was that. Just another moment in time to enjoy and savor for its unique, precious qualities. I said hello to the firecracker penstemon growing out from in-between the rocks. I sang the new song to Victor for the first time. We ate sardines with hot sauce and tortilla chips.

Back at camp we had tea and then did more Nothing.

The next day we drove to our favorite swim spot on Oak Creek. A little less than a mile down a riparian path, the trail terminates at a peninsula of broad, flat red rocks that line the water. I like this place for many reason, one of which is that local custom deems this spot clothing optional. Bare skin, warm stone, blue sky, and a forest barely tipping into spring. The creek was icy from the snowmelt up in Flagstaff, utterly bracing and wholly invigorating. Two others were there when we arrived, and then eventually we had it all to ourselves. Together with the beautiful common black hawk (Buteogallus anthracinus) who perched across the creek on a low hanging branch. With the binoculars we could see they were standing on only one leg.

🌈 I’ll be sending out the Spring Energy Report for paid subscribers in the next few weeks - these reports are a comprehensive look at the seasonal terrestrial and celestial energies, including astrological transits, and information that I receive from my own channel tuned to Nature’s Knowing. It’s also a space where I share more of my inner world and intimate experience of navigating my human experience.

If this interests you, please join us by upgrading your subscription 🐉

After Sedona we drove south, into what we ultimately decided was undesirable heat - the favored zone of the saguaro cacti. It was a blessing and a benediction to walk the same soils that these monolithic desert creatures call home, simply for the opportunity to pick up on their vibes. Cacti amaze me - especially these ancient ones. To be a creature that is so water-wise, so in charge of their own vibration, that they not only survive but thrive in the kind of sun that will cook the flesh right off of our bones…perhaps it’s because I’m a woodland forest elf, I cannot help but stand in awe of these beings.

We received a tip from an Arizona State Park ranger, that highway 191 driving north into the White Mountains was a special place to visit. From a colossal mine in the foothills that spans the width of a large city, the road becomes one of the twistiest routes in all of the United States. The mine operations stop where the Apache National Forest starts, and for the next 90 miles there are no services, and basically no people. We passed two cars on our way to the Lower Juan Miller campground, a free National Forest campground tucked away in a sweet little canyon. The serenity of the spot was amplified by the gentle, grazing deer who noticed our presence but continued on with their own activities unconcerned. In the three days we stayed, two cars drove through the campground and no one lingered. This was another excellent place to Do Nothing, which included meditation by the tiny creek, and finding crystals in the arroyos.

There was a congregation of woodpeckers who were involved in quite a racketeering, whether or not the squirrels were directly involved we couldn’t say. It seems as though they had stuck acorns from the nearby gamble oaks, into each and every hole they had pecked into several of the ponderosa pines from ground level up over thirty feet in the air…hundreds, thousands even. Farming maggots? We wondered. Whatever the reason, it was calculated.

From the White Mountains we traveled into New Mexico, passing through a place I now long to return to: El Malpais National Monument, an immense area of volcanic lava flow and rock formations reminiscent of Sedona.

We had an excellent green chile burger in Albuquerque, before stopping outside of Santa Fe for the night. We took the High Road to Taos, and landed in yet another desert spot - out past Arroyo Hondo, in a place someone on iOverlander named “cell service city” for the rare, few bars of LTE available here in a sea of no cell service. Another wonderfully secluded spot. The only people we have seen were two days ago, when a jeep full of smiling young men turned up the forest service road offshoot we are parked on.

We’ve been doing yoga every day and sleeping deeply at night - integrating all of the work we did during ski season, letting the lightcodes of the eclipses settle into our cells. As a dear friend reminded me, all of us are involved in birthing a new consciousness here on this planet, and it is happening through our bodies - through our cellular matrix. Whatever we do in joy, satisfaction, and exhilaration, is helping that process along. I like thinking about this new consciousness, our evolution as a species, and how we who are living now chose this time so that we could be a part of the quantum renaissance. It doesn’t really matter what we are doing, but how we are doing it. It is the quality of our attention, and the scope of our awareness that determines what we next summon from the field of possibilities into form as the elements of our lives.

Here’s a raw recording of the new song, Listen:

Listen to the songs we sing:

Notes of love

Tones of freedom

Listen to the songs we sing:

Tunes of pure liberation

Spirit’s in the wind and leaves

Hear it whistling

Rustling

Wake up dear

Your mind is free

Know your perfect sovereignty

Listen to the thoughts we think:

I am form

I am Energy

Listen to the thoughts we think:

I am life, everlasting

Spirit’s in the land and sea

Know, it’s changing

Rearranging

Wake up dear, your mind is free

Find your sovereign ability

Listen to the words we speak:

Codes of Light

Spells of Wisdom

Listen to the words we speak:

Invoking quantum creation

Spirit’s in the rocks and trees

See it shining

Abiding

Wake up dear, your mind is free

Own your sovereign destiny

Listen to the dreams we weave:

Worlds of beauty

Lives of thriving

Listen to the dreams we weave:

Lands of earthly enlightenment

Spirit’s in the heart and eyes

Come to presence

Recognize

Wake up dear, your mind is free

Create your sovereign reality

Emma Liles, 2024

Lastly ~

If you’re interested to see a little bit of what Victor and I have been up to with our skiing, the first video below was filmed by a friend who took us into the back country. It was one of the best powder days we had all winter.

The second video is taken at our favorite stomping grounds at Heavenly Mountain in Lake Tahoe. The run is known as the Little Dipper, and we ski there most days with an epic crew of bump (mogul) skiers. Victor is the first skier, and I am the third.

As always, sending tons of Love

Emma

P.S. April 20th is the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction - a synergy that happens once every fourteen years. This time it’s happening in Taurus. Think: inner freedom and expansion, informing our experience of material reality ⚡️🌷🌈💫

1. A term I have adopted from Kaia Ra, author of “The Sophia Code” (Kaia Ra and Ra-El Publishing, Mount Shasta, 2016)