Abyssal Intimacies/The Red Breath of the Canyon

The sky shifted between pink and violet. Never before had atmospheric phenomena seemed so surreal to me. The scene brushed against the supernatural in a hypertrophy of the natural. When confronted with the colossal folds of the Grand Canyon, one tended to speak of faults; someone had said the night before in the lodge’s fireplace room that a geological “bombing war” had taken place in these gorges. Yet all of this fell short of capturing the sense of ultimate harmony that condensed within me so intensely that no word seemed adequate. I kept reaching for you, and you kept reaching for me. The air smelled heavenly of juniper and dust. We followed the South Kaibab Trail. I may indulge in a little fantasy. I had only my hiking clothes, barely more than what I wore on my body. But perhaps you, my beloved, enjoy this small digression.

Later we went for a walk. You had asked me to wear a skirt and nothing underneath. I felt every breeze between my legs like a secret kiss of your attention.

We walked side by side. Deeply engaged in a comparison between the sensations of the Australian outback and the cathartic backdrop of the Grand Canyon. You brushed against me, a delicate touch between my shoulder blades. I understood you as clearly as if you had spoken. I leaned forward and lifted my skirt for you, my beloved. You opened me tenderly with your urging. I moaned involuntarily and received your thrusts with a pleasure I had never felt before. I asked you to come inside me.

“My love, please, come for me,” I whispered.

Yet you wanted to continue knowing me fully—and I loved that. We made love at the edge of an abyss. The Grand Canyon, up to 1,800 meters deep and over 400 kilometers long, records layer by layer two billion years of Earth’s history. Precambrian gneisses, Paleozoic sandstones, sediments from long-vanished seas—a planetary chronicle etched in products of immense pressure. The sheer walls blazed in ochre, cinnabar, violet. The Colorado River wound deep below us. No skyline, no human monument compared to this panorama. Believe it or not, I felt awe, even as you were in the unique position to admire my behind.

The canyon glowed in matte gold. Never before had I experienced color so bodily. At one viewpoint we encountered a hiking group composed of an anthropologist from Berkeley, an Estonian poet, and two French ethnologists. Their conversation revolved around narratives of memory, indigenous knowledge, and the colonial gaze.

You asked a question about Hopi cosmology. The poet answered knowledgeably. I saw how strongly the quality of her insight moved you. I joined in, driven by the desire to regain your attention. I cited a Yolngu word that means both ‘land’ and ‘body.’

“The subject does not dissolve,” I said. “It becomes permeable.”

I received general approval. My concern was only your reaction. My forearm touched your hand. It could have been a coincidence. A slight pressure: Let’s continue this conversation in private. Your response was unmistakable: Soon, my darling. I think of nothing but you.

I was so happy. No one in the group noticed how celebratory my mood was. Our love life included a potpourri of poetic requests and symbolic acts. As diligently as superstitiously, we extended the lists.

I dreamt intensely during the nights in the Grand Canyon. True dream turbulence haunted me in sleep. Some images I carried into the day; others followed me like a misty tail. I experienced an archaic transformation of my inner world.

I saw my unconscious disappear into a cosmic fissure. But what was my unconscious, and what was a cosmic fissure? Perhaps there was simply too much poetry.

We sat on the terrace of the Desert View Watchtower. Below us, the Grand Canyon breathed in colors of burnt ochre, lapis lazuli, and calcite. The loop of the Colorado River gleamed—a movement in stone. The sun shimmered over the rock face.

A Navajo man spoke about the myths of his people.

“The snake that lives beneath the canyon was never our enemy. It was the guardian of the boundary between worlds. Some believed it devoured the careless. But I believe it only calls them back into the depths.”

I felt my body alert. I wanted to speak, and you sensed it. Your encouragement dissolved a barrier.

“In many cultures, the snake is a liminal figure. It sheds its skin, it does not die. It is not evil, but necessary. The myth does not spoil. Colonists demonized such beings to uphold their order.”

The native looked at me, astonished. Apparently, he had not expected support.