Once again, we come upon a passing in the desert, this time the low desert, in the Borrego Badlands just outside of Borrego Springs in Southern California. This descanso was aged, but another impressively rendered memoriam, painstakingly crafted with its own pathway from the nearby 78 highway between Borrego Springs and Julian.
I have found the most intricate descansos tend to be placed in the conjunction of the Mojave, Colorado, and Sonoran deserts of southeast California. There’s an obvious explanation for that, as previously mentioned in this column: many Californian Hispanic families live out that way, due to lower housing costs and agricultural employ.
I remember this one quite well. It was no less than 116 degrees outside, while I was speeding by midday in the Borrego badlands en route to my kid’s home in San Marcos, through Julian and over the Cuyamaca mountains down into Escondido and northeastern San Diego county. It was probably closer to 118, if memory serves. Suffice it to say, while there was plenty of room to pull to the shoulder and park, there was no way my dogs were getting out of the air conditioned truck, so I left the truck running and braved the heat for a few minutes to walk this descanso pathway and take a few photos and offer a few quiet words to the deceased. I couldn’t, and still cannot, make out the name on the cross epithet. It was doused in plastic flowers and wreaths to withstand the ridiculous temperatures which Borrego Springs routinely endures, and it must’ve been impressive at night, as there were a good many solar lanterns scattered about the site.
I do like the juxtaposition here with the memorial facing the northern badlands, the San Ysidro mountains in the distance, and the ocotillo cactus trees scattered about the desert. I presume, given all the rock placement for the pathway out from the road, that that deceased did indeed pass to the other dimensions right there on the 78. Not too far from this descanso were a number of Borrego Springs’ infamous claims to fame, the Galleta Meadows Sculptures, a series of 130 freestanding art pieces crafted by artist Ricardo Breceda, commissioned by land owner Dennis Avery. There’s all sorts of large scale creatures displayed, scorpions and dinosaurs and horses, mammoths and camels and prospectors and birds. Perhaps the most infamous one, due to its impressive size and its appearance in ‘swimming’ through the sands, is the Sea Dragon, pictured here with my buddy Mayday (it was definitely nowhere near 118 degrees during this visit, so fear not for her tender paws).
Sometimes I wonder if the transition to the next world, or worlds, is more easily facilitated by deaths occurring in wide open spaces. You know, whether the confusion and discombobulation of a soul leaving a body is more smooth when there’s room to stretch, if it’s quiet, and if it’s not, say, like the madness and chaos of a hundred stories of high rise superstructure falling atop someone via the hell of 9-11. Or the bloody, messy, pulpy nastiness of modern warfare and aerial bombardment and the like. I ruminate on occasion on how newly ascended souls, not yet down the tunnel yet, not yet stepped into the sphere of all-oneness and light and love, looking about their body and the circumstances which led to that soul’s detachment, might come to terms with their passing in the immediate aftermath, especially if there’s still a lot going on back on the corporeal plane, like a burning building, or a burning vehicle, or fellow members of the incident in question, or whatever. You gotta wonder what many newly ascended souls, having died together or near one another, must say to each other, upon realizing they’ve died. A bit morbid, I agree. But think about it. It’s got to be one of those things that must happen on occasion to souls having experienced abrupt, corporeal, visceral deaths, as opposed to passing quietly, under a morphine drip in a hospital room. Point being, I feel like a peaceful death in the desert is a good death. Of course, there’s a counterpoint, in that all these descansos, or most of them, were results of a vehicular accidental death, which almost invariably are not peaceful at all, but rather violent, though they happen suddenly, for the most part. Yet they’re still a blunt force trauma sort of end.
Whomever you are, and wherever you are, my dear fellow sister or brother, I bid your wondrous journey ahead a fair second leg, and hope to someday cross your path, as I crossed your loved ones’ path, the one they intricately fashioned for your marker. It was, and perhaps still is, a spot of Light in the vast sprawl of the Borrego Badlands.