THE WARRIOR OF SPIRIT

I gave myself a gift for my 60^th birthday; a week in the Arizona desert with my Yaqui Indian teacher, Lench Archuleta. “The second stage of your ‘warrior’ training,” he had said to me on the telephone before my arrival. I had done the first stage two years before.

It was a deeply meaningful week. On the last day of my training, before my departure, we got in Lench’s pick-up truck and headed out into the desert on the dirt roads of the nearby public lands. Though it was still early, the heat of the day was beginning. We passed a coyote standing by the side of the road, and saw a hawk sitting on a fence. To be in the midst of a saguaro cactus forest in the full bloom of late spring is a beautiful thing. The craggy “sacred mountain”, our destination, had a glowing halo of sunshine behind it. We said our prayers and sang our songs to the Spirit of us all, and we headed back out toward the main road. We had been in this area and driven these roads every day for a week without encountering another human being, just the birds, rabbits, and the buzz of the occasional insect.

But, as we came around a bend in the road, we saw a dusty, dilapidated, black pick-up truck. A fender was off of it on one side and it was covered with lots of dents and dings. There were some full trash bags in the back. We looked to see who might belong to this old truck. A little ways away from it was a middle-aged man, bent over. Cautiously, we backed up to get a better look and to see what he was doing. He wore jeans and an ancient, threadbare, white T-shirt. Two holsters were strapped around his waist; the kind with places for bullets. And, there were the bullets. One holster held a very small gun, the other, a much larger one. He held some sort of stick or long-handled tool in his hand as he went about doing whatever it was he was doing. “What are you doing?” we asked him. “Cleaning the desert,” he answered.

And so Lench and I listened to his story. His name was Terry Rosenberg. He showed us a Michigan driver’s license to prove it, though we hadn’t asked for proof. He drove a catering truck for a living in Michigan. He had bought a small home for himself and his wife in a nearby town to escape the Michigan winters. “I wanted to bring my children and my grandchildren, and my friends here to show them how beautiful the desert is,” he said. “But, when I brought them, it was full of trash: bottles, cans, empty shell casings, plastic bags, you name it! I had to do something! I started coming down here every weekend and filling my truck with trash and hauling it to the dump. Then, I called the Bureau of Land Management and told them they had to help me. They said that they would give me trash bags, and to call them when I had a whole lot filled. They would come and pick them up to dispose of them. I’ve got a whole slew of full bags down under that tree there.” Sure enough, he did. He said that the BLM kept their word and disposed of what he collected. He said that cleaning up the desert was how he spent most weekends.

We thanked him for his work and Lench retrieved a beautiful green rock from his truck as a gift of appreciation for Terry Rosenberg.

I flew home that day to my home in Marin County, California. I love the green, rolling hills I pass on my way to work each day that are such a contrast to the stark beauty of the desert. I love to see the fog drifting over those hills so gently on some early mornings. Beauty comes in many forms.

I had gone to the desert with Lench to learn more about courage; physical courage, as well as emotional and spiritual courage. He had brought me many important lessons that week; lessons I make use of in my personal and professional life on a daily basis. Lench is a great warrior trainer!

But, the lesson of Terry Rosenberg also stays with me. It is a great comfort to me to know that against the tide of thoughtlessness and the consumption that threatens us daily, Terry Rosenberg drives from Michigan to Arizona in a beat up old pick-up truck to clean the desert. A true Warrior of Spirit!