Apacheria - Some Views

Readers:
The vastness of New Mexico's terrain is sometimes overwhelming, when I actually experience it hiking.
Back in the late 1990s, I lived in a small place named Yellow Springs, Ohio. I was once again entering a period of time where I learned more about Zen Buddhism and meditation, prayer, solitude, aloneness, loneliness.
I'd studied Zen before, primarily in relation to reading the wonderful spiritual writer, Thomas Merton, a.k.a., Fr. Merton, or Brother Thomas Merton. He wrote a wonderful book named "The Birds Of Appetite."
I began visiting Gethsemani Monastery in 1990 or 1991. I continued to make annual or sometimes several retreats, per year, to Gethsemani, and loved the silence and stillness that came with practicing the Trappist manner of meditation and retreat, and Zen. A man I met there was Br. Anthony ..... last name was rarely used. Each of the brothers are expected to make some connection with retreatants if that appears to be a natural happening. In the course of their lives @ Gethsemani, most of the Brothers are referenced if a particular issue surfaces during individual retreats.
In my case, I wanted to know if any of the current brothers practiced Zen. Br. Anthony was whom I was referred to. In fact, Br. Anthony was also the care taker of Merton's private retreat, Mt. Olivet. In the course of the decade I went to Gethsemani, I practiced in Christian-Zen retreats three or four times, and sat in Zen meditation with Br. Anthony many times, in a small meditation room set aside in the "dorm" where retreatants stayed.
I learned, through a fellow Zen retreatant from the Northeast, that Br. Anthony was the care taker, and as such could schedule retreats IN Merton's center. I did three separate, and private retreats, one five days; another three or four; another, two and a half days. I walked the grounds in summer, winter, spring and fall, for sure.
The spaciousness of the skies there in the Midwest is not what it is here in New Mexico. I've seen more pure blue skies this year than any of the other six years I've been here.
I'm going to add a few "blue sky" photos.
It's likely, as I refine this, that some of the skies initially will have some clouds, but I'll work on that as I go.
The "blue spaciousness," for me, is Shunyata. That's "emptiness of form" which is just that the world as we see it, simply "is" and the labels we put on it are our problems. Even with favorable terms.
We either "cling" to what we have, or "fear" we will not get what we want.
The thirst and desire and fear are all the ways we attach to the world around us, when impermanence just "is."
Blue sky spaciousness. I love this aspect of New Mexico.