FUNERARY GROUNDS: GRAND VALLEY (MOAB)

Originally published on September 15, 2020.

Utah is one of the most beautiful states I have been able to visit. My first excursion to Utah was in my early 20’s when my mother and I drove through on our way to Oregon to visit my uncle. We visited a Mormon museum and mostly had a lot strange experiences with people, besides one grocery store that seemed to hire and hoard all the attractive people living in Salt Lake. I learned on this particular trip that flat desert lands displease my mother but I on the other hand, thrive and grow as soon as my eyes can spot the first sagebrush. My second visit to Utah occurred during the later part of this August 2020. The goals of this trip were specifically to travel find the clarity I had been seeking about my life, spend time with my family, and also get some much needed alone time in. I hadn’t seen the large rock formations during my first time in Utah like I did in this trip and as we arrived, I saw what it truly meant to take up space. In my hikes at Arches National Park, I saw such magic I cannot speak of. I saw the land spirits, old families who tended to this expansive area, and the Death Goddess, oh, she was everywhere. She held me the moment I stepped out of the car and I quickly understood why much of my life had been feeling so uncomfortable. I was in a major death cycle.

In the quiet mystery of the desert, I could finally feel in my bones what the most urgent matter was happening and it wasn’t necessarily the current cycle unfolding - it was that my life needed to be saved. I knew that it was only me who could do the saving and I needed to figure out what those steps looked like. I had gotten an ancestral reading from a dear sister and listened to the recording during the trip. The insight I received mimicked what I had been already experiencing within the deserts magic. I had asked for answers, all year I had been asking for answers and my spiritual team was delivering in flood, but now it was up to me to listen, do the work, take action, and make plans. Something. A baby step, any step was needed to fully ignite the next era. At the end of this desert journey, I made the last spot on my to do list, Grand Valley Cemetery in Grand County. To leave without visiting the dead and giving them thanks was definitely not an option. After a little drive from downtown, I walked through the cemeteries open gates. Grand Valley was small and quaint but beautifully surrounded by the vast rock I admired so much.

The time I could spend here was much shorter than desired though, it did not disappoint. I felt some resistance, excitement, and mystery from many of the graves. Some spirits were questioning why I was visiting, some wanted to play, and others wanted to not be disturbed by my footsteps. This time I was pondering my current death cycle, relieved that it had finally been uncovered. By way of this, so many recent events and experiences could be understood with this new lens. Grand Valley felt just as expansive and as the landscape. It felt open in a this specific way that helped me realize that I was indeed outside. Outside of any building or container, I could lift my arms and touch the sky, touch the rock, touch the dirt, and taste the air. I often feel underground in my life and the hot, godly desert is a space that I feel above ground, light, joyful, alive and capable. With a little time to rejoice in these feelings, some ghostly conversations, and a sweet goodbye - back to the road it was and another journey to the desert seats itself in the longing of my soul.

Grand County Utah became officially legal on March, 13 1890 and in 1902 Moab became an incorporated city but was not recognized by the state until 1937 (the population at the time reached 800 and apparently that was the high number needed to become a recognized city). Grand Valley and Moab were considered to be towns of the “wild west”, where the canyonlands provided great hideouts for running outlaws.

Till next time.

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// 1300 Millcreek Dr, Moab, UT 84532 //