Taliesen West

This past President's holiday weekend McKenna and I decided to take a quick trip to get out of the cold Utah winter.  As usual, we basically looked up the warmest locations and narrowed the list.  We found ourselves on a night flight to Phoenix.  It was perfect.....!  73 degrees.

As we thought about what next steps I remembered that Taliesin West was actually out in the Scottsdale desert and I had never seen it.

Taliesin West is a most interesting part of FLW's story.... in 1930's, with his 3 piece suit and at 70 years of age, he picked a place literally in the desert on the brow of a mountainous hill far from any services at the time, which were scanty at best and with his small army of apprentices from all over the world and 37 vehicles of supplies he carved out a masterpiece in the desert called Taliesin West.  He was tired of cold Wisconsin winters and fell in love with the desert landscape environment of Arizona.  He experimented and created a most incredible community and home.  It still to this day attracts architects to its' offices hoping to further his philosophy of "Organic Architecture" which he is a pioneer of and as recently recognized continues to further his reach on how design should continue to shape the way people live.

We had a little time to kill before the tour so we immersed ourselves in the book store where we learned alot.  An amazing talent that really did change the way Americans and others live their lives.  If you ever have had a "great room" in your home, you can thank him for that design....  Who doesn't now?

He did things here that were unbelievable.....He used all the natural resources to build Taliesin West, and we got to tour it, touch it and sit in many of its rooms for a couple of hours.  Here are some pics because it is hard to describe.  You just have to experience it first hand

The square red box symbol showing intersecting lines in this picture is the brand logo for Taliesin West.  It as taken from an actual indian petroglyph that is still on the property signifying hands clasping.  It was so cool to see the original stone:

There is something quite extraordinary when you make the physical transition from the outside into the inside of one of his structures or rooms.  There is instant calm, perfect lighting, a sense of openness and even if there are 20 people in the room, it feels as if you could fit more....

He is a master of light and geometry among other talents.  Those two, in particular, are constantly at play.  He uses triangles everywhere, especially in places where the light will cast interesting shadows to cause interest and reflection.  He does this everywhere.....  

He mirrors the slant of a roof line with that of the backdrop of hills and plays with many interesting angles, even fireplaces in almost every room.

Everything about Taliesin West makes you want to linger, and not go.....  I felt similarly at Macchu Pichu, Borobodur, Mont St. Michel or Iguacu Falls.  Places where time seems to stop and the majesty and magic of nature combined with structure is perfect.    

How cool that there are 7 more now to see on this world heritage tour.  In a coming day, I will see the "one" that has been in my imagination forever -- Fallingwater.  The anticipation is growing, and I get pretty excited just thinking that it is within grasp like never before.  Surely I am blest....!

I wonder what Gibran would have written had he hung out here for a while... makes me wonder, mostly it makes me smile.  Being there has inspired me to write, and I can't even write very well.... imagine what it did for these enthusiastic aspiring architects...!  Wow, it must have been amazing to hear FLW teach as they ate dinner at 'camp' as he called it.

McKenna, we made a great memory together no? :  )   I will never forget...!

"He was 30 feet up and he wasn't coming down...."

This is Landon, my oldest, 25 years ago... I remember this time well.  Something about the first one that seems to make a sharper indent on the memory.  Everything is a first....

This little guy had his whole life in front of him.  At the moment, he had just woken up from a nap which took a minute to recover from.... His brow was a bit furrowed, probably worried about something very important..... either what flavor of Gerber he was going to get next or already worrying about the prospect of applying for medical school.   I know now that it was definitely the latter.  He somehow knew back then that the process would be painful and he didn't want to face it...... Boy was it!

None of us could really anticipate what that application process would exact from him and a bit from Mom and Dad.   What is a few essays after all?  How many would he punch out throughout high school and college? A hundred at least....? 

How could I begin to explain what I think the process was really like for Landon?  I can't....  He bore the brunt.   All I can say is what it felt like to me was when you have a seriously long bad nightmare, the kind that feels like you have lived an entire life in that dream, and then you wake up breathing hard, sweating with your hands clenched on the sheets of your bed, scared to believe that you might actually be safe from the sheer terror then just in case, you pinch yourself, and then you actually do wake up and it is much worse in real life!   

That, is what writing 1,000 essays for medical school is like.   I won't say more because I wasn't the guy writing them.... I was just observing and that is how I felt!


There is a quote: 

When you feel like quitting

Think about why you started

What started out as a fairly straightforward process regressed fairly quickly into an ongoing, never-ending agonizing mechanical pounding out of blocks of text, with too many paragraphs, too many words, not always connecting, not always synching --  trying to say too many things.  Sometimes squeezing meaning into fewer and fewer words as the word count consistently said "Over limit". The struggle to sych together the right level of meaning at the right place in each essay... Very difficult that felt like climbing up a staircase of disjointed steps, not knowing where your foot would land next......

Something happened along the way.... unexpected, unintended but so cool.  In the many hours of listening, reading, editing, brainstorming and reflecting on his life for specific experiences that might be useful in these essays I became familiar with a whole host of things about Landon I never knew before.  There were other things that I knew already, but fun to remember all over again.  I came to know Landon in a way that I hadn't before and was grateful he included me in the process.  Some kids can't stand to have their parents involved in their "homework" much less writing about personal experiences and feelings.  Somehow, Landon genuinely leaned on us to support him which was an incredible experience.  I really did so little at the end of the day, but I was overwhelmed often at what I learned.   It was super great to help him find his voice to properly story tell the amazing experiences he had acquired over the years.  I couldn't ignore the array of so many great choices he had made throughout his life which were often the reason why he had something meaningful to write about.  The commitment to athletics, service, his faith and genuine care for others produced wonderful stories that he was now sharing, of all places, med school applications.   It was like pouring over his personal diary of things that mattered the most to him.  I became much more aware of what was really important to him and how carefully he wanted to portray the true meaning of these experiences.  He took great care to word everything just right.  It was really really special to get to know him on a deeper level in such an unexpected way.

It started with a story about Drew, who I have written about before.  Andrew was a special needs kid who Landon had worked with for years.  The first story he ever told on his first application and first essay began with: 

   "He was 30ft up in a tree and he wasn't coming down.  No one else could coax him down from his perch.  How in the world was I going to do anything different....."

The story goes on to describe how Landon did get him down and he did with amazing intellect and skill.  Talents he honed well so early in life.  I had never heard that story before.  That was the beginning....

I learned a few things going through this process....  I learned he had some talents I would never have, not in a million years.  I learned that he knew what those were and that they were important in his life.  Mostly what I learned was that the true purpose of that mind-numbing application process might have a lot more to do with him learning about himself than any school he might get into.  That was the magic of it all.  I am not sure if he saw this like I did, maybe one day he might.

I read this quote recently and thought it was so fitting of his multi-dimensional character:

“A doctor should be a clown at heart, a scientist at brain and a mother at conscience.”

As we wait to see who reads those stories and ultimately decides his fate, this grateful father is content to know the contents of his sons' heart regardless of the outcome.    

Landon, you are a great writer, an excellent storyteller and a most excellent human being.  In a coming day, when you find yourself scrubbing up before heading into some complicated surgery, I hope Drew's story comes to you and inspires you as you go work magic again on someone else in need.  

I will remember that long summer of med school essays..... 

"it was the worst of times, it was the best of times...!!"

Desert Reflections

The landscape was stark and lifeless but bright, so bright it hurt the eyes.  So bright, yet nothing to see.... The Utah desert is incredibly varied.  Some parts have blistering white sand and azure blue skies. The bonneville salt flats.


Have you walked in the desert?  Movie scenes are conjured up in my mind from adolescent movies.  The one that sears the most is Lawrence of Arabia.  A powerful film that left a deep impression on me that included amazing desert scenes that I hadn't seen before.  

What I noticed most, but didn't understand at the time, was when Peter O' Toole decided to cross part of a desert that was supposedly impassable.  Somehow he made it, but almost died.   It enabled him to help conquer a particular coastal city as a result.  That journey though, changed him.

I tend to favor forests but deserts have a certain appeal.  They have hidden lessons....Many who have traveled them find them....I am reading about a family who traveled the desert wilderness for 8 years. A guy named Nephi tells most of the story.  Moses was another.  40 years wandering with thousands.... I guess it took longer for them to learn what they needed to. John the Baptist was raised in the desert.  He learned what he needed to..... and although I hesitate to mention so close to other biblical names....... but I must, Mad Max also learned a few things out there as well.....

 What is it about the desert?

“God takes everyone he loves through a desert. 

It is his cure for our wandering hearts, restlessly searching for a new Eden...

The best gift of the desert is God's presence... 

The protective love of the Shepherd gives me courage to face the interior journey.”

                                                                                                                         ― Paul E. Miller,

I find this fascinating.  The day this picture was taken I wasn't taking any spiritual journey, I wasn't doing a reflective retreat with a solo experience, rather I was taking some pictures of things that caught my inner eye.  I did feel it beckoning though..... The solace of being in the middle of a desert is an awesome thing to consider.

“The thing about tears is that they can be as quiet as a cloud floating across the desert sky.”

Do we have to go there?  Will I know the time and place?

I have been to the desert.  Many times.  I believe this quote.  I believe it is one of the things we each must do in life is traverse our own wilderness and personal desert.  There are lessons that can only be learned there.  It is supposed to be solitary, strange, soulful and scarce.  

“I shivered in those
solitudes
when I heard
the voice
of
the salt
in the desert.”
― Pablo Neruda

One of my all-time favorite books is "The Little Prince."  The entire story practically takes place in the desert.  We get an inside glimpse of a most remarkable person who finds his way, and more importantly, we find such deep life meaning with a simple plane crash (reminiscent of the "English Patient" themes) in the desert with just a few interactions this solitary figure experiences.  Reading it again makes me wonder if it was just a dream--just lovely hallucinations, yet I know in my heart the lessons are absolutely real.

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence, something throbs, and gleams...”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

It creates a certain kind of vulnerability where we are stripped of all things and we are laid bare in our essence to our creator.  It is a purifying walk.  No one can help us.  It is the ultimate solo gig.  If you haven't traveled across your internal desert yet, you will. I believe it comes to all of us.  I think some of my own are traveling it now.... they may not know it, but it has occurred to me.  I can sense it.  I am anxious to see how they come out on the other side.  Is it ok for me to hope they find God there?  I am praying they will, as I know I have....


“But in the desert, in the pure clean atmosphere, in the silence – there you can find yourself. And unless you begin to know yourself, how can you even begin to search for God?”
― Father Dioscuros

If you are in your desert right now...May you find, after experiencing the rough grist of wind-whipped sand, the strength to carry on with the clarity,  peace, and purpose that you need to look forward with new light and new eyes.