When bouldering in Hueco Tanks this early fall, I discovered something profound. I was working on a problem that started with a series of heel hooks and hand-rail maneuvers, placing my body in a completely horizontal position. The crux move then, was to move from this linear position of balance and tension across the bottom of the roof to a far-reaching right-hand ledge which would cause both feet to fully cut, the left hand secure on the final extension of the original rail.

With the roof but five feet from the crash pad, it seems the swing, reach, and connection would be easily done. However, I fell short each of three or five attempts. I grew frustrated for I knew I was physically capable of doing so. The others had completed the problem. I was the last and only to have not done so. They were ready to move to the next problem. I asked, verbally, if it was ok for me to give it another few runs to which the answer was of course (in the wonderful tradition of climbing culture) a resounding yes.

One individual, whose name I forget, stood very near as I worked through the moves again, beginning to crux. And just before I attempted the move, as my hips swung once to the left to gain momentum for the release, throw, and catch, he said in a quiet voice, “Stop telling yourself you can’t do this. Just do it.”

In that instant I realized I had repeatedly fallen short by just a few inches, each time, because of what I was telling myself. I didn’t even have to convince myself I could, rather, just stop telling myself I could not. And I did.

I connected perfectly. My legs cut. My hands held, I brought up my right heal and placed it onto the same ledge which held my right hand, in a undercut hueco for which the area is famous. And a half dozen moves later I completed the problem.

When I jumped down I landed on a crash pad that sported a hand-painted butterfly. Hannah commented that it was her “send butterfly”, a reminder that she can send problems [a climbing term meaning “to complete”]. I was the last to pack my gear, the others had already disappeared through the adjacent arch and cave formed by several large boulders.

As I walked to catch-up with them, I paid close attention to my heart rate, the speed of my breathing, and the exhilarating feeling of accomplishment that raced through my body like a self-injected drug.

And when I further considered what Hannah had stated of the butterfly, a few images and associated connections unfolded that to this day are difficult to describe. That butterfly became a simple yet effective religious-like connection with a super-natural (meaning, greater than what would otherwise be considered a part of the measurable world) animal guide. Believe in the power of the butterfly and you will send the problem. Be the butterfly. Climb.

The internal muscular, cardiovascular, emotional sensation of having completed a bouldering problem is very similar to that of discovering a series of notes applied to a rhythm and subsequent realization of music.

Both share the quickening of my pulse, the warmth of my insides; the giddy sensation of connectedness, temporary expanded vision, and sudden sensation of resolution, a place in the universe.

Both open me to possibility. All three empower. What if these are manifestations of the same? What if connection to a higher power is nothing more (or less) than fulfillment of need to guide one’s self, to create a path where one may not otherwise be obvious and to have the courage to follow it?

If prayer is granting oneself permission to recognize, to see paths and the wisdom to choose one over the other, and visualization is permission to move as desired, then permission to send is a problem sent.

Civil Engineers, blind to the designs they create. Road builders as minute as the worm eat so that they may move, moving in order to consume. They assist in the decay of fallen trees and the crumbling of stone, insuring that the life pulled from the earth to support the giant is returned; repaid in full an extended loan.

Cut into the earthen skin of a New Mexico plateau, Chaco Canyon was once the home of the Anasazi. Skilled laborers carved at the solid rock, forming vertical stair cases and footpaths hundreds of miles long in order to conduct centuries of trade and travel. Their walled ruins remain as a testimony to one of this continent’s most incredible civilizations.

We are so pleased with ourselves when our hands have created objects that survive a few hundred years, a millennia, or more. But the breath of two thousand degrees consumes road, humans, and their homes. The mountains that the flowing rivers of lava envision and rush to fulfill persist for millions of years after we are gone. Our feeble attempts at mourning for the dead will go unnoticed when the fossils of ancient life lie secure in their earthen bed.

I have seen walls that welcome the light of the desert, morning sun. I have been within buildings who’s baked clay and mortar kept prisoners from freezing; alive so that they could be slain the following day. I have placed my hand on the walls that felt the radiance of bullets whose projectile paths were stained with a human heart.

Some walls hold within.
Some walls hold out.
Others cannot bare
the burden we
place on
them
and
fall in doubt.