I count myself in that timeless demographic.

My husband and I enjoy revisiting places that enchant us, and Big Bend National Park stays high on that list. There is, of course, much, much more of Big Bend to see than places we’ve explored, but it isn’t the unexplored path that summons us.

We return first to the landmarks, the picture postcard scenes first sighted before the Texas sun turned youthful skin to cancer-prone leather, before hip replacements and blown knees made our hiking the Texas desert a determined exercise in pain tolerance and perseverance.  (In these, our golden years of hiking, Jim has been known to whisper, "Here comes somebody— smile, and don't look dead. We don't want them to think we need rescued!")

We've been there, done that, so why return to a place so demanding one careless misstep, one bad judgment call can mean death, or, worse, to losing oneself in the Chihuahuan desert for a spell before becoming a statistic?

It’s worth the journey because I am a landscape artist, and Big Bend is a beautiful place.

And because there’s something about familiarity of place that simultaneously comforts, excites, and stills the spirit. Landmarks assure us, however lost we once were, that now, sheltered in the shadow of a familiar place, we’re found. (Road signs accomplish the same purpose except without the romance a weathered landmark offers.  Jim and I have had many more heated disagreements following and not following road signs in major cities than we’ve had seeking out  landmarks in the wilderness of the American West.)

Finally, a landmark, especially a harshly remote one like Mule Ears, connects us  to those who have come before and to those who will follow our steps.

Mule Ears is the Ellis Island of the Big Bend, a visual starting place around which strangers define movement. I’ve never set foot on those long-eared peaks—although I’d enjoy hiking them, because bad knees and all, I enjoy ascending mountains—but I almost know where I am in relation to where those pointed mountains rise from the desert. Look out from Terlingua Ghost Town;  meander along Ross Maxwell drive; purchase a cold drink at the old Castellon store; twist, turn wherever long enough, go far enough; sooner or later, somewhere on the horizon you’ll find old Mule Ears offering to give you your bearings.

These scraggly-eared peaks rise from the same place they did thirty-five years ago. Thirty-five hundred years ago. Native Americans found them just as Jim and I first found them; travel to Big Bend and they’ll be there, waiting for you, whoever you may be. Landmarks are not fickle friends. Landmarks serenely mark the land for all. Remarkable.

In a chaotic modern world torn by grumblings, strife and division, I find serenity in the desert.

May you often long for your own landmark, whatever and wherever it may be: It is the imagining, not the footprint that marks a place and makes it real.  Art, at its finest, is simply a vehicle of our collective imaginations. At this moment, we are sharing a landmark. Breathe deeply: the air is clean. A lizard rustles out of the prickly pear to disappear into the earth's powdery wrinkles, disappears without a trace. What is left? Silence so profound, it seems almost visible. Late afternoon shadows feather down onto Mule Ears. The shadows become heavier, then sink, settling into canyons of mystery. Wispy clouds, mare's tails flick the broad, unpolluted sky into gentle, ever-changing currents of air.

The land marked here is more than real: it is a collective vision now, a timeless, spiritual compass pointing to serenity.

SERENITY IN THE DESERT   24” x 36” pastel copyright Lindy Cook Severns 2011

To see more of my Big Bend paintings and others, visit my online fine art gallery at LindyCSeverns.com