I sat on the salt-crusted, sun-charred and waterless floor of the Great Valley…Death Valley.  The unapologetic sun made your skin feel as though it would melt off your bones if another two degrees were added to the ambient air.  Small dead scrubs were scattered randomly.  At least they seemed dead.
It's not called Death Valley without a good reason.  The air, the landscape and the purgatorial heat kept bringing my thoughts back to the shadows.  Death.  But there were no shadows out here…only that of your own body blocking the solar light from an already dead surface…baked to death and into an aridity that is awesome.
Years ago I had a vision.  I was sitting in my empty classroom of a small Manhattan school.  Alone I sat, marking exams.  The classical music station played softly on my computer.  I heard music.  I dropped my pen.  I had a vision.
My minds image: I was sitting on the hard soil of a desert.  It was the pavement of Death Valley.  I was cross-legged.  There was a woman standing a short distance away.  She wore white and began to walk toward me.  I already knew who she was…my wife, and I was expecting her even though I had been sitting there for years.
Only moments ago, she shouldn't have been there.  Only moments ago she was alive.  I, you see, was dead.  But she had just passed into my lonely world.  She had just passed over.  As she approached, I could see that she was sad and confused…and frightened.  
I held out my arms.  She came to me and knelt.  Then she twisted her body to allow me to cradle her like a child.  I brushed her hair from her fevered brow.  The music from my classroom was filling the air.  It was Mediations of Thais.
We stood.  I told her there was nothing to be afraid about.  We walked.  I waved toward the snowy mountains.  I have so much to show you, I said.  We have so many things to see.  But we must first climb up…up and out of this valley and into the wildflowers, streams and forests.
Go now and put on Mediations of Thais.  Listen.  What visions will you have?