Unfolding into the Wild

aurorafabrywood
May 29
3 min read

Updated: Jun 15

The canyon doesn’t call.

It waits.

Still. Unassuming. Sure of itself.

And when you finally arrive—wrung out from the world, heart cracked open—it lets you in.

That’s how I found myself there.

Wheels down just after dawn, Utah skies still heavy with clouds and stars peeking through, I picked up an electric Audi and drove straight into the red breath of Zion. I passed through the narrow gate of the canyon walls and everything in me softened.

No phone calls. No performance. Just rock, sky, and the faint scent of cliffrose on the wind.

I hiked the East Rim Trail first—quiet, high, with patches of sun bursting through the clouds. I found a rock and stretched out like a lizard, letting the warmth seep in. That’s when I heard it—stones shifting above. I looked up, and there—like a gift sent just for me—a mountain goat. Then three more. And two babies, nursing beneath their mother’s belly.

They watched me. I watched them.

Time thinned until it vanished. I remembered what it felt like to be joy itself.

Later, I wandered further, headphones in, music on, letting my body lead. I danced down the trail—literally danced—past a group of kids. One girl smiled like we were in on the same secret: this was what freedom looks like.

It wasn’t a smile of politeness.

It was a recognition.

Like she saw in me something she’d almost forgotten in herself.

That being wild doesn’t mean being reckless.

It means being true.

The next day, I stepped into The Narrows barefoot, in my swimsuit. Everyone else trudged in boots and gaiters. I waded in with bare feet and bare skin, each step a refreshing joining with the river. I’d planned to walk until the crowds thinned, but I stopped instead when I realized the crowds weren’t going to thin, and because my body asked me to. I found a sun-warmed rock in the middle of the creek, beside a still pool, and stayed.

I swam. I snacked. I journaled. I meditated. Hundreds of people passed. Some stared when I smiled at them. Some smiled back.

I didn’t shrink.

I didn’t move.

I just stayed exactly where I was, fully myself, fully visible.

The next day, I drove to Bryce.

Bryce Canyon isn’t really a canyon—it’s a natural amphitheater sculpted from Claron Formation limestone and white Navajo sandstone. The hoodoos rise like a congregation of ancient spirits, weathered by time, carved by wind and ice. Some blush pink, others blaze orange, others stand pale and holy in the midday sun.

I walked among them in reverence.

From Bryce Point through the theater and up the Queens Garden Trail, I wandered beneath towering spires and arching windows of stone, past crowds and solitude alike. All around me, the high desert was bursting into bloom.

Scarlet paintbrush lit the trail like flame.

Penstemon rang in sapphire blue.

Cliffrose perfumed the breeze with something between honey and heaven.

And the mountain mahogany’s white blossoms danced like they remembered music older than time.

The land wasn’t quiet.

It was alive.

And so was I.

This is what I know:

There is no therapy app, no pill that can replicate what wild land does to a human soul. Nature doesn’t fix you. It just reminds you that you were never broken.

As a child, five minutes on a trail could calm the chaos inside me. That hasn’t changed. The wild still knows me by name. It doesn’t ask for credentials. It only asks that I show up as I am.

So I do.

And in return, it gives me everything:

Silence.

Belonging.

Wonder.

A place to unfold.

But here’s the thing—we can’t take this for granted. When we pave and profit from every inch of earth, we cut off something essential. These places aren’t background. They are medicine. And they are running out.

So let the wild be wild.

Let it unravel you.

Let it rebuild you softer, freer, more whole.

Let it remind you—like that girl’s smile did—that something untamed still lives inside you.

And it’s waiting.

Because the canyon doesn’t call.

It waits.

For you.