Orion

I am in a new place, yet again. I have found my way back to the Arizona desert for the winter. I work on a resort ranch, where members and guests get to choose between horse back riding and golfing every day. 

One of the perks to how I live, and where I currently am is that I have many opportunities to just sit back and enjoy the moment. To genuinely have no worries. 

Last night was one such night. 

A few of my co-workers and I went to the cookout area that the ranch uses. It's only about half a mile out in the desert, but there are chairs and firewood out there so it suits us well. 

My night was filled with good conversation, the desert night air, the stars above my head, and a crackling fire next to me - keeping me warm. 

My nose is still filled with the smell of camp fire, alcohol, and tobacco. 

The theme song of the night seemed to be "Mamma's don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys" but there is something relaxing about listening to some real classic country and rock that I can not seem to put my finger on. 

I was reminded that sometimes you need to take the time to dance under the stars, even if you are not particularly skilled at it. 

There was one point in the evening that I was sitting back with my feet up on a chair and looking up at the stars when I had a flood of memories. You see I was out there for like five hours, so the stars were visibly progressing. I watched Orion rise from the horizon and make his way up the sky. 

Orion, the great hunter. I started to remember all of the places I have looked up at the sky to see Orion staring down at me. 

Camping as a Girl Scout when I was much younger, the roof of the astronomy tower in college, swinging on the elementary school swings my first season in Jackson and watching the hunter move across the sky while I listened to Keith Urban on a disc man. I've watched him night hiking in the Tetons, night white water rafting and tubing on the snake river, walking through the town of Jackson in the wee hours of the morning to experience the fresh snowfall before it got annoying. Skinny dipping in Idaho, even sitting in a lawn chair in on a different ranch as one of the wranglers strummed old country songs on a guitar. 

Orion is the second most well known constellation in the northern skies, and without knowing it he has become a point of reference for me. I have done many things under the stars, and this great hunter, who turned out to not be all that great according to his myths, has witnessed a good amount of them.