I looked: I saw an immense dust storm come from the north, an immense cloud with lightning flashing from it, a huge ball of fire glowing like bronze.[1]

The essential tremor in my left hand is acting up. I concentrate on holding a spoon and scoop finely ground black ashes into the gold scallop-shaped bowl, making a mess. Ashes fall on white linen. Holding my right hand over my left hand, I continue to fill the container. This is not the traditional way to do this. I am supposed to burn the palms from Palm Sunday a year ago and grind the ashes into a fine powder, using a small mortar and pestle. It always came out lumpy, so I confess to you I ordered the ashes for this Ash Wednesday from a church supply in San Diego. Now I have these fine, holy ashes I am spilling all over the place.

Walking to the altar in the sanctuary, I bow and place the ash upon the Holy Table. Turning around, I see that the church is full for the traditional Ash Wednesday Mass at my Episcopal parish in Santa Ana, California. Miercoles de Ceniza: more of my Latino parishioners will attend this service than on Easter or Christmas. We are in a densely populated city with the highest percentage of native Spanish speakers in America and the first major California city in the USA to which Latino immigrants come.

A long line of the faithful approach the altar and kneel at the communion rail. I rub ashes between my thumb and index finger, marking each forehead with the sign of the cross and saying,

Recuerda que tu eres polvo y al polvo volverás.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Five-year-old Maria Vasquez, with downcast eyes and solemn face, pushes her black hair to the side of her forehead. I kneel on the ground facing her, blessing her with holy ashes. Her father, Alberto, lifts up his six-month-old son, so that I can bless him with ashes, using my pinky finger.
Why are these holy ashes so popular? They are primal and archetypal, speaking to our soul.

Spiritual writer Father Ron Rolheiser writes, “Something inside of us knows exactly why we take the ashes. No doctor of any kind needs to explain this. Ashes are dust, soil, humus; humanity and humility come from these. Ashes have always been a major symbol of all religions. To put on ashes, to sit in ashes, is to say publicly and to yourself that you are in a penitential mode, that this is not ‘ordinary time’ for you. Smudging oneself with ashes says that this is not a season of celebration for you, that some important work is going on inside you, and that you are, metaphorically and really, in the cinders of a dead fire, waiting for something fuller in your life.”[2]

In the Hindu tradition, Vibhuti is a sacred ash made of burnt cow dung used by devotees of Shiva, who applies three horizontal lines across their forehead.

In Judaism, liturgical use of ashes has its origin in the Tanakh, the Jewish scriptures. They symbolize mourning, mortality, and penance.

In Buddhism, ashes are a symbol of impermanence. Life is transient. Eventually, everything returns to dust. The dead are cremated, and the ashes may be collected and placed in a sacred monument called a stupa or in an urn. Some Buddhists create colorful sand paintings called mandalas. Ashes are mixed with colored sand. At the end of the project, the mandala is dismantled as another reminder of impermanence.

Native Americans who lived in communal long houses made fires for cooking and warmth in the center of the building. Sometimes a man or woman would withdraw from the daily tribal routines, become quiet, sit in the ashes on the side of the fire, eat a little, and stay inside. The silent sitting within these ashes had a healing effect on that person.

Father Rolheiser continues, “Lent is a season for each of us to sit in the ashes, to spend our time working and sitting among the ashes, grieving some of the things we’ve done wrong, refusing to do business as usual, but rather waiting in patience as some silent growth takes places within us. Lent is a time to be still so that the ashes can do their work.”[3]

I carry the imprint of the holy ashes with me as I begin a Lenten desert retreat in the Eastern Sierra of California, where I make a home base in the village of Lone Pine, at the foot of Mount Whitney. The stress of multi-tasking parish work slowly fades as I drive north on Highway 395. I pass through Adelanto and a Buddhist temple. The desert landscape opens up with a view of a sagebrush ocean. No fences. The road climbs toward a notch between two volcanic reefs into Owens Valley. I am greeted by an overflowing blue-green lake, Little Lake. Remnants of ancient volcanic activity fill the landscape. Finely ground red volcanic ash covers the ground.

For forty years I have retreated to this desert space every Lent, where my soul feels like a dusty, worn bedsheet, exposed to the dry desert air scented with sagebrush and juniper.

South of Lone Pine, I have the first sight of Owens Lake.

The dying lake has a grand history. The lake basin may be one million years old. Twelve-thousand years ago, it contained two-hundred square miles of water two hundred feet deep. Water from melting glaciers of the waning Ice Age overflowed the lake southward into Rose Valley and China Lake. In the last 110 years, it was a 108 square mile lake, 25-50 feet deep. The water began to disappear when the Los Angeles Aqueduct opened in 1913, diverting Owens River water away from the lake. The once vibrant ecosystem that sustained birds and plants has dried up into an alkali encrusted sump of a lakebed.[4]

Years ago, windstorms blew dried lake dust high into the area, creating the most polluted air in America.

Over the last twenty years, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has accomplished the largest dust control effort in the world. Today there is a grid of dolomite berms within the lake, which outlines several mini lakes. The remarkable renewal of Owens Lake resulted in unanticipated but remarkable results. It has created a rich habitat to welcome migrating birds and the elevated berms provide perfect observation sites for birdwatching.[5]

Jay Owens, writing in her new book, Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles, describes the result of twenty years of lake renovation:

“The landscape resembled an estuary or salt marsh. Within its rectilinear scaffold of roadways, a more organic land was forming swathes of pale gold saltgrass surrounding curving puddles of water and wide plains of mud. The water’s edge was viscous, black with brine fly. California gulls paddled in the shadows, trampling their feet to stir up larvae to gorge on. Further down the lake, brine areas had grown a deep evaporated crust of salt that cracked into tortoiseshell plates several meters across.”[6]

Approaching Lone Pine, I see a cluster of green trees and the Boulder Creek RV Park. I turn right just before Boulder Creek, driving north toward the Inyo Mountains. I remember that there is an entrance to the grid of roads on the lake. An information kiosk marks the entrance, guiding visitors to explore this renewed ecology. The road is wide for the LADWP trucks, who continue restoration work daily. I notice a deep pool of blue-grey water on the right. Wind creates small waves that lap against the berm. I stopped the car and walked out to the edge of the road. The rhythmic sound of crashing waves is surrealistic in this vast, dry desert landscape. I do not know how long I stood there. Time evaporated. I remember the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance, reflected in the water. It seemed that the mountains and sky had fallen into this mini lake.

I drive further on to a narrow berm, with only room for one car width to pass through, a 15-foot drop on each side into brackish water. I head east toward the Inyo Mountains. I remember that there was another entrance to the lake from a previous visit. Suddenly, a fierce wind blows, shaking my Honda Pilot. I drive cautiously forward, meeting a thick cloud of desert dust blowing off the lake. It was more like a thick, brown fog. I could not see in front of me. Was the road going to turn? If I continued, I could fall off the berm into the lake. My heart is beating like a loud drum. Stop and wait. The choking dust is hot and thick. Finally, the dust storm fades, and I can see ahead. I drive through the maze of berms, going in circles for an hour. I can’t get out of this place. Finally, I saw familiar metal pumps, which transferred water between the mini lakes. That is the road leading to where I first entered. I exit the lake as a memory of another dust storm rises in my mind.

I walk on a dusty trail north of the lake and east of Lone Pine, with a view of the faded-yellow Southern Pacific Railroad station ahead of me. The dry, still August air changes suddenly to a strong, hot wind. I see a smudgy brown swirling cloud ahead of me. A dust devil! Driving desert roads, I have felt how these turbulent little twisters could spin across the highway and shake my car. The dust devil is heading toward me, with no shelter nearby. I kneel on the trail, pull my t-shirt over my head, covering my mouth and nose, waiting for what was to come.

Thousands of sand granules pelt naked arms. Wind buzzes in my ears. I felt as if I was being suffocated in a dirty old blanket. I can’t avoid breathing the dust. After a few terrifying minutes, it is gone on its capricious way, leaving me feeling like a horned toad covered in desert siftings.[7]

Jay Owens writes:

“Dust devils and dust storms are creatures of soil and sand lifted from the earth and raised into the air by strong winds. Sand grains are mostly quartz, silica dioxide—the dust tinted various colors by the other minerals it contains. The dust-laden winds that move north over Europe in the spring are rust-red from iron-rich sands in the Sahara, while China suffers from sandstorms of yellow dust sweeping down from the Gobi Desert.”[8]

Two months after this experience, my health changed. Intense fatigue possessed me, every day weaker and weaker, with night sweats. I could hardly lift my head up from a pillow. I felt as if someone was trying to strangle me.

My internist, Dr. James Sperber, ran all kinds of tests for brain tumor, lung cancer and leukemia. He remembered that two weeks earlier, he had treated a nurse with similar symptoms. Rechecking my blood work, Dr. Sperber believed I had valley fever, coccidioidomycosis, a fungal disease in desert climates, where microscopic spores proliferate in the dusty soil. When the wind stirs up the dust, the spores can land in the moist lung tissue. The disease is increasing in California, because of droughts and expanded home construction in the desert. Untreated, the spores can perforate lungs and possess the body with debilitating consequences and death. Was valley fever the curse of King Tutankhamen’s tomb, where several members of the archaeology team died from a mysterious disease?

Dr. Sperber prescribed Diflucan, a common antifungal medication. Within two days, I was up and active again, with a profound respect for the mysterious dust devil.

These small, dry-weather tornados can be only a few feet high and soar hundreds of feet, swirling in the atmosphere, joining millions of tones of mineral dust that constantly circulate over the earth.

The day after the encounter with the blinding dust storm on Owens Lake, I visited my friends Mike and Nancy Prather at their home in the Alabama Hills, between the village of Lone Pine and the Sierra Nevada mountains. Mike and Nancy taught school in Death Valley and at Lo-Inyo School in Lone Pine. Now retired, Mike has become the spiritual shepherd of Owens Lake. We sit on metal chairs in the middle of his garden, as we face the mountains and the sun warms our bodies. The native plant garden that surrounds us includes trees and shrubs that Mike and Nancy have nurtured from seedlings. I share my stories of the dust storm on the lake and my encounter with a dust devil years before that resulted with valley fever. Sitting in that garden with Mike has a deeply calming effect on me, a generous and welcoming presence. Later, as we walk through the garden, Mike reaches into a pocket in his Oshkosh overalls for a clipper to trim a broken branch. He describes many of the plants to me, what they are and how they grew from seeds. It was like a grandfather describing his grandchildren, the level of communion between him and each plant was that intense. He shares with me a belief in the interconnectedness of all living things.

Nancy brings two cups of coffee and some cookies, as we return to the chairs in the middle of the garden. Mike reflects on his love for Owens Lake, which he calls Patsaita, the original Paiute name for the lake. The restoration work on the lake created a renewed environment for migrating birds. Mike was instrumental in founding an annual Audubon sanctioned Bird Festival. Recent rains flooded the lake to the extent that visitors could travel slowly and quietly over the surface of the lake in canoes, in the manner of the Paiute First People. His reminiscence of these journeys on the lake evoked again his holy communion with all living things.

On a recent Facebook posting, Mike says:

“I miss Patsaita deeply.

When water covered half of her surface reflecting the deep blue of the sky.

A gift from the winter of 2022/2023 and tropical storm Hilary in August.

The water remembers, the birds remember.

We were called to go out and feel her presence once again.

Dreamers imagined no end, but deserts expect their share, and evaporation always prevails without continued flow.

We were blessed with her beauty and felt awe and wonder paddling across the slick surface.

Trillions of brine shrimp watching below us.”[9]

Transmigrating dust descends on the campus of Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. Professor of Chemistry, Michelle Franci-Donnay returns to her academic office after a six-month sabbatical at the Vatican Observatory. Dust thickly covered her desk. Where did all of that dust come from, with windows and doors securely closed? This required careful cleaning. Michelle walks to her bookcase, searching for a book of poems. Finding the book, she opens to “Dusting,” which reads.

Thank you for these tiny

particles of ocean salt,

pearl-necklace viruses.

winged protozoans

for the infinite

intricate shapes

of submicroscopic

living things.[10]

We are dust and to dust we shall return. The dust of our remains will co-mingle with minute organic and inorganic matter, dispersed, and scattered over the earth, fertile humus for the creation of new life.

An Orthodox Christian burial hymn reminds us we come from the earth and to earth we shall return:

Give rest, O Christ, to your servants with your saints,

Where sorrow and pain are no more,

Neither sighing, but life everlasting.

You are only immortal, the creator and maker of mankind.

And we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we

return. For so did you ordain when you created me, saying,

‘You are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ All of us go down

to the dust; yet even at the grave, we make our song: Alleluia,

Alleluia, alleluia.[11]

Resources:

Owens, Jay. Dust: the Modern World in a Trillion Particles. New York: Abrams Press, 2024.

Kirkham, Harold. IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Magazine, Dust Devils and Dust Fountains, December 2006 48-50.

Smith, P. D. Dust to Dust.
McCorkle, Rob, Ghostly Little Twisters, Parks and Wildlife, July 2012.

Nelson, Marilyn. Dusting. Poems.org.

Franci-Donnary, Michelle. The Spiritual Case for Dust. Ignatian Spirituality.org.

Karelius, Brad. Encounters with the World’s Religions on Highway 395. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015.










[12]

[1] Ezekiel 1:4-9

[2] Rolheiser OMI, Ron. Lenten Ashes, March 14, 2022

[3] Rolheiser, Ibid.

[4] Quoted in Desert Spirituality for Men, p.

[5] Karelius, Ibid, p.

[6] Owens, Jay. Dust. P 300.

[7] KareliusKarelius, Desert Spirit Places, 17-18.

[8] Owens, Dust, 7.

[9] Michael Prather, Facebook, December 19, 2024

[10] Dove, Rita. Dustings. Poetry Magazine, November 1981.

[11] Book of Common Prayer, 499.

[12] Karelius, Desert Spirit Places 20-21.