GeoAscent manifested during a strange time for me personally.

It also manifested in a time period between two eclipses. At the start of this time, I watched from a footbridge over the Rio Grande as the moon turned the sun into a Ring of Fire. At the end of this time, I watched from a bank on the Llano River as the moon turned the day into night. Between these River Moons (or between these Moon Rivers), GeoAscent would manifest.

The following sections tell the story in brief.

Oh, the Rio Bravo!

It’s not only the Rio Bravo’s physical handsomeness that enthralls me. Let’s be honest, some of it isn’t very beautiful. It’s all that the Rio Grande unites within itself and all that it means to so many. It is the Rio Bravo’s rugged determination to reach the sea through scorching desert.

There was one point of totality on the Rio Grande for the Annular Solar Eclipse of October 2023, and it would be the time and place of GeoAscent’s conception. That point is on New Mexico’s El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, The Royal Road of the Interior Land — and the interior landscape of many a soul (including, now, mine).

This was also the time and place of Albuquerque’s annual hot-air balloon festival, with the mass ascension event leading directly to GeoConception.

GeoAscent evolved from previous endeavors going back some years. However, its current expression manifested during the half year time period between the Annular (Ring of Fire) Solar Eclipse of Fall 2023 and the Total (Darkened Day) Solar Eclipse of Spring 2024.

The subtle soul impressions for the projects, in their current form under the GeoAscent name, were conceived while I was alone on a footbridge over New Mexico’s River of Life. I was on the Rio Grande near downtown Albuquerque, in the path of totality for the Annular Solar Eclipse of October 2023.

These business and personal community-oriented projects had been within contemplative percolation for some months before, with several false starts and without clarity of vision. In the few weeks before the Annular Eclipse, there had been a relational change in my life, which is why I was alone for the eclipse. Light had left my heart due to this change. The relational change had also necessitated a change in my focus for the projects. I was very in need of a new vision. 

Gazing with sky-darkening glasses at the moon and the sun’s ring of fire around it, a point of intense white light flamed from the center of the dark moon (or so I imagined). At the same moment, I felt that same light flame from the center of my recently darkened heart. The subtle soul impressions were received. I knew then that GeoAscent’s actual new form was conceived, though I still could not see it.

That vision would require a birth — a GeoBirth.

The new vision for GeoAscent would finally be born in the complete darkness of day (you read that right), from the light of the imagination. It was born while I was gathered with friends along the banks of the Llano River, in the town of Llano Texas upon the Llano Uplift. We were upon the geo-core of Texas, at its center and at a point of totality for the Full Eclipse of the Sun in April 2024.

As the moon glided between the sun and the Llano Uplift that day, all became dark and still. The vision for GeoAscent, that is laid out in this space, was birthed during this extended moment of stilled darkness.

The Llano River flowed as a terrestrial manifestation of the celestial Milky Way on this day. The light that was conceived in my heart during the Annular Eclipse the previous October, now flowed as a River of Life, flooding my heart with light, illuminating my imagination and birthing the vision for GeoAscent.

From Annular Solar Eclipse to Total Solar Eclipse and from the Rio Grande to the Llano River… GeoAscent had become manifest.

And now stands ready to co-facilitate the ascension.

The Texas Hill Country is in Central Texas. The Balcones Canyonlands portion of this hill country is a land formed by an ancient shallow sea. The Llano Uplift, the sun-core of this hill country, is a land formed by an even more ancient molten magma. The fire-birthed Granite Highlands of the Llano Uplift is also the very geo-core of Texas, around which the aquifer-enwombing Limestone Canyonlands of the Texas Hill Country wrap themselves as a lunar crescent.

The center of the Llano Uplift was a point of totality during the Full Solar Eclipse of April 2024, and the place and time of the GeoBirth.

One day I’ll write and share the longer story of how and why I fell in love with rivers. For now, I’ll just share that it started 16 years ago on the Texas Colorado River.

In more recent years, I’d fallen in love with the Greater Rio Grande EcoRegion — all of it. From its headwaters in the San Juan Mountains of Southern Colorado, through the Rio Grande Gorge of Northern New Mexico, through the Transpecos of Far West Texas, to the Gulf of Mexico, I’d become enthralled.

When I write the longer story, I’ll link it here.