My Idol: Devils Tower
August 29th, 2025: Devils Tower – visit America’s first National Monument and watch its sky and vibe shift in a matter of minutes. From its moodiest to its most radiant, this wonder can’t help but wow.
If you weren’t expecting to find it, you’d be thunderstruck—even mystified at the sight of Devils Tower. And if you were expecting to find it, you’d be almost equally jam-on-your-brakes-and-stare stunned. I’ve never seen a more mesmerizing, puzzling, or wonder-provoking creation of nature.
I set out in search of it. No cell service. No GPS signal. I knew it was coming even without a digital or visual clue in sight. I wound, curve after curve through northeastern Wyoming’s colorful Belle Fourche River Valley, just willing that magnetic tower to appear out of nowhere. “Where is it?” I squealed in my head at the edge of my driver’s seat. With every bend in the road that didn’t reveal an otherworldly formation my amazement grew.
The landscape all around that lone-wolf monument is mostly flat prairie with some red sandstone rolling hills. It’s a gorgeous expanse of amber, green, and crimson outlined by winding country roads. Cruising toward it, all I could think was, “Why is there nothing else anywhere around here that looks anything like it?” and “How can it be hiding in plain—and then it appeared.
I immediately pulled my car off the road. I sat and just stared, speechless. Then I jumped out of my car to feel closer to it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My brain was trying to process it, but it was like finding a giant ice cream cone in the middle of the desert or a live shark in the paper towel aisle. What was that thing doing there?
I had to get closer. Back into my rental beast I went. It was hard to home in on the road with the king of all natural towers vying for my eyes. The closer I got, the quicker a mostly sunny day suddenly turned ominously cloudy.
I watched Devils Tower experience 88 energetic shifts in less than 12 hours that day. Emotional storms rolled in then eased at their own pace.
Out there, sudden, high-intensity storms build and burst. Hail pelts and melts. Snow falls and clears. Foggy mornings are followed by fierce sunshine. Wind speed and direction shift without warning. Extreme gusts have been known to drive snow upward—vertically against the rock face.
Devils Tower actually helps create the unique weather phenomena it bears witness to. Its massive, upright makeup affects the unpredictable, turbulent microclimate that surrounds it. And all the while, those collective hexagonal pillars of mystery bound together stand tall, stable, serene in the face of everything the elements throw at them.
A welcoming, witnessing presence to everything that arises around it. The tower never hurries the storm away or begs the sunshine to stay. It stands there capable, accountable, qualified to withstand all that appears.
But Devils Tower isn’t a stoic. The towering monolith demonstrates great resilience and experiences erosion. Cracks in its columns expand with the continuous cycle of freeze and thaw.
Remaining unaffected isn’t the point, the purpose, or the goal. Not my idol, Devils Tower’s, nor my own.
The epitome of individualism in an atmosphere of extremes. Equipped to weather every storm and destined to be the most honest representation of itself. In a sea of sameness, this tower stands differentiated.
It’s isolated. It’s tough. It’s alien. It’s an enigma. It’s a kindred spirit. It’s a rock-hewn representation of who I am and how I’m learning to live.
Like my tower friend, I’m learning to stand with myself through every storm without pushing for a more pleasing atmospheric performance or forcing rain into rainbows. I’m learning that my emotions don’t have to be justified to be valid and my decisions don’t have to be defended to be respected.
My yeses and nos are mine to honor, and they don’t need to be translated into universal understandings in exchange for acceptance and approval. I’m learning not to rely on your understanding, your acceptance, your approval, your validation, your guidance—any “you.”
I’m learning instead to give my intuition a megaphone to speak through. Because it’s there, it knows, it’s been there all along, it’s just been a bit buried like a sturdy chair that’s accommodated the weight of other people’s positions for too long.
My boundaries and my storms don’t need to conform to the comforts of others. My choices don’t need judge-and-jury endorsements. And protecting my peace doesn’t require permission. It just requires honesty.
A distinct presence. Unlike anything that surrounds it. Like a magenta giraffe amongst zebras—but wilder, wickeder, more mesmerizing. That’s Devils Tower. That’s me.
