Full Moon, Dust Moon, Heart Moon – A Poem

Full Moon in Dust Storm

Can You Order Tramadol Online Full Moon in Dust Storm © 2014 Bo Mackison

https://thelowegroupltd.com/07atpobl Tell me what you feel in your room when the full moon is shining in upon you and your lamp is dying out, and I will tell you how old you are, and I shall know if you are happy. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

A Poem to Commemorate the Last of Winter Moons

Purchase Tramadol Overnight Delivery In the North, the earth softens,
the earthworms venture from warm earth, deposit their casts upon the ground,
robins return announcing the coming of Spring.

Full Worm Moon

here Maple sap begins to run in the East,
signals time for tapping, maples announce the coming of Spring.
Flowing, flowing, alive.

Full Running Sap Moon

Buy Diazepam Cheap Uk Throughout the lands, the Magpies caw,
loud and raucous, singing to the last of the winter moons.
Celebratory songs.

Full Magpie Moon

source url In snowbound regions, snow cycles through thaw and freeze,
a gradual loosening winter’s relentless hold. Anticipation of the melt.
Crusted snow, old snow,  dwindling snow. Anticipation.

Full Crust Moon

see In the Southwest, the winds twist, spiral, change direction the upper atmosphere,
touch the earth, red dust, and fling it high into the air.
But the full moon, reflecting light of the sun full face.
The moon does not disappear in the flying dust,
no, she hovers in a pastel aura, hazy and luminous.

Full Windy Moon

Tramadol Buy Online Canada I see her slide above the mountain peaks, the gentle Santa Ritas,
fir trees silhouetted. Watch it suspended above the mountain ridge,
gentle reminder of the marking of months,
passing of seasons, turning years.

Valium Sales Online I spread a woven blanket, geometric colors come into soft focus, lit by moonshadow,
what luxury this lying upon earth in silence and  harmony,
awakened to the energies of the full moon as she travels westward.

https://tudiabetesbajocontrol.com/relanzam/valium-online-nz.php I close my eyes to the dusty particles,
bathed in moonlight, I drift and dream, content.

Full Heart Moon

Essence of Place — Brown Mountain in the Sonoran Desert

Exploring Brown Mountain © 2014 Bo Mackison

https://www.saiidzeidan.com/timcha4ykj Here are limitless views of desert vegetation, strange giant cacti forms, rock formations uprising sharply into forms and craggy peaks almost unreal to strangers and ever fascinating in the changing flood of desert light. ~ C. B. Brown

see url For several years, I thought Brown Mountain was named for its predominately reddish-brown rocky face, a face studded with whiskers of toothpick saguaro cacti. Then I researched the origins of Brown Mountain, a small rounded mountain located in the Sonoran Desert in Tucson Mountain Park, just west of Tucson Arizona, and discovered it was named in honor of C. B. Brown (1889-1979) the foremost advocate for keeping the Tucson Mountain region a natural space.

https://www.amyglaze.com/png1hjp Under Brown’s guidance and continued efforts, the Tucson Mountain region was closed to mining and homesteading in 1926, and preserved in its natural desert state for the enjoyment of all.

Cactus Arms © 2014 Bo Mackison

https://www.accessoriesresourceteam.org/art/buy-roche-valium-online-uk.php The scenic qualities, luxuriance and variety of desert flora, abundance of wild life, and historical romance of the land are accepted material bits. ~ C. B. Brown

On Top of Brown Mountain

https://www.mckenziesportsphysicaltherapy.com/a6tcl9h On Top of Brown Mountain © 2014 Bo Mackison

https://valkyrieswebzine.com/nouvel/buy-original-valium.php More fascinating is the intangible charm and spell of the desert region where the haze of the mountain ranges meet the blue of the sky and the desert impressive in its cloak of utter silence awaits the nature lover. ~ C. B. Brown

https://riverhillcurrent.com/50by1nfwhve The Brown Mountain Trail has trail heads at both the Brown Mountain Picnic Area and the Juan Baptiste Picnic Area. It’s a five-mile hike, up, around, and back, with distant vistas at every turn. The views are especially great considering the minimal effort required to reach the peak.

source The hike covers undulating ridges with views of Tucson Mountains and distant views of The Santa Ritas, Kitt Peak and other far away mountain ranges. Baboquivari, the sacred peak of the Tohono O’odham Nation and traditional home of I’itoi, the creator-god of the land, can be seen on a clear day.

There is a huge diversity of flora and fauna, easily a cross-section of what is found in the nearby region.

CCC Shelter in Brown Mountain Picnic Area © 2014 Bo Mackison

No portrait of the Brown Mountain area would be complete without a photograph of the historical picnic area built by the Citizen Conservation Corps in the 1930s. You might notice a camera pack, a hiking stick, and a pile of books on the concrete table. This is my office away from my office – I can often be found working here when the desert sun works its magic and calls me to the desert.

Brittlebush © 2014 Bo Mackison

Recent rain has brought yellow and green to the desert floor. Most of the common flowers are yellow — brittle-bush, desert marigold, acaia, mesquite, and many more.

Mesquite Near Brown Mountain © 2014 Bo Mackison

And when the rains come, the trees, often without leaves in the more arid times, sprout tiny specks of leaves. From a distance the trees show lovely and soft green forms.

Sonoran Desert in Brown Mountain © 2014 Bo Mackison

I am no longer surprised at the diversity of plants, cacti, and trees I see in the Sonoran Desert, how they are so openly spaced in order to provide each plant with needed rain and nutrients from the ground, but I am often taken aback by how “manicured” the desert often seems — as if a landscape gardener comes out early every day to rake the rocks, put all in place.

Hummer Portrait – Anna’s Hummingbird

Male Anna’a Hummingbird © 2014 Bo Mackison

“There is something inside the soul of all of us that wants to soar through sunbeams, then dance midair in a delicate mist, then take a simple bath on a leaf. There is something in our souls that wants to hover at beautiful moments in our lives, making them freeze in time. There is something in us that wants to fly backwards and savor once more the beautiful past. Some of us are just hummingbird people.” ~ Ted Andrews, Animal Speak

What a beauty, the Anna’s Hummingbird. One of the more common hummingbirds in Arizona, but always a visitor worth stopping for to enjoy  his spirited movements. If nothing else, the hummingbird reminds me to pause and appreciate the beauty surrounding me — and not just the wondrous hummingbird which is easy to appreciate, but all of the mysteries in the natural world.

Flashing his Colors © 2014 Bo Mackison

The male hummingbird turned towards the sun in the western sky, and I saw a magnificent display of his colors, a flash in the sunlight. At a slightly different angle the iridescent pinks fade into deeper colors. This flash of color is often a part of the hummingbird’s mating ritual – the male dives, dances, and flashes his glimmering colors towards a female, signaling his intentions. The female may accept or simply fly off.

This little guy reminds me of a miniature, pink feathered Darth Vader!

Anna’s Hummingbird in Color © 2014 Bo Mackison

“Hummingbird shows us how to re-visit the past for the purpose of releasing it instead of being caught in a permanently backward flight pattern. It also helps us to see that if we step aside we may see our life differently. Hummingbird teaches us to transcend time, to recognize that what has happened in the past and what might happen in the future is not nearly as important as what we are experiencing now. It teaches us to hover in the moment, to appreciate its sweetness.” ~ Constance Barrett Sohodski

Anna’a Hummingbird © 2014 Bo Mackison

Recently I’ve been seeing hummingbirds wherever I go. They seem to be hovering nearby, not only at the backyard bird feeders, but also in the grocery store parking lot or deep in the Sonoran Desert when I am hiking.

I am never too busy to stop and admire their beauty, and be reminded of their independence and determination.

 

Essence of Place — Cienegas National Conservation Area

Yucca

Yucca at Empire Ranch © 2014 Bo Mackison

The Cienegas National Conservation Area is a unique high desert habitat. It includes five of the rarest habitat types in the American Southwest: cienegas (marshes in an arid land), cottonwood and willow riparian areas, sacaton grasslands, mesquite bosques, and semi-desert grasslands.

Yucca at Empire Ranch

Semi Desert Grassland in the Ciengas NCA © 2014 Bo Mackison

The land is in a transitional zone between the Sonoran Desert and the Chihuahuan Desert, and located about 50 miles south of Tucson. It is a mixed use area – conservation work are cattle ranching are done side by side. And yes, it works.

Empire Ranch Road

Mesquite Bosque along Empire Ranch Road © 2014 Bo Mackison

45,000 acres of land are now protected from what was once a future of housing developments and other commercial use. The ranchers work the ranch, the conservationists work to reclaim some of the grasslands that transitioned into a mesquite bosque. Hikers, horseback riders, campers all intermingle with the ranchers — not that too many people actually see each other in this spacious land.

Grasslands at Empire Ranch

Sacaton Grasslands at Empire Ranch © 2014 Bo Mackison

The not for profit Empire Ranch Foundation is dedicated to preserving the historic ranch buildings and surrounding landscape. (Ranch photos coming in next series.)

Cottonwood at Historic Empire Ranch

Cottonwood

Cottonwood at Empire Ranch © 2014 Bo Mackison

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. ~ Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

A tree stands in the spreading grasslands of the Empire Ranch, a thriving ranch from the 1870s to the 1970s.

Empire Ranch was not only a ranch. It was the set for dozens of western styled movies and television shows, filmed from 1946 through 1998.

I imagine many a movie great walked the land under this cottonwood tree.

Just a few of the many movies icons and films shot on this wide open “set” were: John Wayne in go site Red River, (1948); Gordon McRae, Shirley Jones in Buy Valium 5Mg Online Uk Oklahoma!(1955); James Arness, Dennis Weaver, Amanda Blake in  source Gunsmoke, several shows (1955-75); Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas in go to link Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, (1957); Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, several shows of  https://www.rmporrua.com/ge4ogqo90 Bonanza (1959-73); Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson in https://www.iql-nog.com/2025/01/19/pg3jvwqr A Star Is Born (1976); and Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Huston in https://opponix.com/sgh9cuvc The Furies (1950).

They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. ~ Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

This tree has a history, but the history I imagine for it is a fictional one.

It is easy to imagine a movie crew resting in the shade of this cottonwood between takes filmed under the unforgiving desert sun. It is easy to imagine the children who lived and played on the working ranch bringing a picnic spread to eat under the tress. Perhaps there was a doll party or two. Or even a child’s birthday party.

An argument, a first kiss, a fist fight, a marriage proposal? The tree was near enough the ranch to be a convenient gathering place for all sorts of events.

Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars,

all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow. ~ Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

A solitary tree in the high desert is a mighty thing.

Few trees reach the stature of a cottonwood in this land. The cottonwoods create a sinuous ribbon of life contrasted with the parched white grasses spreading away from the dry creek beds. The trees, with deep roots, can access the deeper water aquifers that other plants cannot.

This tree stand solitary, sacaton grasslands spread from it in all directions for miles. In the harsh light, the light is brighter, the shadows are deeper. The cottonwood is beginning to leaf out, but the brilliant light transforms the individual fluttering leaves into brilliantly lit diamonds.

Empire Ranch offers many opportunities for photographs, but for its introduction, I chose to focus on this one tree. When I combine this stoic tree, leaves rustling, with the distant voices in my imagination, it is enough for an introduction.