Agave – A Desert Lesson in Awareness

Agave, Opening

Agave, Opening © 2014 Bo Mackison

Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language. ~ Aldo Leopold

Before the agave blooms, it is a rosette of green spiny leaves. And then, in the middle of the green spines, a thick stem grows. It thickens and stretches, and often reaches twenty or more feet into the air, sending forth a burst of scented yellow flowers high enough to attract the pollinating bats flying in the dark desert night.

In the excited anticipation of the bloom, an occurrence that happens only once in the life of the plant, the beauty of the stalk is usually overlooked. But a close examination of the protruding stalk offers an unexpected desert gift – a multitude of colors. Yellows and oranges, peachy pinks and soft greens, and a spike of purple.

Another desert lesson in awareness and paying attention, in noticing the small things amidst the grand. The gift of the unexpected, the overlooked.

Seeking Wisdom in the Desert

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Center © 2014 Bo Mackison

I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over any encounter, and to extract its juices, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it. ~ May Sarton

When I hear the words “in the desert”:..

… I think it is time to make choices and live with the consequences; to accept who I am, and feel grateful for the opportunity to live in solitude; to follow a contemplative path; to focus on the positives while being aware of the negatives; to look up at the desert sky and connect with the stars.

What I most yearn for “in the desert”…

… a warmth that spreads from outside to inside; to develop tolerance and strength when dealing with stressors; to feel totally alive, embracing each moment.

What I fear while I’m “in the desert”…

…while I know I will make mistakes, may they be mistakes I can learn from; may they cause no harm to others; may the challenges prove fruitful.

Intention is the power of the experience. ~ Cynthia Gale

What I hope for “in the desert”…

…that I will develop courage to see me through my days, and through the long nights, too; that I will make choices that are true to myself; that I will choose life-enhancing while avoiding life-depleting practices.

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A journaling technique I sometimes use, asking and answering repetitive questions with just a change of one word. I considered my relationship with the desert and then incorporated the words hear, yearn, fear, and hope into questions. It provided just enough of a container to direct my thoughts and writing.

A Photo Stroll in Tubac Arizona

Hanging Fish

Hanging Fish © 2014 Bo Mackison

Sundays are a great day to wander, snap a few shots to capture a place.

Art hangs on so many of the walls in Tubac. The art against the adobe background is striking.

Dry Wash

Dry Wash © 2014 Bo Mackison

A dry wash separates the main part of town. Signs warn to cross only in fair weather. A flash flood following monsoonal rains will fill this wash to overflowing.

Wall Decor

Wall Decor © 2014 Bo Mackison

Moons, cacti, lizards – colorful and happy – decorate the outside walls of many of the shops. One would never run out of display space.

Gyros

Gyros © 2014 Bo Mackison

Happy trucks – the food trucks offer a variety of foods during crowd-pleasing events. Would you enjoy a gyro or a Greek salad from the “Sleek Greek”?

Golden Sculpture, Golden Acacia

Golden Sculpture, Golden Palo Verde © 2014 Bo Mackison

A part of a golden kinetic sculpture gleams against the background of a golden-flowering palo verde.

Shadow Play

Shadow Play © 2014 Bo Mackison

Lines and light and shadow.

WindowLess

WindowLess © 2014 Bo Mackison

What can you see from this window, even though it is blocked with bricks?

Keep Off

Keep Off © 2014 Bo Mackison

In the Midwest, the signs read “Keep Off the Grass.” Not so in Arizona.

Roof Lines

Roof Lines © 2014 Bo Mackison

Blue sky. Yellow roof. Metal awning. Orange rafters. White lights. Open windows.

Sidewalk Shadow

Sidewalk Shadow © 2014 Bo Mackison

Always there are shadows on the pavement, courtesy of the Arizona’s nearly ever-present sun. Tree shadows. My favorites.

Brick Wall and Pavement

Aggregate © 2014 Bo Mackison

Things can sometimes be very simple. A wall. A sidewalk. Lean against the adobe brick, and breathe a while. Rest.

Bench Warmer

Bench Warmer © 2014 Bo Mackison

The bench warmer in bronze. I’d expect to see this esteemed man in a different setting – not in a desert gallery. There is swirling dust about his feet.

These photos were taken with my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app.

One of my favorite parts of this app is its shakability. Shake the cell phone camera and the filter changes, so I’m never sure which filter will appear next. Serendipity photography.

Communication – A Desert Wisdom Card

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Petroglyphs © 2011 Bo Mackison

Symbols pecked into boulders over a thousand years ago. What were the ancients saying in these prehistoric communications?

Though nothing is certain, it seems plausible that these rock figures were a means of communication. Whether they were symbolic, astronomical, directional, or ceremonial is not known. What is known is that these petroglyphs were a means of communication or documentation.

Imagine the many ways we communicate. Conversations, the written word, social media, body language, even in symbols and metaphors.

Petroglyphs in Saguaro National Park

Concentric Petroglyph in Sonoran Desert © 2014 Bo Mackison

A trail through the western part of Saguaro National Park leads to Signal Hill.

Here a large mass of boulders featuring dozens of petroglyphs. The  Hohokam chipped or pecked these petroglyphs into the desert varnish, the dark outer layer on rocks.

Petroglyphs in Saguaro National Park

Animal Petroglyphs © 2014 Bo Mackison

Some of the figures seem to tell a story — a hunter following a mountain lion or a deer.

Some are easily identified depictions — figures like humans, deer and wolves, snakes, turtles, and lizards, spirals and circles, mountain peaks and sun. But the meaning behind these simple etchings are mysteries.

Petroglyph Canyon Wall

Petroglyph Canyon Wall © 2014 Bo Mackison

Some are symbols that align at astronomical seasonal beginnings – solstices and equinoxes.

While hiking in a canyon, I met a scientist who had eight cameras triggered to photograph a rock wall of petroglyphs every few seconds.  He kindly showed me a phenomenon he had been studying for several years. A spiral petroglyph splits — half in light/half in shadow — from sunlight shining through a narrow slit in the canyon rocks at the precise hour of the spring equinox.

Petroglyphs in Saguaro National Park

Concentric Petroglyph in Saguaro National Park © 2014 Bo Mackison

While the petroglyphs hold onto many of their secrets, they still offer a glimpse into the world of people who lived over a thousand years ago, people who found a way to communicate with a sharp implement and a varnish covered rock.

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The first photograph in this series is the third preview card of the Desert Wisdom Cards Second Series now in the production stage. The words on the new series of cards are letter pressed, the photographs are printed, the cards are cut and trimmed. Currently I am assembling the cards and I’ve completed the design of the portfolio for the second series.

An announcement re: availability will be coming soon on my blog and newsletter.

On the Road to Why, Arizona

Brittlebush

Brittlebush © 2013 Bo Mackison

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. ~ Ernest Hemingway

Checking the map, 112 miles to Why, then south to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
Highway 86, Ajo Highway, I head west on the road of roadside memorials
and shrines, over a hundred I photographed two years ago.

Through urban sprawl, then open space.
Silver Star Road, brown earth, barbed wire fences.
Robles Junction.
Water puddles in the irrigated fields at Buckelew Farms.

Fuller Road. Battered mailboxes line the road, a row of scraped paint,
crushed metal, gunshot holes and red flags.
But where are the shrines and crosses? Gone. Scraped from the desert.

Kitt Mountain is due west, mountain dotted with white observatories,
celestial connections on the highest peaks.
Telephone poles string across the desert scrub. Earthly connections.

Tucson Rifle Club. Members Only.
Hayhook Ranch Road. Ranch For Sale.
Watch For Animals Next 54 Miles.

Yellow bundles of brittlebush and desert marigolds crowd the median strip.
Gravel piles stands where once there were roadside memorials,
a road widening project and the adjacent desert has been scraped level.

A bush of orange mallow, waving stalks of purple pestemon,
white Ajo lilies, like bridal bouquets dropped along the road.
Tohono O’odham Nation. Green desert, red earth.

San Pedro Road. Coyote Trading Store, open for business no gas.
Asphalt shoulders, graded hills with rolls of burlap hold back the earth.
Where are the memorials? Relocated? or destroyed?

Pan Tak Road
Kitt Peak Ahead, Turn Left
Road construction Expect delays

The road is wide, the shoulders wide,
and safer for the driving living.
Less need for memorials on the side of the road.

Saguaros relocated from the easement, twenty feet tall, propped with 2 by 4s.
By law, saguaros must be relocated.
A saguaro must face its original direction, or it will die,
another road casualty.

Gouged earth. One giant saguaro still stands
upon the graded bank, its roots exposed and twisted in the air.
Yellow earth movers shovel the ancient earth into piles.

This is progress. A safe road is a good road.
A good road is a safe road.
Smooth and homogenized, the desert tamed.

Three hawks soar high. Far enough west, the road narrows.
Red plastic ribbons flutter from branches marked for the bulldozer.
But for now grasses encroach over the yellow lines.
Mesquite and tree cholla crowd the roadside.

Butterfly and Beads Memorial

Butterfly and Beads Memorial © 2012 Bo Mackison

A single white cross remains, decorated with butterflies and beads.
The peak of Baboquivari, I’itoi’s sacred mountain, pierces the desert-scape.
Border Patrol. Their green-striped white truck is parked
under a mesquite while they search the scrub.

Littering Unlawful
You Are Entering Sells, Arizona, Population 2734
Komkcʼeḍ ʼe-Wa:ʼosidk, Capital of the Tohono O’odham Nation
The O’odham name means Tortoise Got Wedged.

Indian Oasis School Baboquivari District

Watch For Animals Next 10 Miles
Papago Assembly of God

Highway 19 Junction, Hospital Here
The Shell gas station pumps regular for 3.47.
Two wild horses, white and shaggy, graze along the road,
unperturbed by passing trucks.

Eugene Tashquinth Livestock Complex hosts
76th Annual Tohono O’odham Rodeo
January 26 – February 4, 2014

Tree cholla forest.
Yellow flowering mesquite, seed beans swing in midday breeze.
Road to Nolia. Turkey vultures. Triple decker saguaro.

Quijotoa. A historical marker tells me
it is Papago for Mountain Shaped Like a Carrying Basket.
The carrying basket had pockets of gold and silver.
And a mining boom in 1883.

Ghost towns. Logan City, New Virginia, Brooklyn, Allen City,
there was only a small pocket of precious metal.
The desert reclaims the abandoned.

Highway 15 Junction to Santa Rosa Casa Grande.
Desert sprawl, yellow blossoming brittlebush color the cactus floor.
The road narrows, ocotillo arch over the pavement. Toothpick saguaros.
Quijotoa Pentecostal Church of God.

Red and purple bows tied to mesquite branches,
remaining traces of a roadside memorial.
The dirt is leveled, the pull-off blocked with a rock pile.

Flashing lights on a Park Ranger’s truck slow oncoming traffic.
Three teen runners jog in the truck’s exhaust fumes,
one carries a banner. Unity Runners.

Road to Pisinemo.
San Si:mon. Tohono O’odham High School.
San Simon Health Center.

Flash Flood Area Next 10 Miles
Why 18 miles. Ajo 28 miles
Chain cholla glitter silver in the sun.

HIWAYRVPRK next road. Shuck Toak Road
Desert Diamond Casino, asphalt parking lot.
Coyote Howl RV Park. Abandoned.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument © 2014 Bo Mackison

Highway Junction 86/85
Lukeville 27 miles. 10 miles to Ajo
Approaching Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, A Biosphere Reserve

12:46 pm. March 18. 86˚F.
Blue skies. Windy.
Relentless sun bleaches color from the desert.

The organ pipes loom tall,
massive and thick, multi-armed.
Alien. Grotesque. Beautiful.

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Not so much a poem, more a travel log.