"To the desert go prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality."
- Paul Shepard, Man in the Landscape: A Historic View of the Esthetics of Nature
I have been hanging on to that quote for the last few days, tossing it around in my mind. For some reason it caught my attention, gave me real pause. It describes how I have always felt about the desert.
Throughout my young adult life, I spent a lot of time in the desert, camping, hiking, thinking, reflecting…I have always had a love affair with the desert, especially the Sonora and Mojave. Maybe it is the solitude, the shear expanse of nothing and everything. I miss those places I have visited, and I dream of them often. Life seemed to boil down to its absolute simplicity there.
My Grandparents (father's side) moved to Arizona when I was about nine. I remember driving there with my family for the first time. I remember feeling awe as I watched the green agricultural land give way to arid soil. Rolling hills became rocky crags that stretched to the sky from nothing. Fields of green, gold and yellow gave way to shades of red and brown…the sky became more blue, vaster, deeper. Even the clouds seemed different there. That first trip to the desert lands of southern California and Arizona became a starting point for my affectation with the solitude of the desert.
When I had the opportunities that financial security gave me, I would normally run off to the desert on a monthly basis. I think between 1994 and 2000, I must have gone to Arizona around 30 times. I had all the planning down; I would usually leave on a Sunday night, around 11:00pm, and drive alone straight through to Phoenix, my usual starting point for whatever excursion awaited me. Once I arrived, I would sleep for a day to recover from the deviation in my sleep pattern, then I would load up and head out to any number of places I cared to explore.
I have never seen a sunset so beautiful as the ones I would see at dusk in Arizona. The night sky was filled with an ocean of stars. It was easy to confuse the Milky Way as a thin, wispy cloud that stretched from one horizon to the other. I would sit and stare at the constellations, even making up a few of my own design. The desert to me was a place where the word "Peace" was defined.
More often than not, I would travel light, bringing with me water, a knife, handgun or rifle, and dry provisions. A sleeping bag was only necessary to avoid being stung by scorpions while I slept. More often, I never slept anyway, preferring to stay up and contemplate the grandness of the sky, the stars, and my place in the universe.
Nighttime was also the best time to gather scorpions. Did you know that scorpions glow under a black light? They are phosphorescent, and a flashlight with a UV bulb was an essential tool in finding them, as well as a long pair of forceps for picking them up! I would collect about twenty of them, bag them, and drive off the next day to one of the many Indian reservation curios that dotted the highway. I don't think I was ever paid in money for them, but mostly traded them for handmade Indian jewelry…copper and turquoise trinkets the Indians would sell to the many travelers that would cross those parts, most on their way to the Grand Canyon. Rattlesnakes were also a commodity, and my cousin taught me how to capture them safely. They would be killed, the meat smoked or otherwise cooked, and the skins made into belts, bands, and other items skillfully crafted by the Indian shop owners. Many of my expeditions into the desert were for the sole purpose of catching scorpions and snakes.
The abundance of life in the desert gives off its own energy, for sure. It is place where I think few would find hospitable, and that is one of the many alluring traits that I love about it.
I always felt like I belonged there, and even made a couple of half-hearted attempts to move there permanently. I think that is why I wanted to go explore Baja. I just haven't been there in such a long time, three years now, and I felt a desire to go…not unlike the urges I felt when I was younger.
Anyway, I know it is trivial, but I wanted to share that with you.
Hope your day is going well, I can't wait to see you…
