Morning Sun Saguaro

The sun rising in the Southeast this morning.

I like to imagine that life is like the rising sun, we always have a chance to change our lives and start over again, to follow new paths or to see things in a new way. The rising sun is the image I am keeping in my mind for the way I want to live my life, I want to see things as if seeing them for the first time, with wonder and joy, as if every sunrise is the first one I have experienced. The world is so beautiful and when I see things in this way, I feel good inside, as if I am the wonders I see in the world, as if I am a part of each colorful butterfly fluttering in the wind. I hope to always have butterflies in my soul and saguaros standing tall above my head in their wisdom.

I look up to the Saguaro.

This Saguaro is nearly 100 years old. I stand here thinking of all the things this plant has witnessed, how many sunrises and sunsets, how many lives born and ended within its vision and yet here it stands. It has tough skin and strong thorns that cause pain if one bumps into them. Standing here, I hear the song of the Saguaro as the wind gently blows past the ribs and spines. I touch the green flesh of the Saguaro and it feels like skin. I wish I had a friend that would stand by me like the Saguaro. These days the Saguaro and the butterflies have been my only friends. Oh, but it doesn't matter, I don't think I am fit to live in the human world. I think I'll spend days in the company of my wild friends. Maybe some day in the future someone will touch me the way I touch the skin of the Saguaro, with respect and love. I can feel the life of the Saguaro beneath its tough skin, as if it has a heart beating somewhere within. I have spent many hot summer hours in the shade of a Saguaro, resting from the heat of the day, and I have eaten their sweet fruit. I have bonded with these giant cactus. I love to hear each individual song as the wind plays through the sharp spines. Once I found three giant Saguaros growing together, the wind created a harmony of sound, each Saguaro played a different note. I sat down and listened. I think it is time to listen to the song of the Saguaro.


Written & photographed 10/5/2010

Pincushion Summer

So it rained two weeks ago three times, big short storms with lightning and pouring rain.  All the low spots in my garden filled with water and the washes were full.

These days of summer rains are when the gods walk in the desert lands.  If you have ever been out in the desert when a sudden storm comes along seemingly out of nowhere and you have nowhere to go except to endure the rain you will know exactly what I mean.  The gods walk in the desert when it rains.

The Pincushion cactus always flowers shortly after the rain in the summer, and sure enough, they did this time as well.



It has been so dry this past year that even many of the cactus and tough desert shrubs are dying, but not the Pincushions.  I admire their hardiness and their ability to flower at short notice. 




I think there is a message in this, the Pincushion Cactus is a wise teacher.

Enjoy the rains when they fall, enjoy the moments in our life when happiness and joy find us.  Endure through the drought, but don't let the long drought stop us from feeling the joy when those moments arrive.  This is how my life is in the last ten years, a never ending cycle of bad times and short periods of such grand joy that I feel like bursting with flowers, too.



I think I turned into a cactus and didn't realize it.

When I look closely at the Pincushion, I see myself as if in a mirror.



I'm waiting for the joy to come raining down, I know it will come again.  And when it does, you will recognize it by the ring of bright flowers sprouting from my head.

No wonder why I am so quick to smile when I am happy.

I'm a Pincushion Cactus.



Note:  Photos are of flowers from this land I call my garden, there are so many of them, probably hundreds of these little cactus sheltered under the shrubs and trees on this one little plot of land.

Sunrise

Illuminate

inner

awareness

 

© 2011 Desert Dreamer

Soul Dancer

Two Queen butterflies

Death arrived unannounced
I offered him my soul

I wandered
Throughout the land
In a field of wildflowers
I heard a whisper
“Your soul will be scattered like pollen”
A rusty red butterfly appeared singing praises
To the bringer of souls
The source of all flowers

I followed the blazing Queen
To a blossom emanating hues of a glorious sunset
Inside the fiery depths I recognized myself
I ran from flower to flower
In each open bloom
I found fragments of my surrendered soul

Intoxicated by beauty
I Abandoned these lost bits of soul
Mine no longer
I embraced everything

That which I call my self
Seemed to expand and grow
Reaching beyond the customary boundaries of the flesh
The border separating me from nature dissolved
I consist of everything the world consists of

My departed soul had revealed itself
Bits of my soul danced in the form of butterflies
On the wings of a Gulf Fritillary a dream was born
My whole being responded with joy
My mood was expressed as a bright blue sky

I looked to the heavens
Gazed into myself
Saw my soul everywhere
A spellbound dreamer awakens



© 2010 Desert Dreamer

Becoming Human - A Poem

I am not the woman
You see standing here.

I am the woman with wild hair
Dancing with souls
Of forgotten flowers.

I am completely human
Alive, real and wild
No longer tamed
Isolated
Domesticated
Or restrained.

I am free
Belonging only to the
Garden of the earth.

To look in my eyes
Is to face your self.

I am the sunshine
Touching your bare skin.

     © 2010 Desert Dreamer


                          Tucson Mountains sunset view

Hibiscus denudatus - Desert Hibiscus

The Hibiscus of the Desert Late summer hillsides full of pink flowers opening with the morning sun.  Plants hidden from view at other times (to the eye of the average human) offer flowers in the heat of the desert monsoon.

















This year, the summer of 2008, is a good year for Desert Hibiscus in the Tucson Mountains. These photos were taken on September 12, 2008. There were hundreds of flowers in every direction.


denutatus = naked/bare or to make naked
Following the example of the Desert Hibiscus, we should become naked and expose our inner self to the sunshine, sharing our beauty for all the world to see. On the other hand, make naked our daily world, or in other words reveal truths, step aside from our masks. See the world and our selves for what they are and not what we have been taught to see.


My favorite related links :

http://www.fireflyforest.com/flowers/pinks/pink16.html

http://cabezaprieta.org/plant_page.php?id=1094s1963

http://www.calflora.net/bloomingplants/rockhibiscus.html