Our Lady of the Saguaros

Our Lady of  Tumamoc Hill

There are unexpected poetics along the popular trail that winds up Tumamoc Hill, smack in the center of Tucson and affording a great view of the whole city.  It is also a Sanctuary for the asking, and sometimes the Goddess appears at unexpected moments.

I felt like sharing this Shrine, with its mosaic  Madonna standing at the trail head (or, at the end of the trail, depending on your perspective).  The Shrine occurs on someone's house, an old house that stands at the trail head to  Tumamoc.  Tumamoc  is  near A Mountain. A  Mountain (which might be more appropriately called "A Hill") is an extinct cinder cone that features a large "A" on it's pointy side. The "A" came to special prominence in 2003, when patriots painted it red, white and blue as George Bush prepared to invade Iraq, and anti-war protesters painted it green in the middle of the night. For about 6 months, you never knew what color the "A" would be, but eventually the patriots won and it remained  a garish red, white and blue until last year, when it transfigured into a simple white A.  Changing times.  At any rate, the trail is taken very  early in the morning before the heat comes. It rises gradually among a grove of saguaros, and affords a wide view of Tucson, and the sunrise among the Catalina Mountains.

I don't actually know what the shrine is called, but I call it "Our Lady of the Saguaros". Because, as you walk up the hill, you pass chaparral, medicine plant, sage, and impressive Saguaros. Native people called them the "fingers of God", and indeed, they often do seem to be making Mudras, telling slow stories about time, heat and the desert, if one can only find the means to read the sign language they speak.  Right now, having bloomed white flowers in April and May, their tops are crowned with red pear shaped fruits, which the birds are tearing open to eat. It's quite wonderful to see those red tops, and masses of finches and doves gathered on the tops of the desert trees, happily feasting.

May we all find "Our Lady" (by whatever name) waiting for us at the end, or beginning, of the Trail.

Desert Summer ........

The long, hot, introverted summers of Tucson are, like the long winters of the North lands, a time to go inside (quite literally), retreat.  After you get over the rigors and limitations of  The Inferno, and provided you have a good cooling system, you can quite learn to enjoy this time.  The snowbirds are all gone, the students are gone, and Tucson is a much quieter place. Everybody is up by 5:00 when it's cool, and by noon you're inside.  After the sun goes down people go out again, the cafes open, music is hear from bars, people like me are in the yard watering the plants and having a glass of cold wine.  The hot desert moon hangs, intense in the heat, over all, and walks in the surrounding desert can be very magical indeed.  Just bring water, water, water, because one quickly learns here that without water, there is no life.

Hot or not, it is still summer, and the adapted life of the desert is responding.  The giant saguaros produce a  crown of beautiful white flowers which quickly become sweet purple fruits (native people make wine and preserves from them) full of birds tearing at them. The desert doves make their mournful call, but actually it's a mating call.  The veneer of greenery in the desert dies back, waiting for the monsoons to come in July, when suddenly, , the vast storms roll in every afternoon, thunder and lightning, pour down floods that disappear within an hour or two...............and almost overnight the desert greens with seeds that have been dormant all year, waiting for this time.
  

mullein

It's easy to live inside of apartments, cars,  cyberspace and televisions today, immune to the subtle voices of nature, the "great conversation".  I remember when I was living in upstate New York, and suffered from asthma.  Every morning I would walk out into my garden and there would be mullein plants, springing up in very odd places I had certainly not planted them.  A herbalist friend remarked, seeing this phenomenon, that the spirit of the plant was trying to help me out.  Mullein is specifically useful to people with lung problems, both as a tonic and as an herb to smoke and breath.  A true Medicine Plant, a generous plant, responding to my need.   How often do we take the time to thank them?

I had that same experience with "fairy circles", also in New York.  We lived on 40 acres, and I remember, being very involved in Pagan spirituality, I was eager for "signs" in the fields of Devas.    I left offerings, I talked to the trees.  And sure enough, there were a number of times when I would take a walk and see grasses grow up in pretty clear circles.   Fantasy on my part?  Maybe, but other people saw the  "circles".  I like to think the fey folk were saying hello.

Mushroom Fairy Circle (not my picture)

The Desert too has its spirits, its Numina, and if you listen, you can converse with them.  Friendliness has much to do with opening the conversation.  Ever since my Night Blooming Cereus cactus put on such a spectacular show a few weeks ago, I've been patting the cactus in the morning, thanking it for giving me such beauty.  I'm absolutely astounded to see a multitude of new buds on it now, and thrilled with the prospect of a new show of these rare, ephemeral blooms once again.  Coincidence?  Maybe the cactus just likes me, and is responding to my great appreciation for its artistry.  Why not?  As an artist myself, I know I respond to appreciation.

Night Blooming Cereus

I've decided to give myself a "retreat" for a while,  and one of the things I'm going to do in the course of the next few weeks is work on a new book that's called "The Goddess Suite - A Community Portfolio of Excerpts from Performances, Rituals and Writings 1998 - 2014", which will archive the materials I have for communities in the future who may wish to use them.  I still receive emails from people who are interested in working with the Goddess masks, and along with my friends Mana, Annie, and Macha, I believe it's important to archive and share as much as I can the processes we all developed in working with sacred masks, ritual theatre, and telling and inventing new stories about the Divine Feminine through the art of the mask.  What I think is humming underneath this project is the possibility of me returning to working with groups directly myself. 

I think, every single day now, about what happened last summer when I was visited by the spirit of an African Songhai shaman - I think about the call he left me with to "revive Yemeja".  Yemeja has been called   the "Mother of the World"........ as an artist, as I keep saying to myself and to the other artists in my network, we need to take seriously our job, our unique power to "re-myth culture".  As the New Stories Foundation points out, so much of what happens in the life of humanity has to do with the stories we tell about the world and ourselves.  We need stories about the Great Mother, the Goddess with a Thousand Faces.  If I can help in this endeavor, I will.  So, I'll just keep on keeping on, and see what seeds get planted now in the quiet time..................

Found Poetry:"The Barbed Heart Finds Refuge Among the Palos Verde Forest"

Photos from the All Souls Parade, Tucson, 2013

 

Some wonderful photos by Kathleen Dreier of the recent Dia de Los Muertes Parade in Tucson!

https://www.facebook.com/EsensPhotographybyKathleenDreier

All images © Esens Photography by Kathleen Dreier

Dia de los Muertos Procession and....Orbs!

 My friend Ginny Moss is not only an amazing tile artist, and photographer, but she is also a "friend of Orbs".  She has taken some amazing photos with orbs appearing in them, and her photos of the "Dia de los Muertos Procession" this past Sunday in downtown Tucson were spectacular.

Over the years the Procession has grown to something attended by thousands of people, all commemorating and celebrating the Day of the Dead.   The parade ended this year with a Fire Performance by Flam Chen.

And look at all the Orbs that attended!

Deaths in Tucson

I'm very saddened by the shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Gifford, leaving her critically wounded, 6 people dead including a 9 year old girl ironically born on 9/11 and called one of the "Hope Babies".  14 others were wounded. There's no need to go into the details, as the news is international.

 

Gabrielle's office is just 3 blocks from where I live, and last night I placed a candle and flowers at a vigil held there for her (there were others, including where she is being treated at UMC hospital.) The intersection near her office was blocked off before the vigil, because a suspicious object, presumably a  bomb,  was reportedly found and defused. I heard this after I arrived, and don't know the details.....but if so, this gunman was not alone in his hate campaign, or there were people who took advantage of the tragedy to provoke further threat of violence. 

Tucson is fairly well known as a (sort of) liberal oasis in an otherwise conservative state with a lot of "cowboy" ethics still abounding. In Arizona, for example,  you can legally carry a handgun (in a holster).  I'm not going to write about that, or the mythos and insanity of the gun culture, because there's way too much to say. I do want to say that the last election was the ugliest, most irrational I have ever seen, with a kind of simplistic, violent propaganda focused  against Giffords, and Democrat Raul Grijalva, that I don't remember ever seeing before.  Even the most politically apathetic noticed it.   Some of the "allegations" on the internet or over TV were comparable to the insanity of calling President Obama a Muslim terrorist.  One example I found particularly disturbing were thousands of cardboard placards placed at intersections all over town with blurbs like "Giffords supports the Taliban". Just a few days ago, even though the election is well over, I noticed a placard near her headquarters that said: "Giffords took away my medicare".  For many this extraordinary hate campaign was very much on our minds as we lit our candles.

I try to keep my blog away from politics, but this, literally, hits home;  how much did this hateful propaganda have to do with the hate that fueled this violent act?  Forbes Magazine suggested this in an article posted today, in which the author notes that:

"On her Facebook page last spring, (Sarah) Palin posted a U.S. map with crosshairs of a rifle scope  over the districts repped by Giffords and 19 other Democrats.” ..................."should we pretend that the violent rhetoric of Palin and her followers is “just an overheated metaphor,” asks Huffington Post writer Marty Kaplan. How many times have we heard Jon Stewart and others speak out about how the GOP-Tea Party machine, with its angry bombast, pushes people? This “lock-and-load” mentality  is today’s U.S. politics–reptilian, raging, uncivil, unyielding and here, possibly murderous. UPDATE 1/9/2011: Even a senior Republican senator, speaking anonymously to Politico.com “in order to freely discuss the tragedy,” believes the Giffords shooting is a “cautionary tale.” “There is a need for some reflection here – what is too far now?” said the senator talking about inflammatory language and suggestions of violence in politics."

Forbes online magazine

 This is not only a political matter; it is also a spiritual matter.  The "altar" created for Giffords and all the others included prayers for peace,  a butterfly, a peace sign, and many, many candles with the image of the Virgin of Guadaloupe - people know that we must all hold reason, hold the peace, now, more than ever.