My neighbors are winter visitors, coming here only when their Chicago jobs permit. they miss so much! Today one of their cactuses was in glorious spring bloom:
When I visited my own garden, this bloom surprised me. Yesterday it hadn’t been there, and this morning it was:
So I borrowed it from my garden and brought it inside!
We don’t have to “own” beauty to enjoy it. The best beauty is borrowed.
I’ve lived in Arizona for over 50 years, and for most of that time Oak Creek Canyon has been my haven. I rode down the switchbacks in my girlfriend’s boyfriend’s ’57 Thunderbird, when it was brand new and we were, too. I had my Senior High ditch day at Slide Rock. I swam naked…
Bird flight is a miraculous event. I once had the privilege of watching two golden eagles in mating flight over the Red Rocks of Sedona. They swooped and swirled, and at the very last moment the female turned on her back in mid-flight and they joined, the male carrying both of them with his strong…
Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments. ~Rose Kennedy These ox-eye daisies found a home in the Coconino forest near Flagstaff, Arizona. No one had planted them, and the ground was poor and thin. Yet they thrived, moment to moment. If I went back there a year from now, a sister plant would…
It was a cold, sunlit morning in November when I took this photograph of the crystal water at Red Rock Crossing. Behind me were the magnificent totems of Cathedral Rock, but I chose to look down, instead. The soft sandstone had been worn smooth by the creek that ebbs and flows according to the season,…
Sometimes I trip over my own feet, because I am staring at the sky. This day, the clouds were giving some very clear signals. The background white ones were fair-weather clouds saying don’t worry, everything is fine. The lower, darker clouds, rapidly moving in, were saying, don’t believe those guys. You are in for some…
I started the walk before dawn, collecting clouds as I went. Wispy ones darted in and out of the red rock formations; others nestled in puddles after midnight rains. The pine needles had felted into heavy mats that softened the ground beneath my feet. They created soft nests for windfalls of storm-blown pine cones. The…