Tag Archives: Sedona

January 4, 2024 · 3:43 pm

It might seem counterintuitive, yes, or even disingenuous:

to talk about a 2024 resolution to be less annoying, less grandiose, less showoffy, less of a know it all, and to do it in a blog that showcases me, me, me.

I know. It is true.

And yet, hiking the Fay Canyon trail this morning I can’t help but ponder my resolve, how I might achieve it, and how I might write about it here. And illustrate with my own photos, of course. I might not even have used those words, counterintuitive and disingenuous, incorrectly. But see how I full steam ahead as though I did?

Bear with me.

Juniper, oak and manzanita dominate this forest landscape.

The oaks are different than we have back east. Gambel oaks, Emory oaks. Interesting growth habit, unusual leaves.

Plenty of beauty all around.

I’ve always loved manzanita for its dead and live parts intertwined.

A little way in I come upon my first alligator of the day.

The alligator juniper, magnificent, and even a conjoined specimen, my favorite.

Me, me, me. My favorite, which I’m telling you about here. They’re so hardy, their roots can grow into rock.

Which one is your favorite, though? Slightly less arrogance, slightly more consideration for other people.

Conjoined junipers abound. Husband-and-wife trees, not rare here in Sedona. I’m taking lots of photos.

Hikers pass me on the trail. I overhear snippets of conversation about trees, technology, how many eggs are left in someone’s refrigerator. Should we go out and buy more? says the first. Her companion: Probably not necessary.

The ground underneath the juniper’s branches swims with berries, their blue coated with a fine white powder.

Tell-tale sign of some animal.

Coyote? Fox? Javelina? A person scolded me once for offering a photo of scat in this blog. I love its mystery, though, the story it tells of other creatures in these woods when our human backs are turned. I follow the stream bed, hiking the dry wash.

I reach the end of the trail, the end of the box canyon.

I see a jumble of boulders adorned by the backpack of a human lucky enough to find themselves amid this place’s grandeur.

Another sign of humans, a marker that seems kind of corny and almost quaint in our digital age.

Time to turn around, head back to the parking lot, out of this fantastic realm.

I pass some novel sights along the way.

Hello! I love you. Won’t you tell me your name?

More gorgeous lichen.

Time-roughened bark.

A juvenile specimen.

More old and new, combined in the bark of numerous grizzled junipers.

Oddly, then, my impulse to pursue my goal of less ego, more modesty, becomes replaced as I walk the path along the wash.

I remember another resolution I’ve made, equally powerful: to try to live in the Now.

I reach a little clearing and find myself standing still. Suddenly there are no humans within hearing distance. The only acoustics: birds twittering in the undergrowth and above. I look up.

I scan down the trail, where I’m headed.

I turn my focus back to where I’ve come from.

All around me is such intense beauty.

And I have an epiphany. This, actually, is the Now. This is the only moment.

My feet are suddenly rooted to the sandy ground.

I can’t move. I look around some more.

I start to weep. Look up again, helpless. The morning sky smiles down, my only friend.

Gaze around me.

Everything so quiet, so still, so perfect. Peaceful. Luminous. It’s a kind of active contentment I can’t recall feeling before. My worries about the past and future recede. I know those concerns exist, but they’ve faded to the edges, temporarily invisible.

Can every moment resonate like this one? Can I live in the Now, if not always, then more often? I’m not sure.

I never want to leave this place, this moment. 

After standing there stock still for a while, I remember I said I’d return by a certain time. I move off my sandy perch and head back down the trail. I see some unfamiliar things as I go.

Some details I missed on the way into the canyon.

Pass a few folks laughing, tromping down the trail, having their normal conversations.

I’m back to normal too, but with a powerful feeling I know I’ll carry with me into the Now of 2024.

Should we buy eggs today? Probably not necessary.

What we have to put in our mouths at this moment will do just fine.

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November 19, 2023 · 5:15 pm

Plants have names.

Even those plants most people would walk right by and have no idea what to call them. In the desert, maybe, especially.

It helps if you’re lucky enough to be with someone who knows most of the names.

Like my brother. He seems to be acquainted with everything we pass this morning on this quiet little trail in Sedona.

Of course he knows the juniper.

The prickly pear.

Manzanita.

And the pinyon pine.

But also the things most hikers don’t know. Crucifixion thorn.

Banana yucca.

Saltbush.

Nightshade.

Catclaw. If you pull it this way, it’s sharp, he says. They make honey out of it.

Of course there are a few species even he does not know. Wright’s silk tassel, for example. Or sixweek’s three-awn.

Or wait-a-minute. Its minute seemingly past.

I think those sound like Medieval ones, titled long ago.

When you can walk around and name natural aspects of the world around you, it gives you a feeling of satisfaction. Even elation.

Elated is how I feel on this little trail today in sight of some of the biggest mountains around.

These rock formations so dramatic under the lowering storm clouds, especially fronted by beautiful wreckage.

Not, perhaps, as subtle as wait-a-minute. But both are arresting.

Mysteries do occur also on this trail, things we cannot name. Gorgeous, syrupy, silvery sap.

A very humble stone, its bald head poking up amid the shrubbery.

A rock embedded in the red sand.

A metal structure whose use is lost to time.

A puddle. The simple wetness of a pool. So unusual in the high desert.

As is a drum. Why is it here?

Just to make a sound.

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January 6, 2023 · 8:29 pm

Jay day on Dead Man’s Pass

and I have the trail mainly to myself.

The other day trippers, it seems, are off to The Birthing Cave or The Subway for selfies, apparently taking their cue from some meme about the five formations you must see when you visit Sedona.

They don’t know that Dead Man’s Pass happens to be the most beautiful trail in Sedona, or in fact on earth. I was blind but now I see. Amazing Grace has new meaning here.

Do you know how, when you reach the end of a book you love, you want to read each page more slowly to prolong the satisfaction as long as you possibly can? That’s how I feel on this trail – I would like to take a step backward for each step forward to prolong the experience indefinitely. Relish every sight along the way, even the old craggy logs. Especially the logs.

Passed a pair of very quiet, very private Western jays, pecking their way along in the shadows, spectacularly cerulean against the dull red earth. Red rocks – they never change and they’re so ubiquitous. Does that make them boring?

I’m walking so slowly, I’m in a dream. But a very lucid dream. It’s partly memory. I’ve had many heart-to-hearts on this trail when I wasn’t alone, and some with myself when I was.

I hear a flute in the distance. I thought that the flutist who perched on the vortex by Kachina Maiden had been chased off after he was caught feeding a bear, but I guess he’s back, and the sound carries like a liquid across Long Canyon.

Another jay squawks angrily from a thicket as I pass. Okay, I’ll get out of your feathers.

Bliss sounds hokey. But is there anything more picturesque than a dead old blasted juniper tree?

A beautiful day on the most beautiful train in Sedona, I call out to some geezers I pass. Oh yeah, one says. Another says, Despite the name, referring to Dead Man’s Pass. Or because of the name, I rejoin.

How very rare to see codgers on the trail these days, with their walking sticks and their sun hats. It’s always the people from California now with their technical backpacks and huge water jugs (I unfortunately left my H20 in the car) searching for the celebrity caves. Watch the mud, cautions one man in the group. Mud? Thanks! We look out for each other, we codgers.

Thirty years ago I came through Dead Man’s Pass on a mountain bike. It was a thrill, especially the rock slide.

Today a mountain biker cycles by just after the treacherous tumble of stones: You enjoy the rock slide? I say. Ha ha, he throws over his shoulder, It’s the funnest part. A big shaggy dog whooshes up behind.

Then a woman follows. How’d you like the rock slide? I inquire. Well, she mutters, It wasn’t my finest. Honesty. It’s good to have humility when considering rock slides you might have done differently.

Selfies at the Birthing Cave. I think I’ll only take hand selfies today at the pinon pine.

Mainly alone, I do see evidence of those who have come before: a random blue discarded mask, an orange peel, a hair tie. Some kind of crazy sticker.

Leave nothing but footprints, guys! And me with my cell phone, taking pics. Yes, guilty, I did check my mail on the trail – wanted to see if I had work. I’m human too! Must capture the mystery of the sturdy little cone.

Another hiker sweats by. We compare notes on which is the most beautiful trail in Sedona. Long Canyon, he says. I tell him I don’t usually bother, I like Deadman’s Pass so much. I suggest Doe Mountain, a mesa where I’ve seen a lot of ravens. I hiked it yesterday but turned around when the switchbacks got too slippery with mud. I’ll try it at dawn tomorrow, he promises me.

I’m free! sang The Who.

Sometimes the light falls on something so perfectly. A beacon. A benediction.

Bikers pass, white poodle in tow wearing trail shoes.

Really? The animal pauses next to me, alert. Come on, Sally! She trots off. Wonder what she scented.

Perhaps the coyote whose tracks I notice by the side of the trail. Poodle would make a nice snack.

Say there’s something you want to get rid of, some anxiety, and you think you never will. And then you just age out of it. Amazing the way that happens. Well, a good way to speed it along is to immerse yourself in the scenery of Dead Man’s Pass. I’m leaving it all behind me on the trail. All the anxiety, all the pain. Someone I care about is very concerned about the downward Dow. Let it go.

Let go, let go, let go.

A helicopter glints overhead. Zoom, it’s there.

I biked the rock slide 30 years ago and never fell off. I biked on a level trail a year ago and took a bad tumble. Will never get rid of that scar on my shin. Things change, of course.

It’s fun to zip through the Pass on a bike, get to where you’re going fast. Perhaps even better though to take it slow and see all the small things.

Smell the air.Think.

Give thanks.  I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Remember the ravens hanging in the air above Doe Mountain.

The simple things are purty.

I set my intention on finding a juniper berry in the sand. Not hard. Go easy on yourself, set a simple intention.

A gaggle of millennials passes. Good morning, I say. Good morning! one says. Another says, I forgot it was morning!

Please, don’t forget it’s morning, ever. It’s the only morning.

Good morning, I say to another couple. It’s refreshing, says the man. A little warm on your back.

I’ll say.

Ecstasy. (Perhaps I finally got my medication right.) I leave my body. I’m a blue jay. A javelina, a coyote. I see my own tracks. The clouds whisper to me.

I am ageless. I am sexless. I am dead. Alive. Merely an idea about time. I am, however, getting thirsty.

When I hear the Woo-hoo! of climbers mounting the vortex across the canyon, I decide it’s time to turn back around.

That Alejandro Escovedo lyric in Castanets, I like her better when she walks away. That’s not true of this trail. It’s better going in.

Still, got to go back. It’s time. Chug water, blow nose, eat salad, be human.

You don’t see coyote tracks from the seat of a mountain bike.

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January 4, 2023 · 7:34 pm

Same old same old

wonders close to home.

Yes, when your sometime home lies at the mouth of Boynton Canyon in Sedona, and snow dusts the ancient red rocks, of course everything is wondrous. But when I worked at the Grand Concourse in the Bronx last year, I thought is was pretty marvelous, too.

Look, see, absorb.

Yes, the sky is white. Yes, it’s cold out. Are you dressed warmly enough? says my mother. Yes. I happen to be hotblooded. Like the lizard we found on the kitchen curtain this morning is coldblooded, and not doing much of anything, just existing.

If anything, the manzanita in the pygmy forest looks even more perfect with a dollop of snow.

I’ve always loved how the old and the new intertwine.

I’ve gone to the end of this trail once, but I’ve started at the beginning so, so many times.

The trail flaky orange like peanut butter.

People whiz by. What’s the rush? I visit old favorites. The twin-stemmed alligator juniper.

How important is it to conquer the trail, conquer the world? Is there something I need to be doing? I am unencumbered by a book contract (for now) with not a penny in my pocket to weigh me down. I think that might be alright, at least for today.

I’d like to branch out like an old tree. Reevaluate. Reassess. Probably won’t come to a conclusion any time soon. That’s okay.

Why do I do this thing, writing? Does it matter at all? Is it ego? More like id! No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money, said the sage Samuel Johnson. Someone recently suggested that I put way too much time into this blog. Why would you do that? I felt stung, a bit. Well, it is true that as W. H. Auden famously, said, poetry makes nothing happen. (His words actually come from a great poem, in which he honors fellow poet W. B. Yeats. Auden goes on to say of poetry: it survives, / A way of happening, a mouth.) A blog post is that idea of nothing happening squared. I am aware of that.

Well. Why then? Because I get a chance to write about white skies and white snow. Snow glow. The old twisted with the new. My doubts. My quest, such as it is, on any given day. Solipsistic? Caught. Some other people like it too. I know that, and I appreciate it. Close, closer, closest.

Someone I know with a long, storied career in trees told me he’s just begun singing at cabaret open mics. None but a blockhead ever sang but for money, certainly. He’d never done it before, and occasionally bombs. All things new and grand and unexpected.

I am searching for inosculated trees. Kissing trees. I’ve found them before and written about them before, but not yet today. Same old same old.

But what is your blog about? demanded the pleasant stranger. Well, I do things, and then I write about them. That’s it. Isn’t there a limit to the amount of Jean-juice anyone can digest? That’s why we have Alka Seltzer.

On the trail I pass a juniper that’s old and fat. (Like me. No complaints. I had granola this morning. That’s more than some of our friends on the southern border.) Something I never noticed before, it has a scroll of hieroglyphics hidden beneath the bark. The magic of beetles.

So many trees here fat and sassy, with intricately detailed and colorized skins.

Maybe it’s my way of escaping reality. I set my intention to find inosculated trees. Haven’t seen one example yet this morning, though I know I have on this trail before. That’s why we do it again and again.

A mess of needles.

I work things out in my mind as I go and as I write. Consider it a character flaw.

Beautiful and common shadbush.

Stalking the forest, seeking conjoined trees. They didn’t know what they were doing, and through a trick of the wind they grew closer and closer and decided to join forces.  I like the junipers with twinned trunks because they confound dendrologists who would love to count their rings to determine their age. They are ageless. It’s so brilliantly confusing.

But I love the inosculated ones because they’re more rare. Spotting them is hard, sometimes, they’re a secret hiding in plain sight. You sort of have to catch them in the act. Someone I know used to say all the time, We are so lucky. Perhaps. But of course you have to make your own luck, yada yada. And how do you do that? Sometimes by retracing your steps over and over and over again. I’ll feel lucky if I can find a conjoined tree. I know there’s one here someplace.

Finally I find a pair.

My work here is done.

Someone stops me on the trail: Do you know the way to the subway? Is she making some kind of hiker’s joke? No, I say, but if you continue on you’ll find the Indian cave. What do you mean, subway? Turns out it’s some kind of tunnel formation. Other hikers mention it too, everyone looking for the subway in Sedona. It’s supposedly a turn off the main trail by a red and green tree. Red and green tree? Interesting concept, said the supercilious arborist. Then I met up with this hand-painted trail marker, went in and looked around and didn’t find the subway, but maybe next time.

There are surprising numbers of hikers here today. Questers all.

Abel is 15 years old and hiked most of the trail before getting pooched. Others are taking pictures of the same sights I’m showing here.

Overheard on the trail: Do you ever feel like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop? Absolutely.

An old soldier. I’m impressed.

Sometimes you’re just hanging on for dear life.

There is an oak being beautiful around here, though I don’t see it at present.

I’m a trunk, you’re a stone. Would it be okay if we cohabit this place?

Pretty sure I’ve met up with this old geezer rock before.

Animal pee. Yes, we live here too. A hawk overhead, scree. The sound of snow plopping all around as the morning warms. Am I going to see something amazing now?

Place one foot in front of the other.

There’s so much to see.

Just don’t slip on the ice.

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July 16, 2022 · 6:23 pm

Alligator junipers don’t bite.

Stout, ancient ones mob this trail to the back of Boynton Canyon, Sedona’s most magical spot.

Some are mammoth, four hundred years old or more, their rough hides entwining with the silvery smooth underclothes.

I want to live!

Juniperus deppeana has a tendency to splay into multiple trunks, the fusion making it hard for dendrologists to accurately gauge the rings that would  show a specimen’s age.

A savage mysticism holds sway here, the home of indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Wayfinders at the trail’s start.

There is a word for two conjoined trees, trees that somehow find and make a life together.

Inosculation denotes when trunks, branches or roots of two trees grow together in a manner biologically similar to the artificial process of grafting. It comes from the Latin meaning “to kiss into/inward/against” or “to make a small mouth inward/into/against.” Wonderful, hmn? Trees that do this are referred to in forestry as gemels, again Latin, meaning “a pair”. Usually same species, not always.

What happens is this: the branches first grow separately in proximity to each other until they touch. At this point, the bark on the shared surfaces is gradually abraded away as the trees move .Finally the two connect, what is called braiding or pleaching. I aways look for this phenomenon in the woods, and there are more instances in this southwestern forest than anyplace else I’ve seen. Maybe the trees here simply like each other more than they do in other places. They’re sometimes known as husband-and-wife trees.

Only connect! E.M. Forster wrote that.

Padding along alone you see things you might otherwise miss. A hawk scree-screeing overhead, a quick rabbit, lizards skittering, hummingbirds drinking from thistles.

Underfoot, ants carry their groceries home. Gambel oak.

Someone has been here before me, probing, a sixth sense to find insects.

I’ve always liked the desert balance of dead and living.

Manzanita has that in spades, red twisted with grey. Chewing its leaves can ease a headache.

They call it the pygmy forest, where manzanita spreads out for acres all around.

After a few miles the manzanita and alligator juniper make room for the ponderosas.

I lean close, inhale the butterscotch scent.

S’cuse me while I kiss the sky.

Shagged, panting, I find a boulder, rest. Hikers whiz by. I listen to birdsong. Think of all the ways I’ve gone wrong, all the things I’ll do better.

Get up and get going. The end of the canyon, I am told by some European tourists coming back the other way, is magnificent. Well, they don’t say magnificent. They just sigh, wide eyed. Keep going. You won’t be sorry.

After the final scramble, triumph. The countenance of a hiker at the trail’s end says it all.

You can see forever here.

Sure, I love the view. It is magnificent. But I find I like what is on the ground as much.

I like  being grounded. Going to ground. Contemplating what will come next and readying myself for… whatever. Remembering the tough hide of the alligator juniper, which thrives in difficult soil and manages to find whatever water exists below ground, sustenance only the tree can see.

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July 14, 2022 · 8:46 pm

So much beauty everywhere

but nothing compares with the dusk skies of red rock Arizona. 

See how a prickly pear glows, somehow, from within?

Their spines reflect the natural light, then the flowers say goodnight.

I always feel that given the strictures of growing here, the drought, mainly, and the intensity of the sun’s rays, plants have to really want to survive if they are going to make it. 

Does the cloud want to float?

The century plant—which contrary to the old wive’s tale actually blooms after 10 to 30 years, at the end of its life —busts out its brawny blooms. By the way, is there anything wrong with the tales of old wives? Speaking as one, I think we are usually correct. 

Clouds are dancing, slowly, sleepily. Almost nightfall.

Sotol happens to be so tall. 

Once upon a time, the base of a cooked sotol stem was eaten much like an artichoke leaf (by scraping across the front teeth). What is left, called a quid, resembles a spoon and can be used as one. Archaeological sites feature samples of “Desert Spoon” thousands of years old. Sotol flower-stalks used as atlatl dart hind-shafts have been discovered in ceremonial caves, while the sotol stem was used as a fireplow. Just now, a fantastic dusk sentinel.

Ought we to call these evening clouds sopink?

The light is beginning to dim. 

What happens in and about these red rock castles in the dark? The mule deer take a break from chomping grass (ruminants have four-chambered stomachs, so it takes a while to fill them all, and it’s probably pleasant to lie down during a digestive spell).

The slitherers either slither or dither under the night sky, not sure which. Triumph of lizard brain

Red rock simply sits, stoic, stolid, awaiting—nothing. Simply being. A neat trick if you can manage to turn off your human brain and try.

I will.

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