The Moods of Baboquivari

There are moments of awakening when we linger in the dream world and the last traces of the dream cling to our minds like water sliding down a rock. I often try to loiter there. Its lasts only a fleeting minute and my heart aches for that moment throughout the day. But on days when I wander off into the field, the dream world pursues me, as though suggesting all of this is a dream. There in the field I stare at the world in its wondrous manifestations, figuring out plants in all their magical forms, with dreams on subtle wings and visions of mountains and light. 

These are the magical visions I saw in a place called Brown Canyon. It is a southeast trending canyon that's closed to the public and open to the four thousand foot rise of Baboquivari Peak above the canyon bottom. It is part of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, a 150,000+ acre refuge that sits along the Mexican border southwest of Tucson and is part of the larger Baboquivari Mountains. I spent four days in the valley collecting data for a vegetation map and got to stay in a house nestled near its heart. The words of John Burroughs stuck with me, "So far as seeing things is an art, it is the art of keeping your eyes and ears open. The art of nature is all in the direction of concealment."

 

Agave palmeri, Palmer's agave

 

Agave palmeri II, writ large

Passiflora foetida, fetid passionflower

Hybanthus attenuatus, western greenviolet

Cylindropuntia spinosior, walkingstick cholla

 The pods of an Agave palmeri

 The leaf of an Eysenhardtia orthocarpa, the Tahitian kidneywood

Commelina erecta, the whitemouth dayflower

 Echinocereus pectinatus, the rainbow hedgehog

 

An unopened bud of Tecoma stans, the yellow trumpetbush

 

Agave buglandia

One curiosity about spending several days doing nothing but staring at plants is you get to see the most remarkable things. Perhaps it is the slower rhythm, perhaps it is the time spent huddling on the porch as the remnants of a tropical storm plow into the Baboquivari mountains, perhaps you are just paying attention. But these are just some of the many moods of Baboquivari Peak, the most holy and important mountain to the O'odham People.

At the bottom of the picture above you see the small collection of buildings known as the Brown Canyon Environmental Education center. Home for a few days. Here are a few move visions from out there...

 Heading into Jaguar Canyon

 Rainbow agave

The approaching storm. There is nothing quite as frightening as having to walk back down off a slope in the midst of a really violent lightning storm, perils of the job. This photo was about ten minutes before the storm arrived.

The Monsoon Grassland I

The monsoon can create convection quickly in August. How is it that we see this? It is water, heat, convection, rain, and life. Why exactly do we not see the planet as an organism we inhabit?

The Convection Sequence, Las Cienegas National Conservation Area

Driving into the Empire Ranch south of Tucson early an August morning. The convection was awake as I left Tucson and I resolved to wander through the Las Cienegas looking for what plants were blooming. Instead, I discovered moisture creating a storm. Twenty minutes elapses between images one to three. I'm fifteen miles from the storm.

 Convection 1

 Convection 2

 Convection 3

Humboldt Canyon, Patagonia Mountains

The photo below is of a canyon under threat because of the 1872 Mining Act. Essentially, arbitrary economic claims on the public good mean we the public do not get to choose whether to have an alternative economy. A law from the 19th century explains the public's right of ownership over mineral resources below the ground. There are alternative economic structures emerging that will support a viable alternative economic model–that model is a restoration economy.

The crest of Aztec Canyon, Patagonia Mountains

This sequence of three images is taken from the crest of Aztec Canyon. It looks northwest toward the Santa Rita Mountains, with Mt. Wrightson in the center. This is the thick monsoon light of moisture as a storm moves in from the northeast. We were digging ocotillo sprouts for restoration research on private land and had walked to the crest of the hill, looking to the northwest and the shifting light as it settled on the near and far ground. The mountains shone. My friend took us to an Agave parviflora plant, a plant whose type locality was collected nearby. the smallest flowered Agave.

The Ocotillo hug the southeast facing slopes, looking south directly into Mexico.

Amsonia grandiflora

From the Whetstone's to the Huachucas

Looking across Las Cienegas NCA, the sky held the immense heaviness of moisture. The rain was coming.