Saguaro National Park

 Saguaro National Park

We camped at Gilbert Ray Campground, a Tuscon Mountain County Park.  We took day hikes each morning.  Jason's photos follow . . . mesmerized by the saguaro cactus and its manifestation of spirit.

 

 

 

My photos follow . . .

I watch Fred make prayer sticks for two Tohono O’odham children.  I ask if I can photograph and he nods and smiles, yes. He led the children through a ritual starting with handing them saguaro sticks about 5-6 inches long.  Three sides rounded, one flattened.   He divided it into four sections with a marker and then asked them to draw something important to them in each rectangle—colored markers in a big pile.  He held the stick and asked them to explain what they had drawn, then wound pipe cleaners onto the stick—methodical and certain.  Handing them a bowl of colored plastic beads he asked them to choose four.  After stringing a leather thong through the premade hole at one end, he had the children put two beads on each side of the saguaro stick, the prayer stick.  He tied the knots to hold the beads to the stick and with a third knot closed the leather thong into a handle.  He finished it by tying a more complicated knot in a certain pattern at the opposite end of the stick.  Giving the stick back to the children, he asked them to repeat after him.

Pointing the stick to east, “To the east,”

“To the east,” repeated the children.

“And all good things that come from it.”

Their refrain, “And all good things that come from it.”

“To the north and all good things that come from it.

“To the west and all good things that come from it.

“To the south and all good things that come from it.”

He was careful to close the circle moving the stick back to the east before moving it vertical and holding it down.

“To Grandmother Earth, and all good things that come from her.”

Then up.

“To Grandfather Sky, and all good things that come from him.

“Your sticks are blessed now and you can use them always,” he told the children.

 

Jason in our camper at work on the computer with the photography.  First he takes photos and then he paints them with a computer.

Walking through landscapes I am over and again impressed with how small and short lived our lives.  These plants can weigh 7 tons and grow four stories tall.  At the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Jason found a map that lights up all the electricity connection in the US.  East of the Mississippi is solid lights, almost no corner of dark.  The West is the opposite.  We are out here scratching the surface of the extraordinary.