so, what about now? the then, constructed from fragments of fleshy and amorphous silica memory remains. it stands in each accretionary flow of now as a splinter of ... glass ... that distracts with an acute and heart-shimmering intrusion deep into souls that only somewhere wish to be there, then. speaking to a screen, there is a deep form of silence that no intensity of dialogue might remove. it is not a meditative silence but rather a reverberatory one ... in a glass house.



Karen is back home after her first trip to China, so she and Ron pick me up at Greg's for an over-night at the cabin south of Florissant. beautiful place! a great dinner that Ron concocts. and fine company, neighbors. and the wet weather continues in one form or another. Pikes Peak gets plenty more snow above tree line.

after a breakfast burrito and a couple hours going through the GHS 1976 images at Todd's to stir our memories, I head south from Fort Lupton to Manitou Springs slowly. pick up that roll of Tri-X film at Reed -- the one that sat, undeveloped, for almost a decade. the last roll of black-and-white film shot before shifting to the Sony DCR-PC100 video camera. it turns out to be a full roll of images, and thankfully without fogging despite sub-optimal storage. will scan the mystery shots when I get back to Prescott shortly. I've no idea what they are of.

taking in the way on the way. road trip images and sounds. these days, I usually stop for scenes that I perhaps previously would have driven by while noting in head shoulda stopped. I figure these days that I should be making images to somehow -- at least conceptually -- counter-balance my use of hydrocarbons. that and simply extending the practice of image-making which is so habitual now it risks becoming a stale rather than a vivifying practice. documenting the West as I see it and as I transit the spaces. the faux-windmill-water-station in Ft. Lupton, a darkly amusing iceberg-tip of impending global water issues; the green space appropriately called Greenland; the B-52 bomber at the Air Force Academy looms in the midst of a gathering storm; and sounds that augment a feel for the place.

the weather is strange.

I chill in a cafe in Manitou, catching up on work. it closes, so I head across the street to The Keg Lounge, definitely a local bar and grill (with wifi!). normally I'm not too chatty in such a place, but started to talk to the bartender, and then a young (obviously military) guy comes up ordering some beers for his friends playing pool. turns out he and the friends are deploying to Afghanistan in three days, to some obscure valley in one of the hottest Taliban-contested areas. I believe, without any empirical evidence, that only those who serve at that boots-on-the-ground level in the military have any clue what war really is like. I certainly don't. war is a black box that I can only assume is full of terrors that only the young are able to flexibly absorb and at least partially master. I buy them a round of drinks and talk with them for awhile. one fellow, an ancient 26-years-old, is on his fifth deployment. he was scheduled to have reconstructive knee surgery in June, but the Army canceled that in order to deploy him. he figures he'll be crippled by the time his deployment is over. they routinely carry 130-pounds of gear under extremely harsh conditions. a couple of them are first-timers. they harbor a certain bravado, innocence, and apprehension. embodied. I can't say the encounter made my day, but it felt right in the pit of the belly and in the heart. the War(s) are so invisible to all but those directly involved -- the legacy of illegitimacy and the fanatic regime that started them.

Greg gets back in from Boulder later so we hang out with his girlfriend, catching up on the pathways taken in the last years gone. hang out in his funky flat on the top floor of the (national historic register) Nolon House including the distinctive round tower. then they are away until tomorrow...

whoa. 50% of the DA-40 Board. this crew in one place at the same time. look out. late night for some, not for others. thanks gents for a stimulating evening!

Prof. Fred Henderson III of Mount Princeton Geothermal, LLC, meets us in the late morning (thank goodness!) for a briefing on the geothermal development that he is overseeing in the area. the ultimate goal is a heat-exchange/re-injection power plant based on several high-flow wells into the hot spot that drives the hot springs. he then takes us on a two-hour tour of the area mapping out the geological regime and sharing some of the development info for the geothermal prospect. the major problem in the valley (of Chalk Creek) is the complexity of property ownership and the density of residential development. this entire area is carved up in relatively small lots with homes and is a very desirable location, so people will fight any drilling, piping, whatever is necessary for the plant, this, knowing it is an alternative energy source which will offset some of the coal-fired electricity production that the West is so dependent on. the coal plant that supplies them with electricity is out of sight, though, and there are sure to be a minority who will resist anything remotely industrial in appearance while the mountains fade into the growing coal haze.

the last stop is at a recently completed well that officially has the highest recorded heat gradient in the state of Colorado. I do a portrait of Frank and his wife there, it's on her property.

(noting that the Chalk Cliffs for which the canyon is named are not actually chalk but rather hydrothermally altered Precambrian granite which in places will crumble in the hand, while those unaltered are hard as ... rock!)

after the tour, a last slow soak with those rust-e folks still left, then reluctantly descending from the mountains, in conversation.

up to the hot springs with the rust-e crew on a business/pleasure trip to nail down details on the sustainable creative practices conference/festival next February. we have a substantial cabin to hangout in and passes to the Hot Springs pools. the resort hasn't changed too much since the last time I was there twenty years ago or so. the weather conforms to the springtime-in-the-Rockies norm: changeable. with a tendency to unusually wet and cloudy which no one complains about. too much water is rarely even a nuisance in the West. the 14'ers, Mt. Princeton, and Mt. Shavano are mostly invisible, but when the peaks appear, there is plenty of fresh snow above tree-line. no motivation to do any serious climbing between the tight schedule of meetings and mandatory soaks in the hot water.

first we have an orientation meeting with the resort management who are really enthusiastic about the conference plans. to be sure, February probably isn't the busiest month up there. there are a few ski areas within 50 miles, but weather conditions can be severe at any time, and the hot springs aren't right on a major highway.

the afternoon is spent up in St. Elmo being introduced to the Ghost Town Guest House bed-and-breakfast with one of the owners, Sharon. along with her husband, they have just recently finished a fantastic place right in the town, and are currently the only year-round residents.

the evening starts with a long soak followed by a sumptuous dinner that leaves everyone ready to crash after suitable aprés aprés. Chalk Creek can hardly be called a creek this weekend, with all the snow-melt and fresh precipitation, it is raging and fills the moist night air with a power that erases all other sounds.

the day's activities are interspersed with memories of trips to Tincup, over the pass from St. Elmo, and jeeping with Collin, Joe, Mike, Chris, Cindy, and the usual eclectic posse that would converge at Joe's family cabin there. ages ago. another life.

head down to Denver to meet Jim and Dona for a trip to DAM. I also called Dave to come by as he's a former employee of the museum where he worked as an installation manager. the art forms a backdrop for stories, reflections, and dialogue.

after lunch we head over to the MCA for a walk-thru. I'd never been there and it turns out to be quite a nice space -- the rooftop bar and garden has a nice vibe to it. then back to the house to check out some of Jim's recent Director-based media installation projects. and more...

Trade ye no mere moneyed art
-- James Johnson

then on to an IMax theater to meet Sally and Montse for the new Star Trek movie which was not very good. 'nuf said. busy day. sonic documentation to come some future day as with many more past days. never the time to do the processing of files. accumulating faster than processing, a common problem for an archivist. what about being more exclusive? to choke the acquisitions process down to a manageable level. or more aggressively carving out processing time each day? that would come at the expense of sleep, methinks.

the work for the Williamson living room is finally finished and gets installed the day before I arrive. it works out quite okay for the space (opposite a huge picture window looking out on North Table Mountain). the Center hasn't manifest itself at quite this scale before. the process was time-consuming, but Cyndy, a customer-service rep at Reed Photo where it was printed and mounted made it fairly painless. a good exercise to run through with digital scans of some of the black-and-white negatives scans I've been making. not too expensive, and quite spectacular quality on Fuji papers. mounting is expensive, however. but the whole process seems ripe for exhibition development of works that I started sketching 20 or more years ago -- in the form of (long)tall scroll pieces that have multiple images on a single hanging piece of paper. gotta get to it!

a slow day recovering from the long day before. Rick briefs me on the spike in activity surrounding the recent shale-gas plays in North America. missed that development in the last years, totally. StatOil alone plans 15,000 wells in the Marcellus formation of Pennsylvania and New York states. holy cow!

Golden High School graduation at Brooks Field on the School of Mines campus on what starts off as a dreary and chilly morning with uncharacteristic clouds sticking to the foothills. Holly is the Valedictorian. the weather clears up by the end when Montse and I head back to the house for final party preparations. I take the opportunity to get the whole Williamson Clan together for a group portrait.



fourteen hours later, celebrations finally end with a round of toasts for the graduate.

Dear Holly. What a pleasure to be here to celebrate this time with you! The teacher who spoke at graduation is precisely right that whenever two humans cross pathways they are both changed in ways that are not (always) immediately apparent. This is a powerful principle of life: when we realize and take to heart that this occurs, we may intensify the outcomes of these encounters through open, honest, and unfettered engagement. This engagement should be attentive, concentrated, and focused. Through this, any other human encountered becomes a collaborative partner in a dynamic creative process that is the essence of life. As is taught, the next person you encounter may be the Buddha, and thus, how you engage governs the potential for enLightenment. I wish you all the best in your near and far future; that the pathways you walk will be full of those transformative encounters; and that the transformations bring the breath-taking inspiration that makes life joyous.

Life is a phenomena! You are phenomenal!

At any point you have questions, answers, observations, or discoveries to share, I am happy to give you my attention.

Thank you for being you!

oxoxox
jh

day starts in a noisy campground, packing up, rolling out, the ritual stop at the Center of the Universe where there are further changes -- someone has brought in a larger iron tank for the artesian well and an even larger one sits next to it. they have changed the flow of water such that the artesian flow is saturating the ground, making a significant area that is salinating the surface soil. the weeds are cut close to the ground. the two large wooden posts that I used to sight through the windows are lying on the ground. change. I expect that someday soon the Center will be destroyed. what then? as with all documentation, that which is documented passes away.

on to the Sand Dunes Swimming Pool (aka, the Hooper Pool) to get cleaned up before returning to civilization. it's way too hot to do any laps, that and along with a couple school busses full of elementary school kids. end up having a long conversation with an elderly Latina woman baby-sitting her grand kids, a local to The Valley. I catch a group photo of a group of students from La Jara Elementary School.

on down to the low-lands, Golden. the big event, the main reason I schedule the trip for this time-period, Holly's high school graduation (and Party!) approaches. I arrive at the house late in the afternoon to find Natalie and Cassie making brownies for the party. they promptly head off to a sleep-over, leaving me to watch the oven. Holly gets home, and then Sally, and Rick. Montse comes by as well. much work to be done prepping food. another trip to Costco accentuates the challenge. then the task of making two large salads. it's a team effort late into the night, and I've never quartered or halved so many cherry tomatoes before.

a much longer ramble with a heavy wind at my back until it's time to turn around. the dunes are located here for a reason and that reason is the frequency of very intense winds being funneled across the valley into Medano Pass where the sand generated by the Rio Grande out wash in the valley is dropped in large quantities against the Sangre de Christo mountains. it's a marvelous phenomena. today, I follow the base of the dunes along Medano Creek which is flowing with copious quantities of chilly snow melt. the intersection of the dunes with the creek and the mountain terrain is rich with variable riparian regimes and provides shelter from the wind which is carrying plenty of grit up to about 3 feet off the dune surface. the air is charged with particles, it is charged.

He wha tills the fairies' green
Nae luck again shall hae:
And he wha spills the fairies' ring
Betide him want and wae.
For weirdless days and weary nights
Are his till his deein' day.
But he wha gaes by the fairy ring,
Nae dule nor pine shall see,
And he wha cleans the fairy ring
An easy death shall dee.
-- Scottish, traditional

solo hiking in the park is discouraged because of the risk of mountain lion attack on lone (prey) animals. this puts a certain edge on movement into more isolated areas. most visitors stick to the dunes themselves and the beach-like intersection of the dunes and Medano Creek that is car-accessible. I didn't see anyone on the whole hike except on the way back a couple group of partiers hanging by the creek in the dunes. a hunting knife on the hip is probably no real protection, nor is a hiking staff. imagining an encounter is difficult and doesn't simulate the effect of the full-body adrenaline jolt that would surely ensue. recalling the speed of a mature house cat and mapping that onto a 150-pound body evo-tuned for carnivorous survival is, well, uff! the presence of deer is both reassuring and threatening -- are they there because there are no lions around, or is their presence an attractor? whatever, eyes stay open, and occasional backward checks, standing silent, scanning with binocs, not much else to be done. how effectively would a lion stalk a single human? they are ambush predators and will wait, hiding, on known game trails for a quick launch and a specialized deep bite into the cervical vertebra to quickly render the prey helpless. yikes!

make it all the way up to the Medano Creek / Little Medano Creek intersection and beyond a mile or two. have to cross the fast-running on a large beaver-downed aspen log to continue. the wind keeps me in the trees until the walk back where I cut across a large open park at the base of Medano Pass / Big South Canyon. camera gets stowed because of the grit in the air and the need to hold the hat on.

pretty tired by the time I get back to camp, and pushing through the last tree, end up getting smacked right on the bridge of my nose by a branch, getting a nice cut and looking a bit foolish to anybody in the campground who happened to be watching. the Lone Outdoorsman.

early rise. mild temps. hearty breakfast. then off, away from the dunes into the foothills of the Blanca massif and the Buck Creek watershed. going up. high-pitched grade, slow walking. piñon, juniper, small prickly pear, and the occasional mountain ball cactus. on up. looking down. stopping, looking up, around. lunch break upon the discovery of a pair of buck horns (14-point!). Buck Creek, well named. after enough vertical and hitting snow in the trees, a rapid, steep, and unstable descent into the creek bed itself, water appearing from springs and disappearing. some snow left in the darker, more northerly slopes. sound recordings of water, snow-melt. a tongue of wild fire burned its way into the lower parts of the creek, towards the dunes, leaving gray and ragged carcasses of aspen and willow to succumb to gravity in time.

the campground is completely full, mostly with a huge group of junior-to-senior high school students from Sandia Prep. at each campsite there are three tents, two seniors, and six younger students, a food cooler, stove, tarp, and other campsite stuff. the older students organize the cooking and such. there must be 150 kids, teachers, and parents total. they have a raucous Talent Show this evening. (I am so far behind on audio processing, no clue when some choice samples might show up here...)

next movements. north east from here to there. google tells me that going down to I-17 is slightly shorter than going via 89 north to Flagstaff, deciding the final route at the last minute: the most direct to the Great Sand Dunes. distance versus time. distance usually means better scenery: time is usually Interstate.

a slow start, big breakfast, hard workout at the Y, some food shopping, and finally around noon taking off. heavy, heavy wind from the south west. kicks mileage on the truck up to 33 mpg rocketing across the reservation accompanied by wind devils and a haze of atmospheric debris. vehicle travel driven by hydrocarbons. stop to make images that conform to the materializing hydrocarbon system series and the domination of landscape series. make Cortez at sunset. and rocket through the San Juans in the dark, pacing a couple empty semis (they had to be empty to keep up the speeds and momentum they managed up Wolf Creek Pass). short stop in the dark at the Center of the Universe. that has never happened before in the near-30-years of visits. on the west and south side, for the first time ever, there are the crude marks of adolescent love, hardly to be classified as graffiti. too tired after the 12-hour drive to really contemplate it, head onwards to the Great Sand Dunes. the campground is about half full, crowded, I feel spoiled after a number of the previous visits way off-season I've been camping there solo.

month swings into May seeming. no May Day celebrations here. the Red Scare still too enfolded in natal-national psyches. no bonfires like in dark-less high-latitude white nights.

sotto voce: Being fixated on the material aspects and 'things' that spin off from our activated and energized presence in this world is probably where you are going wrong in pondering the "art-or-not" question. Experiencing the energies that arise from creative action -- they may come 'packaged' in a practically infinite range of forms -- it's more a question whether you (as an individual made up of the accumulated life-pathway that you have experienced) have any opening to the energies that are carried by that form. Technology mediates the expression of creative energies (technology is the accumulated set of mediatory pathways for the expression of creative energies). So, it's 'merely' a question of what paths of expression and reception are open between you and some Other with whom you are in creative exchange.

a third trip to the Arrastra has yet a different character. no snakes at all this time. I spend one very long and exhausting day making a full bushwhack to the middle segment of Peeples Canyon below Sycamore Spring. this entails a negotiating a 130-meter (400-foot) escarpment of steep and rugged Precambrian trachytes (?) and pyroclastics (?) which are dipping strongly downwards in the direction of the canyon floor making a series of highly inclined planes which end in overhung cliffs. this combined with the presence of loose clasts, and the cacti, and it's like descending an escalator on ball-bearings in a needle factory. faugh. south-facing, the ascent in the late afternoon sun was brutal but without incident. I was mostly worried about snakes and needles at eye level on the ascent. the canyon at this point is more open with a dry cataract to the west. there are several springs coming in from the sides and a number of pools, one more than ten feet deep which probably persists year-round -- no fish, but a number of frogs and thousands of polliwogs, some marooned in pools which will end up shortly as dried-up dust pockets with dessicated gobs of formerly living protoplasm.

lunch is taken slowly on the floor of an undercut cliff in rapidly diminishing shade. in the company of ant lions and a few lizards.

I am completely startled at one point, while photographing a recently broken Saguaro, I hear the honking rasp of a wild ass (not an ATV-driver, a burro). a thoroughly pissed-off male about 50 meters away, I can't remember whether they can be aggressive or not, but this one seemed to consider it as an option for a while. I keep moving while scouting for suitable vegetation to keep between us. he may be aggressive, but he can't plow through a cholla, saguaro, or ocotillo.

checking the Google topo when I get back to the house a few days later, I see I didn't memorize the terrain quite properly, missing a draw that I should have gone up and then I would have found a saddle with an easier access to the middle part of the canyon closer to where I descended to on the second visit to Sycamore Spring. some day, a full (overnight) transit of the entire canyon would be marvelous. next time.

take out a number of tamarisk trees in Cottonwood Creek wash, until the blade on the trim saw snaps into three pieces. cheap. wonder what herbicide they were using up in Echo Park for eradicating the non-native pest.

and the differences? different plants blossoming, temperature 10 degrees warmer. dryness increased. but the blossoming itself is not only a simply visual phenomena, but one that is registered by that background buzzing which is constant during dayLight hours. no awareness of any crescendos at solar noon or anything like that, though there are spatial variations where the background presence is drowned out when walking (carefully) among the branches of a paloverde or acacia in bloom. there the bees and other flying beasts are in an intoxicated and very loud frenzy all around the ears. otherwise, when transiting the space, the sound is simply there.

down from the heights through Kirkland, at the Bar & Grill, a bevy of roadies parked in the style of... while the desert insinuates, deprecates, and sums.

Moore knows rivers, wet places, how to feel, how to transliterate feelings, and how to see, but I'm not in consonance with her characterization of the desert. drawing emotion onto that landscapes seems to place the human over that which is not known as though it was known. something like the common personification of animals and the position of pets in the social system. the desert is a transform mapping of the Void. why personify that? seems corrupt to add human stuff(ing) onto it.

Sometimes, in a desert landscape, a landscape without consciousness, emptier of intellect than any other landscape I have ever seen, I think I can feel emotion lying like heat on the surface of the sand and seeping into the cracks between boulders. There is joy in the wind that blows through the spines of the saguaro, and fear in bare rocks. Anger sits waiting under stones. Exhilaration pools in the low places, the dry river beds, the cracked arroyos, and is sucked by low pressure ridges up into storm clouds that blow east toward the Alamo Canyon -- Kathleen Dean Moore, Riverwalking

I join Joanne on a half-day excursion to Verde Springs at the headwaters of the Verde River. she is an old acquaintance from the mid-80's when she and Mike led biology and geology field trips at the local community college -- I was on a memorable week-long one to Death Valley in the winter of 1985. the hike today is part of local Earth Day activities, although she has been leading these monthly for the last year as part of the public awareness campaign that the Center for Biological Diversity is mounting in opposition to the plans for massive groundwater mining by the towns of Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Chino Valley. a representative of the Nature Conservancy was along as well to introduce the land that they recently bought protecting one of the most sensitive areas of the riparian headwaters. there was an eclectic group of folks from a thirteen-year-old to several couples who've retired to Prescott.

we started out at the 100-year-old Sullivan Lake impoundment in the middle of Paulden which is fully sedimented and the dam itself is crumbling. it sits at the head of a 20-meter deep canyon cut into a late Cenozoic basalt flow that forms the immediate subsurface for much of the immediate area. Joanne gave a brief overview of the issues that are threatening the Verde headwaters. the primary one being the construction of a huge pipeline by the Prescott city government that will tap into the Big Chino Aquifer, spur rampant development, and have a major impact on the springs that feed the Upper Verde.

we then proceeded to the parking at the Little Thumb Butte Bed and Breakfast where we hiked down to the river at the confluence of Granite Creek and the Verde (not until I did a before group portrait). upstream of the confluence the Verde is blocked by the influx of sediment from Granite Creek and forms a turbid still water lake that is cut into the canyon sediments -- clearly the Sullivan Lake dam silting up has deprived the river of its normal sedimentation load and caused heavy down-cutting of the pre-existing flood-plain (which now lies about 8 meters above the current water table). this has largely destroyed the riparian environment above the confluence. I would suggest the first thing to do is to begin to cut the dam down, slowly, so that there can be a incremental release of the 100 years of backed up sediment to bring back the former water-table level and reclaim the upstream riparian environment. this solution is likely impossible given that the upstream watershed feeding Sullivan Lake has significant human development of the huge watershed area which covers Paulden, Chino Valley, and much of Prescott as well as the entire Big Chino Basin.



there are many significant Hohokam archeological sites in the area, structures and petroglyphs alike: the ancient ones were here in force. and disappeared as they did elsewhere in the region. suddenly, in the mid-1300s. unfortunately these are minor sites compared to other more spectacular places, so often petroglyphs are chipped and defaced, and certainly the areas have been thoroughly cleaned of movable artifacts. it is illegal to disturb any findings, but the laws are almost never enforced.

we wander upstream to a wide but now down-cut and parched floodplain with large and elaborate (and inscrutable) petroglyphs chipped into the desert varnish that is present on basalt boulders fallen from the cliffs. then we head back below the confluence where the canyon transforms into a rich riparian environment with the river simply appearing in the midst of the gravels first as a stagnant trickle. as we go on further downstream it grows rapidly with the influx of numerous springs coming in from the north side of the canyon through some fractured limestone (and ultimately from the Big Chino Aquifer. I spot a long gopher snake lounging on a branch in the riverbed. the fish increase in size as we move down stream. evidence of beaver activities are everywhere. we lunch at the Nature Conservancy segment, wade in the creek a bit, head downstream another fifteen minutes and then wander back to the cars in the hot afternoon sun.

Joanne has taken many tens of people on this hike and rightly assumes that once people have experienced the richness of the riparian environment they are more likely to be able to imagine the consequence of its potential loss. as everywhere in the West, and increasingly, in the world, water becomes an object of contention -- to some an economic commodity, to others merely another extractable resource, and to the entire ecosystem that depends on every drop, an indispensable ingredient of life.

access to the area is somewhat restricted (much of it privately owned), but the headwaters area that is managed by the Arizona Game and Fish Department as the Upper Verde River Wildlife Area is open to the public. highly recommended!

lock in a 140% gain on gold and platinum bullion between 2003 and 2009. not too bad though the platinum peaked short-term last April at a 400% gain. wasn't around to cash in and wasn't following the commodities market then.

sleep dissolves along with the darkness. full moon is covered with high clouds most of the night. but morning brings full sun breaking over the eastern horizon. in the bed of the truck, it finally finds my eyelids. and brings first a reddening haze, then, with squinted opening, shafts of eyelash-broken brilliance. the five percent humidity has scraped the throat and nose raw. water is the first thing: imbibio. reaching up to unlatch the rear gate which slams open with a thud and lets in the sound and sun of morning desert.

impact on body by place is subtle and brutally immediate at the same time.

already leaving this particular place, only four days. leaving precisely when there is that draw, that pull to go deeper, longer, to simply become there or at least to completely resonate to its frequency. resonate to rattlers, springs, green stone, slickensides, smaller and larger bursts of psychedelic colors every few centimeters, the dead cow, the lone cottonwood, the humming, the air, the water, the Light; thoughts of other places, other people, and other lives bring mostly a deepening melancholy and turbid state to clear thinking.

ants. mosquitoes. snakes, thistles. what did I kill by walking, by being there? there are indeed thousands of tiny flowers scattered on the ground everywhere. the cattle have already destroyed the vast majority of the cryptobiotic soil spanning between the other, larger vegetation. they represent the most damaging influence on the desert environment. specifically they cause the widespread compression of the upper surface which cryptobiotic soil cannot recover from in any short-term way. so, every step taken... life destroys to create. only problem now is the plague species, humans, and how the system will deal with them.

today, after that small amount of moisture in the night, the entire place is vibrating. when standing still, there is a loud and continuous background buzzing that is non-specific in source direction. standing near a particular blossoming plant, there is the sensation of particular bees and other insects doing their thing, but otherwise, there is this background humming that has no point source but rather simply is -- like the hissing of blood in ear.

on the way in to Sycamore Spring both times, I note the existence of a lone Cottonwood tree growing up in the middle of a lightly sloping alluvial fan below a sizable un-named mesa. the only possibility for a Cottonwood to be there is water, and plenty of it. a good objective for a bushwhack. after the numerous encounters with slithering and rattling things yesterday, attention to movement and especially foot placement becomes aligned with breathing. of course any movement has to be calculated when in such an environment. miscalculated movement will be punished with some pointed intersecting and likely penetrating the body wall. I escape these four days with only two of those painful encounters, both arising in the thin slice of time between a visual scan of upcoming terrain and a glance at some specific object within the field of view. then aiiii-shit! as the pain jolts upwards from compromised shin.

this bushwhack takes me to the cottonwood. it looks to be around a hundred years old, there are a few other water-seeking plants, a tamarisk, rooted in a whitish rock ledge. apparently some near-surface water is available. paradise in the shade under the tree. except for the stench of death which I trace to the desiccating corpse of a cow. the shifting wind brings eye-watering wafts on occasion, but otherwise I spend an hour or two soaking up the energy of being under the lush green canopy surrounded by hard-core Sonoran desert. it is a singularity like Sycamore Spring on a smaller scale and with no running surface water.

minuscule F/A18 fighters are frequently dog-fighting in the airspace above. in the day and night. moving in and out of unaided vision, tightly circling each other, dropping flares, and, with afterburners, roaring in such volume that all ambient sound is swallowed. for our nation's security. so it goes.

otherwise, commercial flight contrails gradually fill the sky with high-level cirrus clouds that soften the terrain and its re-radiative impact, but this effect distorts its being what it is, along with distorting the things living here. they did not evolve with spent jet fuel clouds hanging overhead to shade them from the burnishing sun. this is a problem. just another problem that the human species have applied through their amplification system -- this is the waste product, waste energy, which alters the environment.

the rest of the day is a slow and rambling return to base. run across some small mining digs, one trenched into a pegmatite dike that includes some coarsely crystallized black tourmaline with its classic trigonal (rhombohedral hemimorphic) cross-sections. someone has tramped this land, and in the hunt for extractive wealth, has, literally, left no stone unturned. the West is everywhere scarred by these digs from small 2-meter test pits to the massive kilometer-wide open-pit gashes. that mineral bonanza, that natural 'surplus' regime drove and still drives the development of the West. straight north of here about 15 kilometers, is the Phelps-Dodge copper/molybdenum open-pit monstrosity. without which, as the old Colorado School of Mines bumper sticker proclaimed Ban Mining, Let the Bastards Freeze in the Dark the developed world could not exist.