Tallac Knoll And Pa'lla

Walkabout: L.A. County Arboretum 
Michael Sedano

I began walking regularly for health benefits in 2010 after gut surgery and, not long after, diabetes. I healed, lost weight, controlled that A1C. Walking in gardens, defining my world as what I see in the camera viewfinder, provided respite hours during the years from 2018 to 2023 I lived with Alzheimer’s dementia as my wife’s caregiver. 

I walk with my camera, choosing lenses for the walkabout’s objective. If I seek butterflies and insects I bring the 100mm macro lens. When I seek hummingbirds and other souls with wings in the air, I mount the 300mm lens, with and without an extender. Walking makes people healthy, it’s the “exercise” part of “diet and exercise”. Nature makes people happy, seeing with one's own eyes, and sharing fotos of wonder.

My parents would bring me to the Arcadia Arboretum (link), we called it, with some regularity. The Los Angeles County Arboretum, and the California Botanic Garden in Claremont (when it was named the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden - link), offered a road trip on Route 66; Redlands to Berdoo, Berdoo along the 66 past sleep in a wigwam motel not too distant from Mt. Vernon Street where Rte 66 begins, upwind of Kaiser Steel where I'd one day work, cruise through the muscatel vineyards of Cucamonga where Mom had picked uva as a girl, through the orange grove-lined stretches of Montclair and Upland whose reputation as racist hotbeds kept my head below the windows, first a Plymouth, then a Ford.

For a kid who grew up around orange and apricot groves, Arcadia comes as a new world, the gift of a couple hours exploring and studying trees and plants, reading and making mental notes, enjoying the specificity of taxonomic names to separate the trees from the forest, sabes? Then, as now, the Arboretum lacks fences and stringent borders, allowing gente free roaming through the grounds. 

Several water features make an Arboretum visit a mix of plants, birds, fish, terrapins, crustaceans, insects, and tourists. Excited groups walk speaking Spanish and Mandarin (I suppose). Any visit adds polyglot aural enjoyment. I enjoy good conversations with raza gardeners and, in English, various volunteers. Metiche me, I tell passers-by about that heron pa'lla, check it out and have a great day.

It should be common sense not to harvest fruit nor steal easily-separated cuttings. No fruit hangs within reach at the Calamondin orange trees bordering the main road to the knoll. The avocado grove hangs lots of young fruit. Torongas overipe litter the ground. The Caper bushes are budding. Today, Lake Baldwin's green algae surface prompts signs in Spanish and English, but not Mandarin, reading "do not walk on the lake".

After our Arboretum hours, Mom had to visit south Lake Street in Pasadena where Bullock's department store displayed treasures and luxuries my family owned only with our eyes in those passing minutes on the showroom floor. 

Nowadays, my walking companion, Thelma Reyna, and I make regular walkabout journeys from our homes in Pasadena to Arcadia and the Arboretum. We alternate between here, San Marino's The Huntington (link opens new window). and La Cañada Flintridge for Descanso Gardens (link).

We walked the Huntington yesterday and today we trek to Arcadia intent on climbing to Tallac Knoll, at 583 feet, the highest place in this part of the San Gabriel Valley. I've brought the 300mm lens hoping for water birds and brilliant colors in hummingbird gorgets. 

We've arrived with good energy and make the steep uphill walk with poco stress. Our regular distance takes us a mile and a half and today's route will account for two plus miles with a lengthy uphill trek followed by a steep set of downhill steps to flatland before a culminating incline across deep lawn to the exit. We are good and tired by that last leg of the walkabout.

The prize of the day is a Queen butterfly. A first for my eyes and Thelma's. Our most arresting views are two encounters with a Blue Heron that, on first sight, flies away to lowland waters. We don't see it at the hoped-for pond and move along. Seeing the heron fly overhead toward where we'd been disappointed, we execute an about face to return for some arresting close-ups of the cooperative photogenic creature and the satisfaction of having gone there, and back again.

Through A Lens, Brightly

Canon EOS 6D Mark II. ISO4000. 1/4000s, various apertures. Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM with EF12 extension tube.

Goldfinch wing with Goldfinch.

The goldfinch perches momentarily. I point the 300mm lens. The goldfinch comets away testing my reaction time. I desperately push the button. Just in time.

Bird. Movement (or none). Eye. Brain. Finger. Camera. Lens.  

iso4000, 1/4000s, f/4 

Spathodea Campanulata and Colibrí Allen’s. 

A spectacular flaming-orange flower whose gold-trimmed petals open in bountiful clusters draws undoubtedly happy hummingbirds to  nectar in unthreatened leisure high in the canopy of the Arboretum’s African Tulip tree forest atop the Arboretum’s Tallac Knoll.

The tree has bad press as a weed because its delicate seeds float on winds to germinate across nearby untreed tierra. I’ve managed to gather seed but never had one germinate in a greenhouse.

iso4000, 1/4000s, f/8 

Blue Heron’s Yellow Eye

Tallac Knoll includes a water garden to walk around on the winding path down to the waterfall. Thelma and I sit on the bench to watch a hummingbird nectaring at Russelia flowers. I stand to peer over the thicket of red flowers and I come eye to eye with a wondrous being—Blue Heron.

The small pond makes for close quarters and wonderfully detailed fotos. This is uncropped at 300mm and five feet distance. The bird moves confidently with water between me and it.

I watch it lift and fly directly away, my reaction time good enough to frame the bird but the autofocus can’t find the bird on the wing. 

The Blue glides out of sight through the tree canopy vectoring toward one of two water features below Tallac Knoll, Baldwin Lake or the Turtle Ponds. I plan on seeing it there, I hope serendipity will be on my side.

iso4000, 1/4000s, f/7

Queen Butterfly

Here is a lifer for me.

I’ve read about the Queen Butterfly. I’ve seen fotos of Queen Butterflies. Until today’s stroll into the Herb Garden where the Duranta Tree lures colibríes and mariposas galore, I’d not seen one on the wing.

Floating in from the Desert Willow tree and red Salvia thicket comes a bright orange soul. Not a Monarca though the black and orange colors call that name. But my eye notes something’s different about this monarch—not stained glass leading but dots. Spots. My heart leaps, my reward for remembering a picture. 

Now I’ve seen you.

Órale.

iso4000, 1/4000s, f/4.5

Anise Swallowtail and Duranta Flowers.

It’s 1124. Sun casts unfiltered light onto Duranta’s profusion of blue flowers and through the mariposa’s beautifully colored translucent wings. 

For its part, the mariposa flies with proboscis at the ready. It aims with unerring accuracy at the blossom’s yellow target to sip Duranta’s flowery nectar, undeterred by the happy photographer looking up from only eight feet.

This is its world, flight and sip, invisible zephyrs carry the butterfly aloft until a wing twist gives it purposive direction. 

iso4000, 1/4000s, f/4.5

Blue Heron Met Again.

Thelma and I make our way down from Tallac Knoll to the herb garden then to the Arboretum’s Turtle Pond. This is a permanent water feature where finding an Egret or Heron happens often enough that I always approach it with warm expectation. Today, I’m encouraged when we see a magnificent sight, the blue heron appears from the rushes concealing Baldwin Lake. It’s flying toward the Turtle Pond. Thelma and I, already challenged by our walk, turn around and go find a cooperative bird, confident as always that four feet of water between it and that guy means he’s a minor distraction. Is that food?

This is not the reflecting pool at the national mall in D.C. The yellow splots come of reflected light off muddy water, not blue paint and algae.

iso4000, 1/4000s, f/7

Technical Note: Most of these fotos are possible with a smart phone. In all instances, the subjects are only a few feet from the lens. Digital photography with quality equipment--I buy only used equipment-- produces a large file that can be enlarged to enormous proportion to sell or hang on a wall.

Poetry Connection: Nature, Art, and Poetry in Santa Barbara

The Poet's Perch, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden

Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate

Every year, the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden hosts an open call for “Casitas” to be built in their backcountry, the area of the garden where kids can touch plants and art and have fun. This area is where many summer camps romp and there’s a tire swing and children can learn about nature. Colleen M. Kelly was one of the recipients of the Casitas grant. 

 

For her project, she designed a Poet’s Perch, in homage of cherished Poet Laureate Emerita, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle (1943-2023). The late poet would have celebrated her 81^st birthday on Monday, August 26. Along with Rod Rolle and several of Sojourner’s close friends and colleagues, Colleen M. Kelly unveiled her Poet’s Perch. The art installation consists of a tall, 12-foot, upside-down tree, salvaged from the Botanic Garden with a kite that reads Joy (Sojourner’s given name) and Sojourner’s poem, “Hosanna,” originally published in What Breathes us: Santa Barbara Poets Laureate 2005-2015, Gunpowder Press 2016, wrapped around the top. The art installation includes colored staffs, made of painted tree branches with designs and colors that mimic the bright scarves owned by the poet herself. The space invites poets and children of all ages to find inspiration and creativity.  

 

Rod Rolle was on hand with his camera, documenting the process of the installation and its unveiling. Colleen said they both felt Sojourner’s presence while installing the homage to her. The casita honors both the poet and nature. The Poet’s Perch blends into the backcountry, as if it has always belonged there. The installation will be up for two years. 

 

Colleen M. Kelly chose Sojourner’s “Hosanna” because it’s a poem dedicated to artists, and Kelly likes to think Sojourner had her in mind when she wrote it. Colleen and Sojourner have been friends for decades. Sojourner collaborated with Colleen and wrote ekphrastic poems for her show, “Naked Under Clothes.” Colleen enjoys spending time at the Poet’s Perch and answering questions from people visiting the garden’s backcountry. She often will ask people if they live in Santa Barbara; and if they don’t, she introduces them to Sojourner Kincaid Rolle. 

 

When a family interacted with Poet’s Perch, Colleen felt as if she had done her job. A family stopped by and started reading the entire poem, moving around the tree as the poem is wrapped around it. With lines such as, “a dancer lifts one bare foot mocking the slow/deliberate step of a blue heron: /raising a bare leg in the manner of a Sandhill Crane, lifting a jointed limb like the graceful Snowy Egret, as if we humans could take flight”, the poem invites the reader to participate in the poem. 

 

“I was really pleased to see how a family from Southern California interacted with the installation. A father and son took turns reading Sojourner’s poem while mom enacted what she was hearing. Mom must be a dancer.”

 

At last week’s installation and opening, I had the pleasure of reading an ekphrastic poem I wrote for the exhibit. The poem was inspired by the last days I spent talking to Sojourner while she was in hospice last November. She opened her eyes and said two words to me, ‘Oh My.’ Many people have shared how important the words are of people who are in the process of transitioning or making their final journey on this earth. I recall that Poet Laureate Emerita, Perie Longo told me that I should write a poem based on those two precious words I heard from Sojourner. It wasn’t until Colleen M. Kelly asked for a poem for her Casita project that I sat down to write it. 

 

 

For today’s Poetry Connection Poem, I am sharing the poem I wrote for Poet’s Perch, as well as Sojourner’s poem, Hosanna, originally published in: What Breathes Us: Santa Barbara Poets Laureate 2005-2015, Gunpowder Press 2016. Thank you to Gunpowder Press for Permission to reprint Sojourner’s poem. 

 

Hosanna

By Sojourner Kincaid Rolle 

For the Artists of Santa Barbara

In the quietest of spaces,

On a twig in the hedge;

near a cone at the top

of a Torrey Pine tree;

one chirp begins the sound of day—

the downbeat for a symphony.

 

On a hillside,

high above the morning wave,

Pacific water rushing in and easing out;

a first brush-stroke begins the great unfolding—

the plein air narrative of this moment.

 

Somewhere on the land beneath the rocks

where massive middens of abalone and debris

evidence our ancient places on coastal shores,

a dancer lifts one bare foot mocking the slow

deliberate step of a blue heron;

raising a bare leg in the manner of a Sandhill Crane,

lifting a jointed limb like the graceful Snowy Egret.

as if we humans could take flight. 

 

We poets place words in the mouths of crows;

create a language of our own imaginings.

We imagine song as if sparrows were singing.

We imagine dance as if shore birds could touch the sky.

We view the painter’s renderings as evidence

of our meanderings—our longings made visible.

 

Sending up our praises, our hallelujahs, our hosannas.

We embrace the musicians, the dancers, the painters, the poets, the sculptors, the weavers of thread…. 

We who create hold common cause. 

We honor all that is beautiful.

 

 

 

Ode to Joy

 

          For Sojourner Kincaid Rolle and the Poet’s Perch, art installation by Colleen M. Kelly

By Melinda Palacio, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate

 

Oh my, she said on her deathbed. 

Two words, an epiphany, as if to declare her world 

Of accomplishments flashed before her eyes.

 

Oh my, as if her hardships before Santa Barbara called to her,

Beckoned her to remember a grandmother who shared an 

Appreciation for trees and the word. 

 

With eyes closed you may run to your grandmother

who taught you your first verse in the holy book,

the matriarch who encouraged you to recite. You, 

small child with a loud voice and louder beating heart. 

 

We, us, and all the black poets and gospel singers you claimed,

Are here to claim you. 

 

Oh my, oh my.

As you sit in limbo, you open your eyes for a second and see faces

You have touched in your home in Santa Barbara and beyond to Marion,

Your North Carolina birthplace.

 

As the people’s poet, the city’s Poet Laureate, the town leader, uplifter 

Of connected communities like Olympic rings, bearing peace and unity,

A trained peacemaker, your sunflower face forever turned to light,

Now returns to nature. 

 

Your seeds scatter in letters. Your gracious voice with its Southern lilt

Rings truth. North Carolina dreaming dipped in California Chocolate 

Spells a four-lettered word only you could pronounce P-0-E-M,

Poem. Let your words sail on heavenly wings for this is your hosanna.

 

The beginnings of praise and creativity for you who gave so much. 

May this space, known as the Poet’s Perch, inspire joy in flower and song.

We delight in how you soar higher than a king palm to catch a shooting star.

And like your beloved tortoise, you have won your race.

 

Oh my, you said as you slowly soared above us. 

Oh, my Sojourner. My oh my. 

Oh, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle. 

Oh joy.

*This column was originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent

Turning In Tightening Gyres

Swallowtails Zephyrs Digital Camera

Michael Sedano

Swallowtail butterflies float along the whirling margins of invisible zephyrs, flapping angling contorting their wings to escape the vortex and control a descent onto densely-flowered Lantana branches. Flocks of swallowtails live in the trees nearby. Their visits provide daily delights. These swallowtails are the giants of my garden's flying world, larger even than los colibríes coming to feed in my garden.

Today I see one swallowtail approach through the thermal curtain above the cement swimming pool deck. Hot drafts buffet the insect's unaltered course.  Riding a roller coaster current, unperturbed the swallowtail bobs and glides toward the Lantana.

Another swallowtail has lounged about the Lantana several minutes. Now the swallowtail rises, floats in air, wings unmoving, cupping unseen cushioning air, then angle to land upon a flower cluster proboscis already inserted into the floral trumpet. 

I marvel as those broad wings start vibrating and clapping together in uncontrolled ecstasy. With shivering wings, the swallowtail hops from cluster to cluster satisfying its hunger. A momentary pause, a wing stills, contorts, uplift! The swallowtail floats into a moment, a crystalline memory of flight and beauty and poetry.

I rise from a distant seat approaching slowly verifying the camera and lens settings. I want to savor the moment. And I want to make a foto that holds onto that moment of truth because it is all I need to know.

I've set the camera for its fastest speed, 1/4000s. The chip inside the Canon 6D Mark II will decide the amount of light to use and sets the lens aperture accordingly as I frame the moments and push the button. On this brilliant summer afternoon, f/9 and f/10 offer the exposure the butterflies demand.

I sit. I wait. I see them.

Seen Unseen Scenes

Among the various frustrations of an afternoon on a sunny deck is not having a camera and watching cavorting butterflies land and take off, float glide sweep through the air, land and feed, then meet with other butterflies and put on aerial shows of breath-taking beauty.

A related frustration is having the camera on-hand but the Lantana plants normally teeming with butterflies stand devoid of butterflies. Corollary desmadre is having the wrong lens on the camera.

Sabes que? None of those drawbacks came into play as I sat on my patio deck with a high quality camera body mounted with a superb 100mm macro lens. Serendipity, of course, comes into major play when seeking fotos of winged creatures in the air.

Ay de mi. There's a tenth muse, Serendipity.

And good equipment. The Canon EOS 6D Mark II exposes 3 frames a second. This gallery of helixing swallowtails 1/4000 1/4000 1/4000 slices of time thanks to the mechanical marvels of this camera body,

The Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 L IS macro lens accounts for the clean clear look of these full-sunlight exposures, handheld. With light sensitivity of ISO 6400, the camera generously sets the lens between f/10 and f/8. 

Lenses don't just see what's out there, sabes? A photographer has to focus on a given area of a vista and that's what's sharp. The aperture of a lens creates a horizontal depth of focus. The point of focus will be sharp, plus there's an area of sharp focus in front of, and behind, the focal point. The smaller the aperture, the deeper the field of focus. This is an f/2.8 lens with its smallest opening f/32. Distance from lens to object influences that field of sharpness. I'm happy to have f/10 and f/8. 

These two butterflies aren't as close as they appear and they're both in marvelous focus, que no? A telephoto lens makes stuff appear closer than they fly. At f/10, and standing ten feet from the focus point, the lens gives about ten inches of good focus, so we get to see both butterflies well.

This turning and twisting moment shows the swallowtails' horizontal distance in the previous frame. This is the depth of field at this distance, wingtip to wingtip.

Serendipity smiled upon me and I was elated, seeing what was happening through the viewfinder, knowing I was capturing a casí once-in-a-lifetime sequence of photographs. How rare, and a remedy to the frustration of seeing wonders and not being properly equipped.

It develops my elation was a dramatic irony. In a few minutes, another aerial display was to be. Twice in a lifetime miracles unfold before my eyes and lens. 

Mira nomás.

Turning and turning in a tightening gyre, the pair of Giant Swallowtails, Papilio cresphontes, 

don't mind the rapid-fire clicking shutter on the camera, the human making the noise who stands ten feet away, with the entire shrub guarding the distance between them. 

Grazing at opposite sides of the Lantana, both rise in tandem from their flowers, find a cushion of air that holds them floating just above the greenery. The butterflies sense their proximity and float closer in stuttering gasps, narrowing the gap between them until a magic distance obtains. Simultaneously their outspread wings bow minutely to fill with air and both ascend rising and closing the gap, spinning, spinning like that poem about lumbering beasts. Here, gente, nothing lumbers, here is puro elegance.
 

Subtle contortions of their wings pull the flying souls into closer and closer proximity.

The swallowtails whirl around the invisible helix of the earth's DNA.

Turning and turning in the tightening gyre, things come together, only the center remains.

The center always holds. Things come together. As they should.

Last Word: A Marvel of Wings 

A remarkable work of natural wonder, this is a species of Clearwing Moth.

To some eyes, this is Hemaris thysbe, the Hummingbird Clearwing Moth. To my eyes, it's an amazing, never-before seen, winged garden soul I'm overjoyed to have captured in a moment of sublime grace.

Latinopia Spotlights Octavio Romano. Chicano Photographer in Morro Bay.

Latinopia Honors First Publisher of Chicano Literature

In 1969, Quinto Sol Publications was publishing Mexican-American literature. Then, in 1972, editor Octavio Ignacio Romano-V was joined by Herminio Rios C. to put together the first collection of Chicano literature, the fifth printing of El Espejo: The Mirror.

Latinopia, the nation's leading site for Chicano visual documentaries, updates its offerings weekly. This week, Latinopia features Romano talking about mestizo and chicano literature. It's interesting to hear Romano declare an open door policy, especially given the academic pedo that flew when other scholars accused Romano of foisting a false canon upon Chicana Chicano literary theory.




Morro Bay Birds and Seals
Michael Sedano

Photographing writers reading their work to an audience is my chosen challenge. Capturing a reader in a dynamic instant, forming a sound, eyes looking at the audience, poised in readiness, requires a good ear to anticipate a gesture or an eye contact moment. Over the course of a 10 minute presentation, numerous moments pass, some of them photographed. Nature adds the challenge of once-in-a-lifetime moments.

A rustle and a chirp in bushes calls my eye to a mostly hidden brown beauty. It flits out of sight then flies over to a backyard fence bordering the wetlands. If that California Thrasher turns toward the camera the eye will sparkle. The bird flits away just after the shutter goes "click".

A modern camera takes lots of the work out of a photograph. A fast-moving bird moves in and out of focus except the photographer keeps a target on the moving animal and the lens quickly adjust to maintain focus. Given a bright sunshiny day allows both fast shutter speed and smaller apertures for sharp focus.

If the bird stands still in the early morning chill and the water is still the reflection makes a great photograph. Luckily, this Curlew is not far from the camera.

Bright sunshiny day describes my weekend in Morro Bay in this year's annual trek to the estuary at Morro Bay along the California coast north of Vandenberg Air Force Base. A night launch from Vandenberg caught my eye as I admired the sky. A fast-growing contrail rose from my right swiftly passing overhead, three spotlights of engine fire winking back at me as the missile climbed into space.

Up the coast, four and a half miles north of Charles Foster Kane's castle at San Simeon, Elephant Seals complete a migration to arrive and give birth. The State of California erected boardwalks and railing systems allowing visitors to peer down upon individual animals, neonate babies suckling sleeping mothers, bulls surrounded by mates, thousands of animals spread as far as the eye sees in both directions.

The animals flip sand over their bodies then lie motionless. The mothers protect their young with flippers of sand. Sand trickles off the tiny bodies that crawl along a mother's smooth belly, finding a nipple. One tiny body lies covered with sand. Sand has settled into the crevices of its skin. Successive flippers of sand pile atop the eyes, the unblinking eyes.

Across the beach animals conserve energy by lying as still as corpses. A shudder, a flip, a blinking eye is all to identify the living from the dead.

But this baby has not moved, has not knocked off the sand off its body, not off the soft rolls of loose skin, not off the unmoving eyelids. Some babies sidle up to a bull, the fleshy proboscis snorting sand at the offspring.

The still baby moves a flipper. It is not dead today.

The salt marsh stretches miles across a watershed grown with thickets of red-brown brush. Shallow channels form with the tides, bringing food that attracts roaming herons and millions of shore birds.



Long, long lenses are a photographer's boon. I did not rent a 500mm lens and relied upon a zoom lens up to 300mm. That isn't enough lens for a superior image. My camera has an 18 megapixel chip which means it produces a huge image that 25% of the frame offers satisfactory pictures, like those of birds in flight.

Some images are more challenging than others, despite their predictability. Flocking sandpipers take to air hundreds in a tightly spaced group. They fly in synchrony, their dark backs offering illusions of smoke moving across the water, instantly the cloud flashes a brilliant white when the birds turn their bellies toward the viewer. It's spectacular seen across the water in the Morro Bay estuary.

The sandpipers, like many sea animals, are dark on top, light on the bottom. A prey looking up at the animal sees white like the sky is white. A predator looking down at the animal sees dark, like the ground is dark.

The estuary gets the photographer close enough to see through the camouflage.

This Osprey, a sea hawk, heard the camera from several hundred feet and flew off a moment after this exposure.

Visioning Beneath the Almond Trees

by tatiana de la tierra

The shamans shuttled us to a grove of almond trees for a 4-day, 4-night silent vision quest. They placed us each beneath an almond tree, far apart from each other. Here, we would commune with nature, sleep upon the earth, pray and meditate. We were instructed to put an altar at the eastern entrance of our space and to hang our tobacco prayer ties around the four corners. A tiny ceramic replica of Venus del Valdivia accompanied us, along with a cornhusk-rolled tobacco, which we had swept four times through the fire at the base camp. The fire, which would be tended to at all hours, would reflect our states of being and would alert the fire keepers if anything came up.

We were to live off of two apples, one pear, one avocado, one corn on the cob, a miniature chocolate bar, a handful of almonds and a gallon of water. We would pee on the ground and, with the little plastic shovel provided, we would dig a hole in the earth for bowel movements. Two in the group of ten women were menstruating; they were to bequeath their bloods upon Mother Earth. We were told to wear skirts for ceremony and not to read any books.

I wondered how many rules I’d break, and if I could make it through even one night.

As the sun set behind the mountain, I scrambled to get my space in order. A bright pink piece of plastic was the “floor” of my “house”, which consisted of a twin air mattress, a sleeping bag and travel pillow, a duffle bag for nightclothes and another for day clothes. I also had two mochilas, one for health and beauty aids/writing tools and the other for my altar. Though we had only minutes to prepare, I skillfully crammed quite a lot of stuff to bring with me, leaving nothing to chance.

It was around 8 pm after I’d finished setting up and changing into flannel pajamas. With just a bit of daylight left, I set out to make the hole for going to the bathroom. It was to be deep enough to last all four days. I walked all over, crunching dry leaves and twigs in my path, searching for just the right place to squat. A place with a view, yet out of sight, and without spiky bushes and vines in the vicinity. There were many options, but all my attempts were futile. Dry, hard and rocky, the earth was impenetrable with a little plastic shovel. If only I had a pick and a sledgehammer, maybe I could swing it. Instead of one deep hole, I made several shallow ones. Yet I wondered if the other women were able to dig deep into the earth, and if I was just a lazy, inefficient, shit-hole digger.

Vision Quest Realization #1: I don’t know how to dig holes and am pretty clueless about appropriate tools for this or other means.

When I got back “home” it was too dark to set up the altar, which was next on my to-do list. That’s when it hit me that there was Nothing to Do. Except lie down and look up at the sky, through the lattice of treetops. Which is what I did. A lot. For hours and hours, wide awake. And there I discovered an entirely fascinating, seductive, magical, unending world. The world of night, of mysterious creaking sounds, fireflies, twinkling stars, planets, and that thing called the moon, which was plumping up dramatically and journeying across the sky. I believe it’s called enchantment. I was under the spell of the Night.

Vision Quest Realization #2: Nothing to Do leads to Everything Else.

Disoriented at daybreak, I had no idea where I was, or what I was doing with all those leaves in the landscape of the sky, until I remembered that I was in an almond grove somewhere in Chile on a silent vision quest. I had to get up to go to the bathroom.

Getting up—exactly how was I going to do that? This was the deep and recurring philosophical question of every day and night. Would I roll off the air mattress to one side and spring up from my knees? Not a chance. Pull myself up entirely using my core stomach muscles? Yeah, right. Hold on to the tree for support while I inched up? Impossible. Roll flat on my face and hustle on upward? Good luck with that. Getting up off the ground—that was an event, every time. I thought about it a lot, attempted it a few times, and after a while, just did it Somehow.

Vision Quest Realization #3: You better do some serious Pilates, girl.

I went looking for my bathroom holes but never found them, and had to dig new ones.

It’s a good thing I had all the time in the world to set up my altar, because it took a ton of time. Compass in hand, I was committed to putting the altar exactly at the eastern corner. Yet it also had to go with the setup of the tree, the rocks, and the “house”. It took three tries until I finally settled on the right spot. Not being able to “feed” the altar with candles and sage (we were asked not to light any fires since the area was so dry), I offered rocks, flowers, water, and a played a little harmonica, rang bells, and rattled. But were my sacred musical sounds violating the code of Silence?

Vision Quest Realization #4: Silence is a state of being, not an act.

Throughout the day, I sought shelter from the sun and the heat. Hoping to make my supply of food last, I sought fruit from the trees. Restless and unable to sit on the floor for long periods of time, I wanted to stretch my back and move around. And so it was that I would be the only one to walk freely up and down and around, eating blackberries, plums and grapes, resting on the tops of huge boulders, and chilling out in a tiny patch of jungle that I found on a path off to the side.

Vision Quest Realization #5: In nature, all things are possible.

My surroundings came to life the more I walked around. At first, I saw blobs of brown earth, mustard yellow leaves, dry and blackened tree branches. Everything seemed about the same. Later on, I could distinguish between one tree and the next. I found berries where, before, there were none. I noted the red plums that I had passed by every day without realizing it. I could see almonds, rocks, plants, spiders, lizards, ants, and, at times, little bits of trash on the floor. Rocks began to speak to me. Then, walking around went from being an act of fleeing from something (the heat, etc.) to an exercise in observation and discovery.

Vision Quest Realization #6: The more I consciously open my eyes, the more I see.

The heat, my lifelong nemesis, invited me to be in my natural skin, practically in the nude. Which was perfect except for one thing: carnivorous yellowjacket wasps.

Vision Quest Realization #7: When in nature, nature rules.

In the heat, and in silence, I was delighted to discover the Wind, which speaks lightly with rustling leaves or loudly like the roaring ocean. The wind that blows through my hair and shakes everything up, that scatters pollen and seeds and knocks yellowjackets about. The wind that refreshes and enlivens.

Vision Quest Realization #8: The Wind!

Nights with my altar, smoking a cigar for my ancestors, I connect with my personal path. This is where I keep things to myself, where my past comes to me as my visions for the future unfold. It gets so cold late at night that I put on the pure wool and cashmere layers to safeguard me while I dream.

Vision Quest Realization #9: Sacred tobacco clears the path and lures the images of my dreams.


Out in the almond grove, I wrote little songs to the earth, moon, sun, birds, to silence and to ayahuasca. The cycle of each day and night, natural as eternity, became magical as hell. I became a sky gazer, a moon worshipper, a sun watcher. A child of the stars.

Vision Quest Realization #10: Me loves being alive on earth.


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SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE. SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE.
Texas writer, performance artist and urban bicyclist Tammy Gomez is fundraising for the production of her bicycle theater play, SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE in Austin, Texas in 2012. A story about young people in an ethnic community who care about the future of the planet and the greening of the barrios, the play features spoken word with choreographed bicycling, a turntablist, and video projections. For more information about her project, or to make a donation, see http://xxcommunicator.blogspot.com/.