state nickname: the Grand Canyon State
state motto: Ditat deus / God enriches description

Iconic saguaro cactuses, saluting you in the sunset... the choallas have more personality, you know. I recommend getting to know all the cacti. Arizona, however, is so much more than cacti-- the landscape varies tremendously depending on altitude. Both the piney forests and the vast desertscapes are worth exploring (I'm partial to northern Arizona's forests, myself).

Flagstaff is a great base of operations for exploring the region; they have coffee, two hostels, bookstores, etc. North is the Grand Canyon: iconic, expensive, wonderfully quiet once you hike down into it, past the tourists and the hype. East on I-40, you can stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona; but don't stop at the Meteor Crater between there and Flagstaff; the thing is haunted. South... you can head into the pine forest-- Payson is a pleasant piney town in the center of the national forest-- or you could head to the red rocks of Sedona.

What to say about Sedona? The first time I came here it made me sick. The next few times were a lot better... the energy is heady, for the desert. Avoid the town, unless you have anthropological curiosity about spiritual materialism. ...Go swimming in Oak Creek. If you go to Slide Rock, you have to pay; if you drive south a bit, to the town of Oak Creek, and drive down Verde Valley School Rd., you can find a gravel parking lot and a swimming hole... There is ruddy-red and mystical hiking here, but go deep into the woods to avoid the people in the pink jeep tours. Be prepared to pay a lot to take a walk; there is little free land here.

Heading from Sedona towards Prescott, stop in Jerome, an out-there former mining-community. Prescott is a great daytime town (no nightlife to speak of), home to Prescott College, a small liberal arts / environmental school, and consequently home to the people who would attend such a place. There's a downtown with a town square and a courthouse-- walk down the hill on Gurley Street, and you'll find the delicious Prescott Natural Foods, a yoga studio, and the coffee roasters'. Turn right on McCormick, and you'll find the block-long Prescott Arts District; do visit the Catalyst Infoshop for good conversation & independent DIY publications (as well as Great Literature). I was crushed when, doing research for this page, I learned that Bill Rodgers-- who founded the Catalyst with his partner, Katie-- was arrested for ecoterrorism when the Catalyst was raided by the FBI in Dec. 2005, and found dead in his cell. Of course I only met him when I would sit and read in his shop, but he had a kind and loving presence / today as I write this I feel even more like I'm in a police state / anyway, all the more reason to visit and support this wonderful community bookstore.

Speaking of creating a better world, 45 minutes to the east of Prescott is Arcosanti, "an urban laboratory" and experiment in architecuter / community design that is definitely worth reading about and visiting. You can stay the night there quite cheaply, too. It's right off the I-17, which takes you south to Phoenix and its miserable satellites; best to avoid the whole polluted bowl. Tempe's got the Gentle Strength co-op, a bunch of drunken college students cruising Mill Avenue, and a sculpture of giant bunnies, but it's generally not worth stopping for. If you take U.S. 60 east, though, you'll come to the haunting Supersition Mountains... take Hwy. 88 up to Tortilla Flat, swim in the shining lake, and pick up some prickly pear ice cream in this dot of a town.

I don't know so much about Southern Arizona, but I remember passing through the town of Why on my way through the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which was enchanting in the moonlight... Sonoyata is the border town there on the Mexican-side, no-person's land, a wonderful place for being nowhere in.

field notes: prescott, arizona / 5 march 2006

It was a rainy night in Prescott, Arizona. I was lying under the awning of a closed shop (the Lone Spur Cafe), just kind of chilling in the alcove all sprawled out like I was on my living room couch, and talking on my phone to a friend in Denver. I guess I have a habit of making myself at home all over public space. Anyway, this blonde woman came down the street, little boy in tow, and stopped to look in the window of the shop I was sprawled beneath. She saw me and screamed. "I'm sorry," I said. "You scared me," she exclaimed. "I thought you were a homeless person."

*

wildlife note:

last night i saw another rare creature. i was hanging out in an abandoned building by a creek with some lovely street-gentlemen-- then, "hey, pig over there!" paranoid, i think cop. but no. those things are fierce, they say, it's like fighting a bear-- they'll eat dogs-- tale upon tale of fierce-pig stories-- you gotta check this out.

then i, too, see the dark shape making its way through the thin patch of woods on the other side of the creek, a shadow on the ridge: javelina. "do you think i could take him, with a katana?" -- "with a katana, i don't know, man." -- "but i'm a human, with a weapon, and that's just an animal. i've got a mind-- my mind is my weapon."

*

ode to rain in the desert

your exuberance
astounds me
the energy with which you
pound yourself into every surface
how you know everybody & yet
form a special connection with us all
i write this naked
knowing you'll evaporate but
not tracing your fate that far
*
here in the red land i
sing for your touch
dirtblessed hands
blowing in through the window

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