Writing from the Magic Desert of Desertlandia: A New Book about Tahquitz Canyon In Palm Springs by Vietnam Veteran, Greek & Latin Language Bible Scholar, Robert “Mountain Bob” Hepburn, Ph.D.

"This is a place of contrasts; it is a place of ancient and new, a place of peace and turbulence. It is a place of power. Come with the right purpose and a clear mind to enjoy its beauty and mystery" -- from the Trail Guide to Tahquitz Canyon, published by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians

I enter the mouth of Tahquitz Canyon, in awe,  as I always am when embarking on this hiking journey. Just a few minutes from downtown Palm Springs, the mouth of Tahquitz Canyon is sharp and enticing, frightening and breath-stealing. Tahquitz Canyon, an early village site and home to the foreboding legend of the god Tahquitz, is now managed by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, who for centuries have inhabited and maintained a close relationship to the canyon as a crucial resource area.

Author Ruth Nolan hikes the trail in Tahquitz Canyon. Photo by Philip Helland

In other words, it's my kind of hike: not only because I get explore deep into the contrasts offered by this raw landscape - from intimidating desert exposures into a canyon that's laced with green sycamore trees and its surprisingly deep, energetic icy-fresh creek and waterfalls - but because I will also be enjoying a literary experience of Tahquitz Canyon, too, thanks to the availability of an amazing new field handbook.  Plants of the Cahuilla Indians of the Colorado Desert and Surrounding Mountains Field Handbook  was published recently by a friend of mine, Robert "Ranger Bob" Hepburn, who has lived in and above Tahquitz Canyon since the 1960's, and now works as a canyon ranger and guide for the Agua Caliente tribe. I don't think it would be much of a stretch to call Ranger Bob a bit of a modern-day Thoreau, with a desert and canyon twist to the famous lore of the great philosopher and his life at Walden Pond.


It's late May, and the desert is offering a respite from the 100 degree heat we've already been enduring for the past few months. Summer comes early here, and by the time Memorial Day weekend arrives, we're well-seated in summer living, just as people in other parts of the Inland Empire are adjusting to the start of the hot season. And, fittingly for Memorial Day, and in synch with the magic that resonates throughout the magic desert of Desertlandia, Hepburn, who earned his Ph.D in Philosophy and Languages from UCBerkely, is not only a scholar of many languages, including Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and a renowned Biblical translator, but just happens to be a decorated Vietnam War Veteran.

Ranger / Author Robert "Bob" Hepburn talks about Tahquitz Canyon on a guided hike. photo by Ruth Nolan.

It's easy to see why Hepburn headed for Tahquitz Canyon back in the 1960's, after one particularly harrowing stint in Vietnam as a Marine. At the time, Tahquitz Canyon was becoming a popular and crowded refuge for members of the hippie generation; after awhile, seeking more solitude, Hepburn purchased land high above the canyon, and actually hiked in all of the materials to build a cabin, where he lived for over twenty years, returning once in awhile down a perilous trail no wider than book in places to get supplies in town.  Even for those of us who are only braving the well-maintained, 2 mile loop trail to the famed lower waterfall - a place visited over the past century by luminaires such as Albert E. Einstein and Jim Morrison of the Doors,-just to name a few - a quick trip into the canyon has a spellbinding and memorable effect.


As I head for the stunning, post-modern architecturally-designed visitor center, I bow my head against the jagged canyon views that rise vertically in one of the steepest pitches on the North American continent.  I'm humbled to think that with every step I take, I'm joining the footsteps of the ancestors of the Cahuilla.  My feet, laced tightly in my hiking boots, are also closely following Hepburn's journey as I make my own Memorial Day 2013 pilgrimage into the healing balm of Tahquitz Canyon in the face of many of the difficult social issues pressing on the world today, including the ongoing Middle Eastern Wars.


After I purchase  my copy of Plants of the Cahuilla Indians of the Colorado Desert and Surrounding Mountains Field Handbook, I take a mandatory time-out to dive into the book on the back patio area of the visitor center. I realize immediately that Hepburn's book is no lightweight stroll through the park. True to the power and magic of Tahquitz Canyon - as well as the foreboding sense of danger and respect evoked by the spirit of the Cahuilla god, Tahquitz, who rules this canyon and figures large and sometimes-frightening in legends of the Cahuilla -, this book is a comprehensive, hugely-researched ethnobotanic guide that provides a complete taxonomy of plant life and resource usage in Tahquitz Canyon.

Hikers enjoy the famous waterfall at trail's end deep in Tahquitz Canyon. Photo by Ruth Nolan

True to his high levels of scholarly excellence, Hepburn provides scientific/Latin and common names, listings, and families of every plant found in the Canyon, as well as traditional Cahuilla plant names, pronunciations, and plant bloom, harvest, and usage charts.  In his extensive research, combined with his firsthand knowledge from his  many years in the canyon, Hepburn consulted landmark works such as Tempalpakh: Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants, a collaborative book written by Cahuilla anthropologist Dr. Lowell Bean and Cahuilla elder Katherine Siva Sauvel, published in, and many other publications related to Cahuilla language and plant knowledge as well as current scientific and botanic research related to Tahquitz Canyon and the surrounding deserts; he includes a wonderful bibliography of resources in his book.

A light wind stirs my hair, and I look up: several red-tailed hawks soar against the sun's intensity, juxtaposed against the highest jagged rocks at the top of the canyon.. After losing myself in the moment, I look down at Hepburn's book again, and I'm happy to see that there's a playful narrative introduction to the book - so true to his character, as well - by another writer friend, Ann Japenga, to the book. It perfectly captures the essence of Hepburn's life in and above Tahquitz Canyon, from his early fascinations with the stories of Gypsy Boots, an early hippie of the Canyon and considered by many to be the "father" of the hippie movement, and eden ahbez (name spelled deliberately all lower-case) who lived in Tahquitz Canyon back in the early 20th century and was inspired by his time spent there to write the famous song, "Nature Boy," recorded by Nat King Cole and many others. Hepburn's stories of life in Tahquitz Canyon are colorful, such as his anecdotes about his mountain lion encounter; the joys he had swimming in his own private waterfall; and the time he had a pizza delivered by helicopter to his cabin high above the desert floor.

The trail leading deep into the heart of Tahquitz Canyon. Photo by Ruth Nolan

It's time to tuck the book into my backpack; the sun is rising higher in the sky, and I want to hike into the Canyon before the heat of this Memorial Day 2013 - however light-handed it feels today - turns into a life-threatening source heat exhaustion. I want to walk along in the footsteps of Ranger Bob, giving thanks for the recent, safe return of my son-in-law Alex, who just served a year with his Army unit's deployment in Afghanistan; past red pictographs painted centuries ago by early shamans and culture heroes of the Cahuilla; past the ancient village site; past the old water project flume from early 20th century agricultural efforts that's been long abandoned; and into the magical, sparkling light of Tahquitz Canyon that resonates with the stories,  plant life, and a sense of physical and spiritual renewal discovered by so many others, over the years. Hepburn's book will  be my companion reading tonight, a source of shared adventure and a path to the knowledge and understanding of plants and sustainability long covered by the Cahuilla, the early ones.


Plants of the Cahuilla Indians of the Colorado Desert and Surrounding Mountains Field Handbook by Robert James Hepburn, published by Enduring Knowlege Publications in Twentynine Palms, CA, copyright (c) 2012, is available for purchase on the publisher's website at www.enduringknowledgepublications.com  and also at the Tahquitz Canyon Visitor Center, 500 W. Mesquite, Palm Springs, CA 92262 (760) 416-7044.

This story is also posted on the Riverside CA Press Enterprise / Inlandia Literary Journeys blog, which can be viewed at: http://localauthors.pe.com/uncategorized/writing-from-the-magic-desert-of-desertlandia-vietnam-veteran-greek-latin-language-and-bible-scholar-mountain-bob-robert-hepburn-ph-d-authors-guidebook-to-tahquitz-canyon-in-palm-spri/

Where Are All the Tipis? Agua Caliente Cultural Musem in Palm Springs challenges Stereotypes of American Indians with a new art exhibition

"Are there still Indians here in Palm Springs?" Yes. "So, where are all the tipis?"  There are no tipis in Palm Spring, and there never were....A new exhibition, "Where are the Tipis? Changing Perceptions About Indians" is a quirky, first-of-its-kind art show at the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum that was created in response to these oft-asked questions.

Film stereotypes exhibited at Agua Caliente Cultural Museum. 
Photo: Agua Caliente Cultural Museum.

According to the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum's Executive Director, Dr. Michael Hammond, inquiries about the Palm Springs area Indians, who are mostly of historical Cahuilla origins, and how to find tipis in Palm Springs, are the two most frequently asked questions museum staff and interpreters receive from the thousands of international visitors who stop by this small, but fierce, downtown Palm Springs museum.

The goal of the exhibition, according to former museum curator Dawn Wellman, who helped research and curate the show, was simple. "We wanted to answer tourists' questions, to dispel some of that and let people know that not all Indians are Plains Indians and wear feathered headdresses, ride horses or carry tomahawks," says Dawn Wellman. "It is an exhibition that is rich in humor and optimism, as well as historical fact."

Cartoon at Agua Caliente Cultural Museum exhibition. 
|Photo:Ruth Nolan

As a key feature of the exhibition, the museum commissioned the renowned artist Gerald C. Clarke, Jr., of the Cahuilla Band of Cahuilla Indians near Anza, who is also Chairman of his tribal council's board and Chair of the Idyllwild School for the Arts, to create art for the exhibition. Clarke's finished piece for the exhibit is comprised of two, life-sized cutout dolls of a Native American man and woman, with interchangeable, stereotypical clothing that ranges from bucksin outfits and headdresses to prison outfits to sloppy t-shirt and baggy shorts, images which are not accurately representative of our country's hugely diverse Native population. "Underneath these ridiculous costumes," notes Hammond, "are a man and a woman, free of stereotypes."

According to Hammond, in curating the exhibition, which is suitable for adults as well as children, "We touched on all of the major elements we thought should be included, and we tried to do so with a gentle sense of humor, so that people aren't totally offended, but do emerge from here with a new perspective" noting with a satisfied chuckle that many visitors leave the museum after viewing the exhibition, shaking their heads and commenting, with a new sense of awareness, "I can't believe John Wayne said that," in reference to a withering and historically inaccurate statement - posted on the wall as part of the museum's exhibition - made by the "cowboy" film hero about Native Americans made to Playboy Magazine in 1971.



Gordon Johnson, a Cahuilla-Cupeno and distinguished author of "Rez Dogs Eat Beans: and Other Tales," notes the value of the exhibition. "Exhibits like the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum's are important to dispel the stereotypes and wake people up to the fact Indians are evolving, they are not stuck in time," he says. "Many people form their impressions of Indian culture from watching movies -- old cowboy and Indian movies at that. It is surprising, even today, people expect and are disappointed when they don't find Indians riding horses and living in tipis. Many want Indians to live up to the romanticized 'noble savage' image they've been spoon fed by media."

In contrast to this expectation, Cahuilla Indians of the Palm Springs and surrounding areas traditionally lived in dome-shaped or rectangular type of structure, according to Cahuilla anthroplogist Dr. Lowell Bean, known as a "kish," up to 15-20 feet across and and by covering bent willow branches with palm fronds and other available plant materials. In addition, tipis, made from large animal hides, are largely traditional to our country's northern Plains Indians, who had, until the 20th century, ready access to free-ranging buffalo. In addition, in contrast to the elaborate, beaded leather clothing common to the Plains Indians, the Cahuilla dressed in little clothing -- made of palm fronds, deerskin and tule -- during the frequent warm desert weather, and in colder months, wore capes made of deerskin or rabbit fur to stay warm.

Stereotype exhibited at Agua Caliente Cultural Museum.
 | Photo:Ruth Nolan

The exhibition also showcases liquor bottles made in the image of war-bonneted "cigar store Indian," with photographs of some of the area's real Native American people. There is a screen with a continous loop of cartoons playing, including such longtime favorites as Bugs Bunny, that have perpetuated myths about American Indian people, and cartoons with characters that challenge these stereotypes. There are also depictions of cultural stereotypes that are still perpetuated through commercial culture, including a large rendering of the "Indian Princess" image that is found on the Land O'Lakes brand of butter, and a display of "Native American Barbie," dressed in buckskin, a war bonnet, and holding a baby in a papoose, as contrasted next to an Anglo Barbie, who is wearing contemporary clothing.

Other important parts of the exhibition include a list of the 600 federally-recognized American Indian tribes, along with the 229 Alaskan Indian Villages, all with their own language, its own beliefs, its own complex kinship systems, as well as a display referencing the currently-politically-charged issue of professional sports teams mascots, such as the Washington Redskins, which uses words and symbols that are highly offensive to many American Indians.

"It was a little bit risky to do what we've done," notes Ashley Dunphy, current acting curator at the museum, who also helped create the exhibition. "It's not common for Native American art exhibitions to include anything referencing the demeaning and two-dimensional caricatures of Native people that we've included in our exhibition. But we felt it was important to present some of this, to help people identify their prejudices, and then, offer alongside of that, an accurate representation to help them expand their awareness and understanding of the true lives and cultures of our country's Native Americans, including those with roots in Palm Springs.

Display at Agua Caliente Cultural Museum. | Photo:Ruth Nolan

Display at Agua Caliente Cultural Museum.
 | Photo:Ruth Nolan

Agua Caliente Museum acting curator Ashley Dunphy. | 

Photo: Ruth Nolan.

Political cartoon at Agua Caliente Cultural Museum exhibition. | 
Photo courtesy of Agua Caliente Cultural Museum.

You can read this article on the multi-award-winning KCET Artbound 
Los Angeles website at: http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/riverside/indian-stereotypes-agua-caliente-cultural-museum.html

April, Me, And A Common Poorwill.....

It's April 2013, and just as I have in many an April past, since I've lived in the exotic desert climate in one of California's hottest deserts, in the Coachella Valley,  I hear tonight the chirping, mid-night mating song of a lone bird, known as a Common Poorwill, indigenous to this part of the desert.

There's one here in my neighborhood - just one in this desert block, which seems right on the mark, since this is a bird that claims a wide territory, room for only one bird, and it's not clear to me if its a female or male. It's been one year exactly since I heard the midnight April song of this very same species of bird, the song of another long-flyer making its dark, cheerful song,  one year since  I moved out of my house on California Drive in the Palm Desert Country Club, a nice, open ceiling, tile-floored house I owned for ten years. And it sort of feels like I got a divorce, or like I'm reminiscing over the bittersweet territory of a lost, long-term love relationship, with all is good and bad components entwined.

Last April, at this exact time, before the dogs and cat and I were learning to negotiate life in the much-smaller, one bedroom duplex that we are living in now, I was spending every minute of my week-long spring break from my teaching job, as well as a few extra days on either side of that week, packing, sorting, renting a Uhaul, gathering moving help, doing the hard physical work of lifting, loading, unloading and cleaning, and generally wondering if I had completely lost my mind, or if I was making the wise passage  into a new, lightweight and creatively transformational phase of my life (i.e., carving out more time to write, something I'd been dreaming of for years; freeing myself from the financial burden of a steep monthly mortgage payment; making a clean break with a tricky and fairly troubling chapter of my life, and so forth.)

Most people I mentioned this house-selling thing to weren't exactly enthused. Most grew quiet, and I could see the look of sympathy cross their brows, even if they smiled and said "what a wonderful change!"  Many came right out and asked if I was in foreclosure; I could tell that most assumed, even when I assured them otherwise, that this was an unfortunate thing; that it probably had to do with me not being able to afford the house anymore. Not the truth. It was never cheap, it was never easy, but it wasn't cheap. Owning a house! The American Dream! And for a single-parent, single woman! Almost a miracle!

So why did I sell my house, and was it the right thing to do?

My house. It wasn't my dream house, but it was my house, as good as any and the pleasant place of many good hours of sleep. Most of all, it was my sense of security: the satisfaction of making a commitment to my first long-time home; the safety of knowing, until the whole world changed, that I had a terrific financial investment I could draw on when the time was right, my back-up plan, should all else fail.  the problem with this American Dream is that it did fail, and it failed hard. Not only once, but several times, in a slow-sequence, slow-rewind type of repeat, something I'd never dreamed was possible, until it was in my face. Like so many others, I lost my investment - although grateful and fortunate that I hadn't invested a down payment in the home -, and sadly had to accept that the considerable nest egg I had relied on in my mind could no longer sustain my sense of financial security into old age.

I also had to face the facts: for far too long, I'd been sinking far too much money into a high monthly mortgage, an investment that now had no viable return for what I was putting in out of my hard-earned wages.  I'd done everything right: I could afford it, and my interest rate was fixed at a terrific low rate, but it was still squeezing far too much money out of my earnings, even as I was losing side work I'd relied on, teaching workshops and other side gigs in addition to my full time job as a professor,  due to a tight economy. In addition, the house needed work. I'd bought it almost brand new, but after ten years, it was time for costly repairs. It seemed like I was always consumed by something or other: removing the spent-out dishwasher, and living with a gutted-out-hole under the counter for a year, after deciding I didn't want to invest $500 on a new one; fixing a broken drawer; and replacing the front gate to the tune of $700 when the old wooden one finally caved in. I even ended up cutting down (with expensive, hired help of course), the three giant, needle-armed palo verde trees in my front yard. One split in half one night and fell across the driveway; another blew over in a rogue windstorm; the third was felled by a termite infestation. As a single woman, struggling to keep home ownership together by myself, financially and physically, it all just got to be too much.

There were also other factors. I went through a string of wild-eyed, completely enthralling and then debilitating love relationships in that house, that left me depleted and more alone than I ever could have imagined I'd be. My only child grew up, got married, and moved away. More loneliness and a sense of abandoned grief. I endured, for more than five years, vicious, hating, harassing neighbors from across the street who took every opportunity they could to yell at me, scream *fuck you*, call the police on my barking dogs and many other imagined things, and even throw eggs at my car, and friends' cars, when left in the driveway. California Drive was also a busy street, a sort of thruway cutting through a neighborhood between busy avenues, and the constant traffic, as well as the heavy traffic noise from a nearby 6-lane boulevard, always made me feel a bit on edge. Right before I put the house up for sale, too, there was a drive-by shooting in the street in front of my house. Increasingly, it felt like a scary place to live, especially by myself.

My house. At 76530 California Drive. It was a house built of stucco, a house with a red tile roof, a house with a wall around the back and side yards and most of the front, a house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a two-car garage, a nice patio and a pool. It was my house, and now it's not.  In a short, six-month period, the first half of the year 2012, I went into an all-too-familiar downward de-mobilizing of living circumstances and business status, like millions of other Americans have also done since the stock market crashed in September, 2008. It was something I'd never imagined; like all others such as I from the tail end of the Baby Boom/leading edge of Generation X crowd (born in the early to mid 1960's), I'd only ever known the sharp, ever-steady curve of upward mobility my entire life, and jumping blithely into owning my first home at age 38 had seemed so easy. Agonizing about whether to sell or not to sell, during a three-year period, and finally deciding on doing a short sale,  was anything but easygoing. It cost me many tears, many sleepless nights, and lots of pages of what I see now as completely unnerved and on-the-edge poetry that I wrote during this time.

This year, I often find myself missing what still feels like my home. As oppressive as owning that house had become  - the list of repairs and problems is endless - the carpets were thrashed and needed replacing; the pool pump was shot and the hot tub heater was broken; I had been enduring a horrific citrus rat invasion that I couldn't curb, no matter how many instant-zapper traps I set out during that last summer that I lived there (22 rats dead in three months, and more still coming!) it was still my home, and a part of my is in deep mourning for what I willingly parsed away. Another part of me is in a sense of all-too-buoyant relief - the kind of relief you get when you've been carrying a heavy backpack uphill on a hike, and put the pack down, and almost spring out of your socks from the release of the weight. it's a sense of freedom, lightness, but it's almost too much to bear, like staying out in the sun at the beach far too long, knowing you're getting sunburned, far more than the tan you thought you deserved.

I miss a lot of things. Things that I'll never get back. Loss, and losing things, was the reason I sold the house, made a run for it - as fast as a person can do, when negotiating what to do with ten years of accumulated things that had added up between my daughter and I....I miss my daughter, of course. It was the house she grew up as a teenager and young adult in. I miss the pool parties, I miss the citrus trees and palm trees that I nurtured and watered; I miss the garden I cultivated. I sometimes think about the Christmas tree that I planted outside the living room window after the holiday season in 2004; it was only five feet high and easily managed when I planted it, and over 30 feet high and still covered with my loving decoration of permanent outdoor ornaments by the time I moved. I miss the bare-boned palappa, a wooden-framed structure over my old patio, which had at one time been completely covered with palm fronds; with every big windstorm, a few more fronds had blown off. By the time I moved, there were only three withered fronds left. 

I miss the *fuck you* that I scratched into a bedroom wall one night in an angry-at-a-missing-lover rage, and I miss the holes I kicked into the stucco walls the few times I had bad news I couldn't bear. Like the time my partner, who was living with me for a good two years out of that latter ten, committed suicide, leaving one day with a gun, never to return. Like the time my daughter told me she'd had been date raped by a boyfriend, months after it happened and the perpetrator long gone. Like the time a man who romanced me and asked me to marry him (I said yes, in a loving blaze) disappeared on me without a trace. I had a stalker for several years, necessitating a restraining order and a good measure of fear, as well.  But I lived life in that house, and I lived it long and hard, I lived it with people, with lovers and family and friends, I lived it in quiet peace and in raging arguments, I lived it alone in tears and overwhelming feelings of abandonment, I lived it in the giddy uplift of a poem well written, of a book edited, published, and praised, and no one can ever take that away. Even though it often felt, and still feels, like ghosts now haunt me down, the way they rabidly search for the spoils of Halloween, there is something firmly rooted in my memories of the house on California Drive, good times, loving times, hopeful times, and all of the stuff in between, the stuffing and bits and pieces that life is actually, and richly, made of. Sort of like an awkward, but tenacious and tough, bird's nest, the place where the tired songbird goes to rest at dawn, after a full-throated night.

Now, I'm in a small place, a very nice part of town, paying half the monthly payment in rent as I was straining to pay on my former mortgage. I'm  in a much quieter neighborhood than where I was before.  I'm still not used to it. Half of my things have been in storage for the past year, including my extensive collection of books, which is becoming more difficult to do without. It feels so strange to have to call and negotiate with a landlord when I need something fixed, although a relief. Before I moved here last September - to a part of Palm Desert I lived in when I first moved here in 1999, prior to buying my house -, I spent several months living first in a one-room studio, and then a month staying at my parents' condo, dogs and cat and all, while they were traveling in Europe; during all that time, I basically lived out of a few suitcases. The thing is, it felt good to live like that, and I had a sense of adventure and forward momentum I hadn't experienced in a long time.

This feeling has faded, and I admit it's been a rather strange past seven months. It's April 2013, one year exactly after I moved out of my house on California Drive in the Palm Desert Country Club, a house I owned for ten years. I still don't feel grounded, and I still don't feel settled in and packed. I still don't see as much money saved as I had hoped for, and  I'm feeling restless and even isolated here; I still miss my daughter, who is in Washington and expecting a baby now, a wonderful bit of news that makes me feel even more restless, dislocated, and on edge with anticipation and the depth of the many miles between us now.

And while the Common Poorwill of this neighborhood sings its heart out in the desert tonight, a new April, behind my new, temporary home, sounding identical to the one I listened to last April at my former house,  I'm still in a holding pattern, and still don't know where home is, but while I continue in my mid-life drift, my memories of my ten years in the house on California Drive endure, and no one can ever take that away from me. I'm rooted there, just as that place is rooted forever and firmly within me.