White Mountains
Phantom Seed - reading + discussion + promotion at the Sierra Club - Desert Committee Meeting in the White Mountains, Grandview Campground August 9-10, 2008.
A great meeting - amazing people dedicating their lives and hearts to desert protection and conservation, from Anza Borrego to Mojave Desert to Inyo County and the Bay Area.
I also visited the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest - tree energy and medieval, fairytale forest vibes. Shamans and mushrooms - dripping needles - purple and brown cones - the bristlecone pines produce, individually, male and female cones - in short, they can self-pollinate and gestate, and reproduce on their own -
I'll be posting some of my own pictures soon - but in the meantime
Pictures from the Internet -
http://wps.prenhall.com/esm_aguado_uwac_3/11/2882/
737981.cw/index.html
http://flickr.com/photos/yareque/602505258/
http://www.terragalleria.com/california/picture.usca9912.html
It was completely grounding and uplifting - healing - cosmic -
Monday, August 11, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Sun Runner Magazine Desert Writers Issue 2008
The Sun Runner Magazine - based in 29 Palms, CA, has just released its 2nd annual desert writers issue!
Check out the following link for some amazing work. I'm not only thrilled to see works published by many of my poetry friends and acquaintances - but that some of the desert poetry generated in desert poetry workshops I've facilitated in the past year - at Deep Canyon, Whitewater, and in a UCR-Extension Poetry Workshop - is included.
Hurrah for the desert poetry muse!
http://www.thesunrunner.com/
Check out the following link for some amazing work. I'm not only thrilled to see works published by many of my poetry friends and acquaintances - but that some of the desert poetry generated in desert poetry workshops I've facilitated in the past year - at Deep Canyon, Whitewater, and in a UCR-Extension Poetry Workshop - is included.
Hurrah for the desert poetry muse!
http://www.thesunrunner.com/
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Idyllwild high - up and down the mountain
We're lucky, I know, to live in a place, hot and stifling and nail-scratching-irritating as Palm Desert is at this time of year, the "pit bull days" of summer like nowhere else - we're lucky to be able to peel ourselves out of the house, where we've been slugging along slowly for days, and within 45 minutes' drive, be transported to a cool, 6,000 foot elevation gain unto forest and falls.
The small waterfall at the base of Lily Rock, which is the most amazing shiva lingam on the planet and a heaven for rock climbers and hikers like me - was barely trickling today. I crawled under the fence, like a criminal, so eager to ascend the slick rock waterfall - the type and time of year where the water barely crawls down the surface into a tiny pool - that small waterfall, or water drip, with a one-foot wide flow of water singing past my feet - cleared my soul like nothing else. Not to mention the dehydrated body, the heat-frozen mind - this is my 9th summer in Palm Desert, and no matter how you divide it, try to get away, cope with lowdown days and being more active at night, enjoying the warm swimming pool under stars - the heat just fucking sucks, setting in like a county jail sentence time around late June and agonizing well into September.
The road to Idyllwild from the desert floor is always inspirational. Up Highway 74, past the new Santa Rosa/San Jacinto Monument Visitor Center - up seven-level hill, where in a daring series of no-shouldered switchbacks, you crescendo into quickly changing types of flora and fauna: now dirt hills, now giant boulders, now ocotillo, now yucca, and then, up top in less than 10 minutes to 4,000 feet from sea level, in stands of juniper and even pinyon pine, and a high country plateau that continues to rise skyward, into vast swaths of ribbonwood and several large and powerful oak groves, and then a little higher, over the Pacific Crest Trail, which crosses the highway just near the Anza turnout, and voila - the giant pine trees of Garner Valley.
Onward, bewitched now in the daze of....."trees," and 20 or 30 degrees lower temperature - windows are down now, AC is off..my God, there are actually purple wildflowers stretching across the meadows!! It's not real green - southern California's mountains are, after all, well within the arid zone and they drought in August, as well, to some extent, but there's relief in looking across the man-made Lake Hemet,up the turnout to the Zen Center, across a wide valley where Wellman's Ranch still runs its cattle, and a mountainside where I fought a forest fire more than 20 years ago during the Live Aid Concert, circa 1986.
Up a little higher, more curves, and Idyllwild, the town in the nest of the old glacier carved mountains' arms - Lily Rock, again, and the high touch of Mt. San Jacinto, over 11,000 feet, and the lower but very imposing Tahquitz Peak, where there's an old fire lookout - I've been up to both, but not today.
Today, we're just sitting, dazed, by the water, grateful to get out of a mucky but common "monsoon" heat that oozes northward from the Gulf of California into the Coachella Valley, far below us now and behind the monster ridge - creating its own version of steambath and thunderhead and oddly not bringing much rain, just sizzler temps and unbreathable nights that are often passable for long bike rides on summer-deserted sidewalks that nonetheless profer well-lit palm trees, neatly trimmed, and miles of country club walls - ahh, my surprising life in the wedge of home I own on California Drive, on side in Palm Desert and over my shoulder, swank Indian Wells. That' I'd ever live here, own a house with a pool, and be surrounded by multimillion dollar country clubs - life can be so weird.
At heart I'm in the mountain, meditating with the stream, and slowly allowing the water and stone to do their work of melting me into their faschia, the wear of unbearable, thirsty desert with its punitive temperatures and unforgiving unbreathability - the magnificent and sacred sand dunes once lurching behind my house, gone for golf - the good news, though, is that I can savor the tingle of this tiny, if forbidden creek, with its fat mosquitos and scolding I get from a rightfully-indignant local who reminds me that the water above the fence belongs to the water district and that I-Wild is in Level 1 water rationing - as always, if not worse - but I swear, I am bettering it with a prayer and an imaginary tear, if you will, of gratitude for its presence.
And rushing down the dark road I've tumbled down so many times before, at night, the milky way and stars that we can't see down here - lightning far across the desert, to the east, the little San Bernardino Mountains and Joshua Tree - I pull off at an oddly upscaled and paved and walled Vista Point to watch - irritated again by my re-entry to desert things, and the newly-paved and marked off parking, the people here predictably drinking beer and blasting loud and bad-tasting music - and a strong wind pushes my back, rushing down from the mountains - no wind in Idyllwild, just the cool "other side of the mountains, where the ocean influences take charge," weird here, in this weather no man's land with strangers in the dark, and seeing clouds across the valley floor blow up and light and fall empty again - and then, when I return home, only the stillness, punctuated by crickets; in the mountains, it was frogs.
As always, when I go up and down the mountain on the same day, I feel that light-headed tired sensation; I just want to lie down and read tabloid magazines. After all, it's quite the journey, dashing 7,000 feet up and back down, and embracing everything from mountains to deserts and all the transition zones and chapparal in between. After all, I've just rip-roared down the road filmed in the mountain driving scene in the movie, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."
The small waterfall at the base of Lily Rock, which is the most amazing shiva lingam on the planet and a heaven for rock climbers and hikers like me - was barely trickling today. I crawled under the fence, like a criminal, so eager to ascend the slick rock waterfall - the type and time of year where the water barely crawls down the surface into a tiny pool - that small waterfall, or water drip, with a one-foot wide flow of water singing past my feet - cleared my soul like nothing else. Not to mention the dehydrated body, the heat-frozen mind - this is my 9th summer in Palm Desert, and no matter how you divide it, try to get away, cope with lowdown days and being more active at night, enjoying the warm swimming pool under stars - the heat just fucking sucks, setting in like a county jail sentence time around late June and agonizing well into September.
The road to Idyllwild from the desert floor is always inspirational. Up Highway 74, past the new Santa Rosa/San Jacinto Monument Visitor Center - up seven-level hill, where in a daring series of no-shouldered switchbacks, you crescendo into quickly changing types of flora and fauna: now dirt hills, now giant boulders, now ocotillo, now yucca, and then, up top in less than 10 minutes to 4,000 feet from sea level, in stands of juniper and even pinyon pine, and a high country plateau that continues to rise skyward, into vast swaths of ribbonwood and several large and powerful oak groves, and then a little higher, over the Pacific Crest Trail, which crosses the highway just near the Anza turnout, and voila - the giant pine trees of Garner Valley.
Onward, bewitched now in the daze of....."trees," and 20 or 30 degrees lower temperature - windows are down now, AC is off..my God, there are actually purple wildflowers stretching across the meadows!! It's not real green - southern California's mountains are, after all, well within the arid zone and they drought in August, as well, to some extent, but there's relief in looking across the man-made Lake Hemet,up the turnout to the Zen Center, across a wide valley where Wellman's Ranch still runs its cattle, and a mountainside where I fought a forest fire more than 20 years ago during the Live Aid Concert, circa 1986.
Up a little higher, more curves, and Idyllwild, the town in the nest of the old glacier carved mountains' arms - Lily Rock, again, and the high touch of Mt. San Jacinto, over 11,000 feet, and the lower but very imposing Tahquitz Peak, where there's an old fire lookout - I've been up to both, but not today.
Today, we're just sitting, dazed, by the water, grateful to get out of a mucky but common "monsoon" heat that oozes northward from the Gulf of California into the Coachella Valley, far below us now and behind the monster ridge - creating its own version of steambath and thunderhead and oddly not bringing much rain, just sizzler temps and unbreathable nights that are often passable for long bike rides on summer-deserted sidewalks that nonetheless profer well-lit palm trees, neatly trimmed, and miles of country club walls - ahh, my surprising life in the wedge of home I own on California Drive, on side in Palm Desert and over my shoulder, swank Indian Wells. That' I'd ever live here, own a house with a pool, and be surrounded by multimillion dollar country clubs - life can be so weird.
At heart I'm in the mountain, meditating with the stream, and slowly allowing the water and stone to do their work of melting me into their faschia, the wear of unbearable, thirsty desert with its punitive temperatures and unforgiving unbreathability - the magnificent and sacred sand dunes once lurching behind my house, gone for golf - the good news, though, is that I can savor the tingle of this tiny, if forbidden creek, with its fat mosquitos and scolding I get from a rightfully-indignant local who reminds me that the water above the fence belongs to the water district and that I-Wild is in Level 1 water rationing - as always, if not worse - but I swear, I am bettering it with a prayer and an imaginary tear, if you will, of gratitude for its presence.
And rushing down the dark road I've tumbled down so many times before, at night, the milky way and stars that we can't see down here - lightning far across the desert, to the east, the little San Bernardino Mountains and Joshua Tree - I pull off at an oddly upscaled and paved and walled Vista Point to watch - irritated again by my re-entry to desert things, and the newly-paved and marked off parking, the people here predictably drinking beer and blasting loud and bad-tasting music - and a strong wind pushes my back, rushing down from the mountains - no wind in Idyllwild, just the cool "other side of the mountains, where the ocean influences take charge," weird here, in this weather no man's land with strangers in the dark, and seeing clouds across the valley floor blow up and light and fall empty again - and then, when I return home, only the stillness, punctuated by crickets; in the mountains, it was frogs.
As always, when I go up and down the mountain on the same day, I feel that light-headed tired sensation; I just want to lie down and read tabloid magazines. After all, it's quite the journey, dashing 7,000 feet up and back down, and embracing everything from mountains to deserts and all the transition zones and chapparal in between. After all, I've just rip-roared down the road filmed in the mountain driving scene in the movie, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."
The Ghost of Peg Leg Smith.....A Story
Back to The Grind…..Or……Under the Grind
The Ghost of Peg Leg Smith and Goldie, his Trusty Burro
by Ruth Nolan
runolan@aol.com
Back in the gold rush days of the 1860’s, California was flush with rugged men looking for gold. One of the most famous and infamous one of these miners was the notorious Peg Leg Smith, the famous one-legged desert miner who lost his left leg in a mining accident and walked on a wooden peg, which is how he got his name. Legend has it that he struck the mother lode, got super rich, sold his gold in L.A., and disappeared. No one knows just where he found his gold, and some people think it was somewhere way out in the Anza Borrego Desert, 100 miles from Riverside. But, the story that almost no one knows about is that he actually found a huge bag of gold nuggets right here in
Peg Leg Smith spent a couple of years in the desert, but he got tired of the heat and loneliness, so he decided to head into the Riverside area one day with his trusty burro, Goldie. It was a long trip, across the old Bradshaw Trail, a dirt road that followed an ancient Indian trail from the Salton Sea all the way into town.
Back in those days, all you’d see would be stagecoaches, and maybe a few
Government surveyors looking for the best place to lay down the tracks for the soon-to-be railroad that would link the east to the west. Peg Leg loved coffee too, you see, and his favorite thing to do, besides dig for gold, was to pull off, find twigs, and build a little fire. He’d get out his hand coffee grinder, some beans, and sing songs of gold mining and miners while he ground his coffee, put it onto boil, and relaxed with a hot cup of the stuff. He even swore that when it was hot, a good cup of coffee would cool him down, because it made him sweat! He always gave Goldie the lukewarm leftovers. It took him awhile to get across the desert, because Peg Leg preferred to take turns riding Goldie and walking, because he never knew when he’d see a vein of gold along the way, and he might want to go mine some – and he didn’t want anyone else to know!
Peg Leg came down from the Banning Pass along San Timoteo Canyon, and followed the Santa Ana River down to where Mt. Rubidoux is. Back in those days, the Santa Ana River flowed more than it does now, and there were a number of Cahuilla and Serrano Indian settlements and campsites there. Peg Leg decided to hunker down at one at the base of Mt. Rubidoux for awhile, to cool his body down and enjoy the scenery. That was even before the Mission Inn was built, so there was nowhere else to stay, and Goldie had plenty of cool water, along with Peg Leg’s leftover coffee!
But Peg Leg got restless very soon. Over cups of fresh-brewed coffee, he got to talking to the Indians, and found out that there was huge vein of gold not far from Mt. Rubidoux, right in the downtown area, and right beneath the spot where Back to the Grind coffee shop is today! The Indians weren’t interested in mining it, because they believed that mining into the earth for anything, digging up the ground, made the land out of balance, which affected people in a bad way. They also had seen many men go crazy, looking for gold and finding gold, and they called gold “the yellow metal that makes white men crazy.” They warned Peg Leg to slow down, just enjoy the river and the coffee, but Peg Leg wouldn’t listen. He sharpened his pickaxe, bundled up some dynamite, and made his way over, day after day, to the site, to dig a long tunnel that went down into the dark earth.
Morning after morning he'd pack up his little miner's cart, towed by his Goldie. He loved his coffee so much, remember, that he'd take a big bag of beans, imported from Mexico, with him, and a little stove, and he'd stop and hand grind his coffee for a morning break, at lunchtime, and in the afternoon. He didn't eat much, just made fresh coffee with wood from river-bottom and his little stove and coffee beans, and kept on digging, convinced that he was soon going to find the gold, sell it to the bank in Los Angeles, and strike it rich! When he got tired, he’d pop off his wooden leg and set it off to one side, and when he was ready to start work, why, he’d tap that wooden leg hard on his miner’s cart and little Goldie would come running along, ready to get back to work with the boss.
He dug deeper and deeper. And once in awhile someone traveling by on the railroad survey, or western men, would drop in for a cup of coffee and tell him to be careful. That deep cave was now as big as the inside of a small house, but he didn't listen - he was almost there - he could see the vein of gold just starting to come out. No one else would go down there, they were scared, but he insisted, even when water drip dripped from the ceiling. Peg Leg was really excited, because he could see the rocks looked like gold. He dug deeper and deeper, down what is now the stairway, and made a big hole in the ground, barely supported with logs he cut and carried from the river, and beams from the railroad that was being put through the center of the small town, near where some people were planting orange and lemon trees.
One day, the railroad needed to dynamite a big chunk of hard soil, in order the get the rail lines laid down. The railroad people came and told him to clear out by 10 a.m, that it wouldn’t be safe to be deep in his miner’s cavern. He was having a very busy time that day, working hard, and he got careless, a little too wired on coffee one day, and he forgot to get out before the routine 10 a.m. blast.
And this is where the story gets tricky. The Indians swore that Peg Leg was down in that deep hole, that Peg Leg was in there, when the 10 a.m. blast of dynamite from the railroad-building went off, that he hadn’t come out for hours. And right at 10 a.m., by a weird coincidence – maybe because it was Halloween Day of 1861, October 31 - an earthquake also went off! He may have been grinding some more morning coffee, because he didn’t seem to hear the warning shouts from the people above ground.
Peg Leg didn't have a chance. The dynamite shook, the earth rumbled for a good minute or so, and then everything was quiet. His tunnel was caved in, and the people who ran over to try to rescue him couldn’t hear a thing – they could only smell the aroma of fresh coffee, coming from somewhere underground. Goldie got so cared that he ran off towards the Box Canyon Hills and was never seen again, although children today still swear they can hear him braying on Halloween Night, crying for his master and whining softly because he is so thirsty for some of Peg Leg’s famous coffee!
The scary thing about this story is that when the railroad workers went to dig Peg Leg out, they found everything Peg Leg had taken down there - his miner's axe, his bag of rocks, each hinting at gold dust, his coffee grinder, mug, wooden leg, and pick axe, but they didn’t find any of the giant gold nuggets Peg Leg swore he’d found. Oddly, the hole in the ground was still big, once they cleared out the rubble – all they had to do was dig the tunnel out. But Peg Leg was nowhere to be found, not one body part, just his wooden leg, leaning up against his mining cart. Someone pulled all of his things out, and the tunnel was boarded up, with a big “no trespassing” sign on it, although some kids who moved to Riverside as the town got bigger would hide out down there, eating oranges and playing, but every one of them swore, as the years went on, that they got scared and saw a ghost, a man with one leg, grinning like a crazy pumpkin without teeth, his eyes all lit up, repeating the words, “gold, gold, gold…we’re all rich!” Sometimes there would be a smell of coffee, and sometimes there would be a tapping sound against rocks, until the kids would run out of there, screaming.
Sooner or later, the railroad brought more people to Riverside. Oranges were planted. Citrus became King. No one cared about the legend of gold because people were getting rich in fruit. Trains rumbled through, and actually made the hole beneath the ground bigger. Then, one day, a man decided to build a coffee shop right on top of that spot – he couldn’t really pin down why, and his wife wasn’t sure it was a good idea, what with that big hole in the ground, but he just put a nice, thick wooden floor across the hole, erected a brick building, and called it, “Back to the Grind.” The coffee shop became very popular, and it still is today. there was just something that smelled so good there, even though some of the patrons would swear they heard someone tapping a wooden stick under their feet, from beneath the floor.
Time passed by, as it does, and the Indians were forced to leave their beautiful river settlement, and so the story of Peg Leg and his foolish search for gold stopped being told. More people moved to Riverside, and they started having concerts, music, and poetry readings, many of the events held down in that basement hole – in fact, you can even still see some of the rocks that Peg Leg was digging through down there, behind a panel of glass. It’s all lit up sometimes and it just looks like it has gold in there!
And on Halloween Night - maybe if you're really quiet, and stop to smell the coffee, and look at the rocks that are behind the glass on the side of the wall down there, you will see a man's face, and he's got a cup of coffee in his hand and he's smiling, and he likes to scare kids who are trick or treating by banging his wooden leg on the side of the glass when they're not looking. He's even been known to trip a few kids when they are going up and down the stairs, just to remind them that he is still there. He will never escape, because he got too greedy looking for gold when he was already rich, and when Halloween arrives, he tries to get out but because of the glass, he can't.
And that is the story of Peg Leg Smith, the famous gold miner who kept going back into that tunnel, back to beneath Back to the Grind, trying to strike it rich. His ghost still lives right here in the basement of Back to the Grind, and when it's really quiet, you can hear his wooden leg banging on the floor underneath you. He's trying to get out and go to the next mother lode, but he can't. Always watch where you step – because the story has it that he’s grabbed more than one kid’s leg, pulled him down into the hole, and that kid has never been seen again. A few kids have lost arms and fingers, too, when they’ve gotten to close to the rocks behind the glass! And if you hear a knocking or a tapping when you’re sitting in the store, it is probably the ghost of Peg Leg, trying to tell you his story, and trying to get you to come down, have a cup of coffee with him, and disappear with him down there forever, digging into eternity.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Oasis of Mara
This was the Oasis of Mara
where the Washingtonian Palm Trees
suckled on water from the spring,
where the continental and Pacific shelves
harmonized in one shallow push of things
Not many earthquakes in the stories
of Chemehuevi but when they came
with disharmony, it was the lizard with
a black tail, like the comet in night skies.
This was Carlota, whose father was Mike,
whose father was the tribal leader and
medicine man, who walked his family
to their summer work at Gillman Ranch,
a walk along the cridges of springs and
other related palm tree oases, nurturing
their young, providing shelter and shade,
a 45 mile stroll through desert and hills.
Carlota, who was mis-named later, who
was said to have scrawled childish signals
in the sand when she ran away from Mike,
ran somewhat towards the ancestral home
at 29 Palms but knew she was not going there.
And the waters at the Oasis of Mara quaked
a little, knowing a ripple had been frogged
into the pond, the late summer evening,
uneasy, with President Taft campaigning
in his fat chair at the Mission Inn, Riverside
and the Mission Indians weren't real at all.
And this was Mike Boniface, who was related
to everyone at the spring, and to many Cahuilla
throughout the southland, the Cahuilla who held
their tribelets at more than a dozen homes
throughout the valley and hills, culminating
at Morongo, where Mike and his family picked
fruit, where the parents and grandparents told
Carlota she could not marry Willie Boy because
they were too closely related, Willie Boy, who
the white newspaper reports, along for the
sensation of ride, would write was a drunk,
a crazy, and a wild Indian on a rampage of kill.
This was Willie Boy, who might be penciled in
for Romeo, and this was Carlota, who was Juliet
for all plot-structuring purposes, even Robert
Redford cast a real life killer in a movie for him.
Romeo and Juliet, we all feel sorry for them,
white and Shakespearean, safe in their 16th
century habitats, European-clean. They, too,
were teens, like Willie Boy recently was and
Carlota is, and couldn't be together. And this
was the Oasis of Mara, where Willie Boy's
grandmother buried his gun, although her
grandson hadn't yet come, after he killed Old
Mike, after Carlota was mis-named Lolita and
Isoleta - how convenient to minimize when
we have such ludicrous outtakes on names,
crazy Indian, wild Indian, girl who writes in
ancient symbolic scribbles although she was
educated and planning to attend college soon-
even Clara True, who is this, the Indian agent
who rescued the pinned-down-by-Willie-Boy
posse near Ruby Mountain, who scoffed at the
fact that Willie Boy was dead, killed by self-
inflicted gunshot wound, that he killed his
beloved because she was dragging him down.
This was the Oasis of Mara, where Willie Boy's
mourning songs, the songs for the dead of the
Chemeheuevi which he undoubtedly sang
after he ran north from Pipes Canyon, knowing
he could not follow the not so uncommon plot
structure of murder for love in the conventional
manner of rising action-climax-denoument,
that for him, the gun he'd never claim rusted
at the bottom of the Oasis of Mara, which the
people who pretended they had a picture of
Willie Boy dead after Willie Boy had run to the
north to another homeland, renamed 29 Palms,
and claimed as their own, much as Willie Boy
had claimed Carlota as his beloved, and had
killed and exiled for a much higher cause than
to blame the Indians, the firewater-drinking
savages from the 29 Palms Band of Chemehuevi
Indians, so-called, as if they all were responsible
for the love-sickness of one young man, as if they
made the earth move and upset the complicated
balance of lateral slip thrust faultline, the edgy
relationship between the Indians and the whites
and set the earth afire, made the ground shake
its furious fist and rattle its teeth and complicated
the faraway and simplistic plot structure of the
story of Romeo and Juliet, for whom we feel sorry
and for Willie Boy, the savage Indian, who brought
disaster and exile upon his own head, and that of
Mike's family, and all of their relations. This is the
Oasis of Mara, reclaimed now by Joshua Tree
National Park, in the name of public service,
and this is the Salt Song Singer, brushing sage
and remembering the old ones, the young lovers,
and how the impossible tried to live side by side
once upon a time, at the Oasis of Mara, 29 Palms
and the lizard had no legs, it had no black song.
c. Ruth Nolan 2008
where the Washingtonian Palm Trees
suckled on water from the spring,
where the continental and Pacific shelves
harmonized in one shallow push of things
Not many earthquakes in the stories
of Chemehuevi but when they came
with disharmony, it was the lizard with
a black tail, like the comet in night skies.
This was Carlota, whose father was Mike,
whose father was the tribal leader and
medicine man, who walked his family
to their summer work at Gillman Ranch,
a walk along the cridges of springs and
other related palm tree oases, nurturing
their young, providing shelter and shade,
a 45 mile stroll through desert and hills.
Carlota, who was mis-named later, who
was said to have scrawled childish signals
in the sand when she ran away from Mike,
ran somewhat towards the ancestral home
at 29 Palms but knew she was not going there.
And the waters at the Oasis of Mara quaked
a little, knowing a ripple had been frogged
into the pond, the late summer evening,
uneasy, with President Taft campaigning
in his fat chair at the Mission Inn, Riverside
and the Mission Indians weren't real at all.
And this was Mike Boniface, who was related
to everyone at the spring, and to many Cahuilla
throughout the southland, the Cahuilla who held
their tribelets at more than a dozen homes
throughout the valley and hills, culminating
at Morongo, where Mike and his family picked
fruit, where the parents and grandparents told
Carlota she could not marry Willie Boy because
they were too closely related, Willie Boy, who
the white newspaper reports, along for the
sensation of ride, would write was a drunk,
a crazy, and a wild Indian on a rampage of kill.
This was Willie Boy, who might be penciled in
for Romeo, and this was Carlota, who was Juliet
for all plot-structuring purposes, even Robert
Redford cast a real life killer in a movie for him.
Romeo and Juliet, we all feel sorry for them,
white and Shakespearean, safe in their 16th
century habitats, European-clean. They, too,
were teens, like Willie Boy recently was and
Carlota is, and couldn't be together. And this
was the Oasis of Mara, where Willie Boy's
grandmother buried his gun, although her
grandson hadn't yet come, after he killed Old
Mike, after Carlota was mis-named Lolita and
Isoleta - how convenient to minimize when
we have such ludicrous outtakes on names,
crazy Indian, wild Indian, girl who writes in
ancient symbolic scribbles although she was
educated and planning to attend college soon-
even Clara True, who is this, the Indian agent
who rescued the pinned-down-by-Willie-Boy
posse near Ruby Mountain, who scoffed at the
fact that Willie Boy was dead, killed by self-
inflicted gunshot wound, that he killed his
beloved because she was dragging him down.
This was the Oasis of Mara, where Willie Boy's
mourning songs, the songs for the dead of the
Chemeheuevi which he undoubtedly sang
after he ran north from Pipes Canyon, knowing
he could not follow the not so uncommon plot
structure of murder for love in the conventional
manner of rising action-climax-denoument,
that for him, the gun he'd never claim rusted
at the bottom of the Oasis of Mara, which the
people who pretended they had a picture of
Willie Boy dead after Willie Boy had run to the
north to another homeland, renamed 29 Palms,
and claimed as their own, much as Willie Boy
had claimed Carlota as his beloved, and had
killed and exiled for a much higher cause than
to blame the Indians, the firewater-drinking
savages from the 29 Palms Band of Chemehuevi
Indians, so-called, as if they all were responsible
for the love-sickness of one young man, as if they
made the earth move and upset the complicated
balance of lateral slip thrust faultline, the edgy
relationship between the Indians and the whites
and set the earth afire, made the ground shake
its furious fist and rattle its teeth and complicated
the faraway and simplistic plot structure of the
story of Romeo and Juliet, for whom we feel sorry
and for Willie Boy, the savage Indian, who brought
disaster and exile upon his own head, and that of
Mike's family, and all of their relations. This is the
Oasis of Mara, reclaimed now by Joshua Tree
National Park, in the name of public service,
and this is the Salt Song Singer, brushing sage
and remembering the old ones, the young lovers,
and how the impossible tried to live side by side
once upon a time, at the Oasis of Mara, 29 Palms
and the lizard had no legs, it had no black song.
c. Ruth Nolan 2008
Palms to Pines Birding & Nature Trail Map!
For her sabbatical project at College of the Desert (2006-07) Ruth Nolan has co-authored, with colleague and natural resource specialist Kurt Leuschner, also of College of the Desert, a birding and nature trail map for the Coachella Valley, Santa Rosa/San Jacinto Mountains, Joshua Tree, Salton Sea, and Anza Borrego Desert areas.
The map, completed and released in February 2008, designates 10 areas, and is available for viewing at the Friends of the Desert Mountains website:
http://www.desertmountains.org/news_birding_guide.html
Copies of the map are available by contacting the Friends at their website and at the Santa Rosa/San Jacinto Mountains National Park Visitor Center located in Palm Desert, CA.
The 10 birding/nature trail designations are as follows:
1. Santa Rosa/San Jacinto Monument National Monument
2. Living Desert Reserve - Palm Desert/Indian Wells
3. Indian Canyons - Tahquitz Canyon
4. Mt. San Jacinto State Park
5. Morongo Canyon (references to Whitewater & Pipes Canyon)
6. Joshua Tree National Park
7. Salton Sea
8. Anza Borrego State Park
9. Indio Wild Bird Center
10. Coachella Valley Preserve/Thousand Palms Oasis
For talks and lectures on the map, contact Ruth Nolan
runolan@aol.com or (760) 964-9767
The map, completed and released in February 2008, designates 10 areas, and is available for viewing at the Friends of the Desert Mountains website:
http://www.desertmountains.org/news_birding_guide.html
Copies of the map are available by contacting the Friends at their website and at the Santa Rosa/San Jacinto Mountains National Park Visitor Center located in Palm Desert, CA.
The 10 birding/nature trail designations are as follows:
1. Santa Rosa/San Jacinto Monument National Monument
2. Living Desert Reserve - Palm Desert/Indian Wells
3. Indian Canyons - Tahquitz Canyon
4. Mt. San Jacinto State Park
5. Morongo Canyon (references to Whitewater & Pipes Canyon)
6. Joshua Tree National Park
7. Salton Sea
8. Anza Borrego State Park
9. Indio Wild Bird Center
10. Coachella Valley Preserve/Thousand Palms Oasis
For talks and lectures on the map, contact Ruth Nolan
runolan@aol.com or (760) 964-9767
Summer -Fall 2008 Readings, Lectures, Workshops
Readings - Events - Workshops -
Raves - Summer & Fall, 2008
Ruth Nolan, M.A. is Associate Professor of English
at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, CA. There,
and elsewhere, she teaches and lectures in:
creative writing, poetry, desert literature and
Native American literature, all with a focus on
the California desert regions. She has recently
founded a new desert literary magazine,
Phantom Seed, and is also editing an anthology of
California desert literature to be published by
Heyday Books in 2009 (www.heydaybooks.com)
(in addition to the below listings, stay tuned for updates
and for "desert poetry writing workshops" to be led by
Ruth Nolan this fall, winter and spring at exotic and
unique locations throughout the California desert, including:
The Living Desert Preserve; Bubbling Wells Ranch;
Desert Studies Center at ZZYZX Springs; China Ranch;
Whitewater Preserve; Deep Canyon; and more!)
Saturday, August 23, 2008, 1:00 p.m.
Chaffey Art Museum - Poetry & the WWII Art of Milford Zornes
http://www.ccaamuseum.org/
Sunday, August 24, 2008, 2:00 p.m.
Performance Reading and Book Signing
Above the Tree Line:
The 2008 Anthology of Southern California Haiku Study Group,
featuring haiku and haibun from 30 southern California haiku poets.
Pacific Asia Museum, 46 N. Los Robles Ave, Pasadena, CA
2:00 p.m. - for more information:
http://www.naia01.com/abovethetreeline
Tuesday, August 26
Blankety Blank Poetry Workshop
Riverside Art Museum
6-8 pm, free and open to all poets
Workshop leader: Ruth Nolan
this month's focus: poetry cartooning - visual poetry
(we meet on the 4th Tuesday of each month)
http://www.riversideartmuseum.org/
Thursday August 28th
Riverside Library - Inlandia Writers Workshop!
6:30-8:30 p.m, free and open to all writers.
Workshops will culminate in regional writing project.
Come and join us! Only three weeks left!
Workshop leader: Ruth Nolan
September 2 - December 9, 2008
Creative Writing class - open to the public
Tuesday evenings, 6:50-9:55 p.m.
College of the Desert, Palm Desert, CA
writers from the community as well as traditional students
are welcome to take the class for credit (3.0 units) or audit.
Writers will be encouraged to develop original works in the
areas of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction with a focus
on the local desert region; class will culminate in a reading
at Barnes and Noble, Palm Desert, December 5th, 2008.
for more information contact Ruth Nolan, instructor,
at runolan@aol.com (760) 964-9767
visit College of the Desert/admissions at
www.collegeofthedesert.edu
September 10, 2008 7-9 p.m.
Reading and chapbook release of the collection
Slouching Towards Mt. Rubidoux Manor
featuring Inland Empire Writers' poetry, fiction, and essays
from the Summer, 2008 Inlandia Center-Riverside Library
Riverside Library, 6:30-8:30
free and open to the public
September 27-28, 2008
Sun Runner Magazine Desert Writers Weekend!
Reading and workshop -
For more information: see flyer posted at
http://www.thesunrunner.com/
Tuesday, August 26
Blankety Blank Poetry Workshop
Riverside Art Museum
6-8 pm, free and open to all poets
Workshop leader: Ruth Nolan
this month's focus: poetry cartooning - visual poetry
(we meet on the 4th Tuesday of each month)
http://www.riversideartmuseum.org/
September 28, 2008
Claremont Public Library, 2 pm
Featured Poets: Ruth Nolan + Lisa Ann LoBasso
http://www.colapublib.org/libs/claremont/
Trap Door Monthly
Poetry Reading Series: 2008-09 Season
Palm Springs Art and Wine
begins September 14, 2008,
6:00 pm open mike; featured reading 6:30 pm
your hosts - Ruth Nolan and Steve Petersen
www.trapdoorpoetry.com
see website for directions to Palm Springs Art & Wine
+ information on featured readers!
September 14
deli selection of readers from 2007-08 season!
Maureen Alsop, Lee Balan, Louisa Castrodale, Patricia D'Alessandro,
Jeff Green, Randolph Maxted, Ruth Nolan, Dessa Reed
October 12
Mary Sojourner
November 16
readers TBA
December 14
Joshua Tree Poets/Rangers: Caryn Davidson, Mike Cipra
October 2-4, 2008
California Indian Conference
UCR-Palm Desert Campus
Ruth Nolan, M.A., presents a talk/discussion on
Indian women's autobiographies -the works of
Katherine Siva Sauvel and Dorothy Ramon
for more information - directions - registration
http://ccnn.ucr.edu/cic2008/
October 4, 2008
"Desert Noir- An Inland Empire Literary Event"
release reading, panel discussion featuring local contributors
from Phantom Seed #2, "Slash X, a Novella," and more....
Riverside Public Library, downtown branch
times & directions: www.
October 27, 2008
Phantom Seed Release - Issue #2
Contributor Reading
Palm Springs Library 6:30 p.m.
http://www.palmspringslibrary.org/
November 1 & 2, 2008
California Desert Indian Literature:
Indigenous People of the Mojave Desert
Desert Institute at Joshua Tree National Park
lecture-workshop taught by Ruth Nolan
includes hike and lecture
more information coming soon!
http://www.joshuatree.org/
December 5, 2008
Barnes and Noble, Palm Desert
College of the Desert creative writers - reading
of original works, 6:00 p.m., free and open to public
December 13, 2008
Desert Literature - Lecture and Slide Show
The Living Desert University, Palm Desert, CA
Ruth Nolan, lecturer/photographer
http://www.livingdesert.org/education/ld_university.asp
January 6, 2009, 6:30 p.m.
Palms to Pines Birding & Nature Trail
lecture with Ruth Nolan & Kurt Leuschner
Palm Springs Library
http://www.palmspringslibrary.org
runolan@aol.com
February 16, 2009, 1-4 p.m.
Desert Poetry Writing Workshop
The Living Desert University, Palm Desert, CA
Ruth Nolan, workshop leader
http://www.livingdesert.org/education/ld_university.asp
Raves - Summer & Fall, 2008
Ruth Nolan, M.A. is Associate Professor of English
at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, CA. There,
and elsewhere, she teaches and lectures in:
creative writing, poetry, desert literature and
Native American literature, all with a focus on
the California desert regions. She has recently
founded a new desert literary magazine,
Phantom Seed, and is also editing an anthology of
California desert literature to be published by
Heyday Books in 2009 (www.heydaybooks.com)
(in addition to the below listings, stay tuned for updates
and for "desert poetry writing workshops" to be led by
Ruth Nolan this fall, winter and spring at exotic and
unique locations throughout the California desert, including:
The Living Desert Preserve; Bubbling Wells Ranch;
Desert Studies Center at ZZYZX Springs; China Ranch;
Whitewater Preserve; Deep Canyon; and more!)
Saturday, August 23, 2008, 1:00 p.m.
Chaffey Art Museum - Poetry & the WWII Art of Milford Zornes
http://www.ccaamuseum.org/
Sunday, August 24, 2008, 2:00 p.m.
Performance Reading and Book Signing
Above the Tree Line:
The 2008 Anthology of Southern California Haiku Study Group,
featuring haiku and haibun from 30 southern California haiku poets.
Pacific Asia Museum, 46 N. Los Robles Ave, Pasadena, CA
2:00 p.m. - for more information:
http://www.naia01.com/abovethetreeline
Tuesday, August 26
Blankety Blank Poetry Workshop
Riverside Art Museum
6-8 pm, free and open to all poets
Workshop leader: Ruth Nolan
this month's focus: poetry cartooning - visual poetry
(we meet on the 4th Tuesday of each month)
http://www.riversideartmuseum.org/
Thursday August 28th
Riverside Library - Inlandia Writers Workshop!
6:30-8:30 p.m, free and open to all writers.
Workshops will culminate in regional writing project.
Come and join us! Only three weeks left!
Workshop leader: Ruth Nolan
September 2 - December 9, 2008
Creative Writing class - open to the public
Tuesday evenings, 6:50-9:55 p.m.
College of the Desert, Palm Desert, CA
writers from the community as well as traditional students
are welcome to take the class for credit (3.0 units) or audit.
Writers will be encouraged to develop original works in the
areas of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction with a focus
on the local desert region; class will culminate in a reading
at Barnes and Noble, Palm Desert, December 5th, 2008.
for more information contact Ruth Nolan, instructor,
at runolan@aol.com (760) 964-9767
visit College of the Desert/admissions at
www.collegeofthedesert.edu
September 10, 2008 7-9 p.m.
Reading and chapbook release of the collection
Slouching Towards Mt. Rubidoux Manor
featuring Inland Empire Writers' poetry, fiction, and essays
from the Summer, 2008 Inlandia Center-Riverside Library
Riverside Library, 6:30-8:30
free and open to the public
September 27-28, 2008
Sun Runner Magazine Desert Writers Weekend!
Reading and workshop -
For more information: see flyer posted at
http://www.thesunrunner.com/
Tuesday, August 26
Blankety Blank Poetry Workshop
Riverside Art Museum
6-8 pm, free and open to all poets
Workshop leader: Ruth Nolan
this month's focus: poetry cartooning - visual poetry
(we meet on the 4th Tuesday of each month)
http://www.riversideartmuseum.org/
September 28, 2008
Claremont Public Library, 2 pm
Featured Poets: Ruth Nolan + Lisa Ann LoBasso
http://www.colapublib.org/libs/claremont/
Trap Door Monthly
Poetry Reading Series: 2008-09 Season
Palm Springs Art and Wine
begins September 14, 2008,
6:00 pm open mike; featured reading 6:30 pm
your hosts - Ruth Nolan and Steve Petersen
www.trapdoorpoetry.com
see website for directions to Palm Springs Art & Wine
+ information on featured readers!
September 14
deli selection of readers from 2007-08 season!
Maureen Alsop, Lee Balan, Louisa Castrodale, Patricia D'Alessandro,
Jeff Green, Randolph Maxted, Ruth Nolan, Dessa Reed
October 12
Mary Sojourner
November 16
readers TBA
December 14
Joshua Tree Poets/Rangers: Caryn Davidson, Mike Cipra
October 2-4, 2008
California Indian Conference
UCR-Palm Desert Campus
Ruth Nolan, M.A., presents a talk/discussion on
Indian women's autobiographies -the works of
Katherine Siva Sauvel and Dorothy Ramon
for more information - directions - registration
http://ccnn.ucr.edu/cic2008/
October 4, 2008
"Desert Noir- An Inland Empire Literary Event"
release reading, panel discussion featuring local contributors
from Phantom Seed #2, "Slash X, a Novella," and more....
Riverside Public Library, downtown branch
times & directions: www.
October 27, 2008
Phantom Seed Release - Issue #2
Contributor Reading
Palm Springs Library 6:30 p.m.
http://www.palmspringslibrary.org/
November 1 & 2, 2008
California Desert Indian Literature:
Indigenous People of the Mojave Desert
Desert Institute at Joshua Tree National Park
lecture-workshop taught by Ruth Nolan
includes hike and lecture
more information coming soon!
http://www.joshuatree.org/
December 5, 2008
Barnes and Noble, Palm Desert
College of the Desert creative writers - reading
of original works, 6:00 p.m., free and open to public
December 13, 2008
Desert Literature - Lecture and Slide Show
The Living Desert University, Palm Desert, CA
Ruth Nolan, lecturer/photographer
http://www.livingdesert.org/education/ld_university.asp
January 6, 2009, 6:30 p.m.
Palms to Pines Birding & Nature Trail
lecture with Ruth Nolan & Kurt Leuschner
Palm Springs Library
http://www.palmspringslibrary.org
runolan@aol.com
February 16, 2009, 1-4 p.m.
Desert Poetry Writing Workshop
The Living Desert University, Palm Desert, CA
Ruth Nolan, workshop leader
http://www.livingdesert.org/education/ld_university.asp
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