The Arizona-Sonora Desert

The Arizona-Sonora Desert is contrary to the typical media stereotype of a desert. The Sonoran Desert includes 60 mammal species, 350 bird species, 20 amphibian species, over 100 reptile species, 30 native fish species, over 1000 native bee species, and more than 2000 native plant species. The Sonoran Desert area southwest of Tucson and near the Mexican border is vital habitat for the only population of Jaguars living within the United States. Wikipedia.

If you can find time to leave the areas huge cities, you will find an area rich in diversity and full of surprises. When I walk in the desert, I am home. All of the plants and animals are familiar. I love the cactus and other desert plants. I don't usually move too fast because there is always something to examine closely, from a fantastic lichen to a Christmas Cactus hiding in a creosote bush.

In the picture above, you can see one reason I love the desert. You can see.

The Hummingbird

A Route of Evanescence
by Emily Dickinson

A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel --
A Resonance of Emerald --
A Rush of Cochineal --
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head --
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy Morning's Ride --

The Smith Homestead at Nauvoo

The Joseph Smith Homestead in Nauvoo, Illinois

This house on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River predates the arrival of the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Nauvoo, (formerly Commerce), Illinois. After his escape from imprisonment in Missouri in 1839, Joseph Smith, the prophet, moved into this house. The house also served as the headquarters of the Church for about two years. While the Prophet Joseph was living in this house he received two revelations, one about baptism for the dead and another revealing that the Saints should build a Temple. He wrote, ""I presume the doctrine of 'baptism for the dead' has ere this reached your ears. . . . It was certainly practiced by the ancient churches; and St. Paul endeavors to prove the doctrine of the resurrection from the same, and says, 'Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?'
" . . . The Saints have the privilege of being baptized for those of their relatives who are dead, whom they believe would have embraced the Gospel, if they had been privileged with hearing it, and who have received the Gospel in the spirit, through the instrumentality of those who have been commissioned to preach to them."

Miles to go before I sleep

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Adam-ondi-Ahman

This really is a photo of Adam-ondi-Ahman in Daviess County, Missouri.

"This earth was once a garden place,

With all her glories common;

And men did live a holy race,

And worship Jesus face to face,

In Adam-ondi-Ahman.

We read that Enoch walk[e]d with God,

Above the pow[e]r of Mammon:

While Zion spread herself abroad,

And saints and angels sung aloud

In Adam-ondi-Ahman.

Her land was good and greatly blest,

Beyond all Israel's Canaan:

Her fame was known from east to west;

Her peace was great, and pure the rest

Of Adam-ondi-Ahman.

Hosanna to such days to come—

The Savior's second comin[g]—

When all the earth in glorious bloom,

Affords the saints a holy home

Like Adam-ondi-Ahman."

by W. W. Phelps 1835

Heaven in a wild flower

"To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."

 

William Blake

Everyone needs beauty

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.”

John Muir