TRAVEL: San Xavier del Bac Mission, Tucson

personal photo

Come upon St. Xavier del Bac, the "white dove of the desert", from south to north and the  steeples burn hard with unbelievable brightness and purity against the clean dry sky.  

45 years ago I studied this architectural gem in Intro to Art history 1A, and always wished that I would see it. As the years went by I deepened my interest in Baroque and Mannerist art, and puzzled over "churrigueresque", a Spanish counter-Reformation expression of artistic ecstasy.

 The surname of José Benito Churriguera, a Spanish designer, gave the name to the Spanish Rococo style, but other architects as well are famous for the use.

Exteriors were usually stucco with flat planes, towers, columns, and domes.  The façades and interiors are encrusted with with terra-cotta and stucco bas reliefs. Spaces are delineated with broken pediments, curved cornices, balustrades, volutes, shells, and garlands.  The spaces were filled with writhing, undulating, energetic and complex narrative symbols meant to overwhelm the spectator with announcements of spiritual power.

Mexican provincial architecture combined "churriguersco" with indigenous symbols, and the Spanish Colonial cathedrals of Mexico are wondered of expressive reverence. San Xavier del Bac is the best northernmost example of the style.

  

Catholicism's practice included deeply physical and grotesque images of bodily suffering.  Spiritual expression is fused with quite literal representations of pain, which were meant to read as symbolic sacrifice. 

Our Lady of Sorrows east chapel 

The church is used today as a parish for the Tohono O'Odham native American nation, as the descendants of the Papago and Pima Indian Tribes call themselves today.  The church is named for the founder of the order, St. Xavier.

detail of the high altar

Dome built with squinches first used in middle-eastern architecture

Remains of a parish priest whose body after death manifested unusual symptoms which were viewed as miraculous.  The remains serve an intercession function. Prayer requests are pinned to a blanket covering the remains, and offerings are made, in the hope that the saintly priest in heaven will intercede with God to grant the request. This process can be done online also on the church's website.

Spanish Baroque was the main inspiration for Mediterranean Revival architecture which I love to see so much.  Florida and California have the best examples.  Balboa Park in San Diego has fine ones, including the Theosophical Building.  In Tucson itself, the Veterans Hospital was designed in the style.

It's iconic to me: how I think of the land of brilliant skies, palm trees, beaches, and ocean horizons.

TRAVEL: The Titan Missile Museum: Duck and Cover

"Duck and cover!" Baby boomers share this common experience of the Cold War:  survival drills to protect us in case of nuclear disaster,civilian defense sirens being "tested", and that yellow and black sign glaring at me from the comfortable buildings of my little town world.

 

At 12, I read the apocalypse novel On the Beach, and walked around in a daze for a week as the reality of "mutual assured destruction" completed my removal from childhood.

I sadly packed my favorite doll away, and never played with her again.  Quizzically I gazed at everyone living their daily lives, seemingly unconcerned that the world could end. How could they go on like nothing was wrong? After a week, I couldn't stand all the adults bugging me about missing homework, and went back in life participation mode.

The price of denial was very high.  I became a "selective forgetter", expert at pushing away newspaper headlines, and other "inconvenient truths".

Oh, well. It's a sort of Fifty First Dates life strategy,the movie in which the young woman has amnesia and every date with her boyfriend is like the first. 

We took a child with us on our visit to the Titan Guided Missile Museum, and my heart wished to shelter him. I pondered whether this reality would enter his, or the veil of childhood would save him for a bit longer. 

 The 60's-styled guide (long ponytail, aging hippie) described the way it all would work. Once the launch code was entered, no action on earth could stop the detonation that would occur too soon in some enemy city far far away.  

underground view-Titan missile silo

 The desert surface lay flat and burning,and beneath, harnessed and chthonic, mad ruin beyond biblical was waiting, the darkest guardians ever created.    

top view-missile in silo

By 1962, the United States had 54 missiles with nuclear warheads that could be launched and detonated within 35 minutes, each destroying 900 square miles upon impact. This was the Cold War, unreal and real. No existentialist could have redefined absurdity so accurately.  

 "Mutual assured destruction" (MAD) was a paradox of standoff and truce. Perchance, a witch's potion that dissolved power, retaliation, and revenge in meaningless complementary destruction and leave the whole earth for poisoned corpse.  

Ploughshares data from website, 2014 approximate count

 The glass-half-empty report on The End of the World has several options to choose from: earthquakes, environmental collapse, mud n'flood, accidental nuclear detonation.

Today, I live so joyfully in dailyness. As I walked through the museum, I thought how successful my denial has become, and how much I need it, and how well I've built my shelter.  
  

  

TRAVEL: Madera Canyon: The Elegant Trogon Search Concludes

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Mt. Wrightson, over 9500 feet, is the tallest peak in the Santa Rita Mountains, 25 miles south of Tucson. The Santa Ritas are a must-visit for any naturalist, because so many unusual species are found here.

At the end of the road are 3 attractive lodgings, all with extensive feeders in their yards, making for lazy and exciting bird watching.

Magnificent Hummingbird (web photo)

We sighted many wonderful species here, some with our guide, Matt Brown, and others with aid from helpful birders.  This area has many different hummingbirds, always an amazing creature to me. So small, such elegance, speed and power, its tiny heart and wings marvels of possibility.

But the bird we sought is the Elegant Trogon.  Only a few nesting pair are found each year, and only in this part of the U.S. Its northernmost range extends to Costa Rica. It's large, noisy and colorful, 12" with a perching habit, red breast, and long extended tail. The call sounds like a small dog barking, and announces its presence far in advance.

We hiked uphill on the Carrie Nation Trail, the most likely area, according to Matt. He'd been hearing them all morning. Other birders had been sighting trogons every day, and today our luck held.

A man clad in the brightest yellow T-shirt, speaking Texan, called us to a spot of few yards away and flying towards us came our trogon.

distant trogon view - my brother Lanny's photo

(Lanny's photo)

(Lanny's photo)

web photo

Our species list is long. I have at least 25 new birds to add to my life list.  My favorite sightings were the Blue Grosbeak, Hooded Oriole, Hepatic Tanager, Painted Redstart, Northern Cardinal and Bridled Titmouse. 

We were able to return the sighting favor by sharing an unusual sighting of a Mexican whip-poor-will nest setting right next to the trail.

LS brother photo

The camouflage was so impressive I would never have seen it.  The face is somewhat owl-like.

Madera Canyon is a great location because one can drive up and down the road and find varying elevations with their distinctive ecology and wildlife within a few miles.

San Pedro River BLM Riparian Area

We visited this lovely spot at the San Pedro House area near Sierra Vista 3 times. I was so enchanted by the spectacle of 30 miles of cottonwoods beside the river, recovered from ranching years when cattle muddled and soiled its banks.

Lanny and I had a picnic here, watching the blue grosbeaks.  

Feeders abound here, too, as in lost of the birding venues in Sky Islands, and we found several new birds to enjoy.

Barn Swallows nested in the sides of charming old San Pedro House

Arizona Woodpecker

Lesser Goldfinch

Purple Finch - we were to see many of these - they are not purple, but are quite bright compared to house finches which we enjoy in our Valley Village neighborhood.

One of my favorites, the Western Tanager - unmistakable when flying between shrubs.  We saw several before we finished our trip.

Beside the old farmhouse with a lovely screened porch for leisurely "set-a-spell" time, is a huge old cottonwood that makes we want to shelter.

TRAVEL: Chiricuahua National Monument

"The Land of Standing Up Rocks",
as the Apaches called it, is a sky island with peaks over 9000 feet.  The treasure is its unique geology and wry, carved, upright revelation of volcano activity and erosion.  As I looked at the rock formations astonished by their patterns of lines and curves; they are chthonic and yet so ordered in their forms.

I wish to know who they were
But they will never tell.
Surely they are soul remnants
of the brave and strong ones
who lived their years in earthly harmony
This was their reward
to give reason to circular existence.

27 million years ago volcanic eruption created Turkey Creek caldera and spread ash 2000 feet deep.  It fused into rhyolite tuff and later eruptions created the mountains and valleys, while erosion removed the tuff and created the hoodoos and webbed formations.

Ramsey Canyon: Hummingbird Central Right Here!

My camera isn't working - these photos are all "appropriated" from the web for educational purposes only.
ROAD TO RAMSEY - leave the desert behind and drive into the Huachucas

Ramsey Canyon has an unusual northeast orientation in the Huachuca Mountains within the Upper San Pedro River Basin, and this keeps it shadier.  15 species of hummingbirds are found here, an astonishing number. I wish I could tell  you we saw them all, but we did see several. 
Feeders make the viewing easy - pull up a chair and the show will fly to you.

I shall leave them till another report, because this was our first day and other sightings were more easily done.

Coue's Deer - a smaller deer that wandered comfortably about the preserve

Gould's Turkey, also sighted wandering easily about - we would see many more later on

Townsend's Warble was a fun sighting, though I'd seen it before.  Tom, our guide was very helpful.

The Preserve was very worthwhile and beautiful and I will see it again on my next trip.

TRAVEL: SouthEastern Arizona

NATURAL HISTORY 

    

But mostly people are here for the distinctive natural beauty. Southeast Arizona is a nexus for five eco-systems (Sonoran, Chicuahuha, Great Plains, Rocky Mountain, and the Sierra Madre) which create an extensive and notably bio-diverse location in the United States.  In Ramsey Canyon a Sonoran Pine grows near a prickly yucca, revealing the complex nature of the isolated ranges which  shelter species from hybridization and extinction.

The ranges are not connected, as most montane systems are, and so create "sky islands" (an imaginative description of the discrete ranges viewed from above). 

I'm here because it's a prime United State birding location, and an unusual rare species, the Elegant Trogon, is found here by the diligent and the fortunate. 

We plan to bird Ramsey Canyon, Fort Huachuca's Garden Canyon area, the San Pedro Cottonwoods Riparian Area, the Chiricuaha Mountains, and Madera Canyon.  Each is located in one of the sky islands. 

One of the pleasures of birding in remote places is bonding with others who love birds.  The birdwatching jokes and ridicule we birders endure at the hands of insensitive relatives and friends aren't heard.  We're too busy wondering if that last call was a bridled titmouse or a sulpher-bellied flycatcher. 

There's such a delight when I see a lovely bird flare up from a thicket, whip across the road, or perch on a high branch, and I'm the lucky one who's seen that two seconds of exquisite color and movement.  

The Elegant Trogon is a must on avid birder's lists, and have a guide coming to help with this.  My intrepid brother, a biologist from Iowa, will join me in the quest. The rest of the family will hike and enjoy the scenery. Wish us luck!

TRAVEL: Bisbee, Arizona

Bisbee is tucked and folded  between mountains that once held much of the world's copper deposits. The mines'  pits are deep, steep, and astonishingly close to the town which was built on the mountains' flanks.

Bisbee, 1904

A overdue visit with my Midwestern brother and his family brought me here.  My sister-in-law's daughter and grandchild live in Bisbee, and I'm not done exploring Arizona.  Perfect! And, my brother is a biologist specializing in the environment, a patient, engaged hiking and birding companion. 

HISTORY: THE BISBEE DEPORTATION

Bisbee's pits, now emptied of copper by the demands of war, plumbing, expensive cooking utensils, and cell phones, were once the scene of a dehumanizing and brutal anti-labor action, the Bisbee Deportation.   

In July, 1917 1300 mine workers,suspected labor sympathizers, and assorted townsmen were kidnapped by a deputized posse of over 2000 men led by the local sheriff.  Machine guns guarded the baseball diamond while these inhabitants of Bisbee were loaded into cattle cars and transported to Hermanos, New Mexico, over 200 miles away.    

Phelps Dodge, the major mine operator, was instrumental in seizing the telegraph so no news of the action was broadcast until after the arrival in New Mexico, some 16 hours later. 

In Bisbee, martial law existed for over 5 months.  The Citizens Protective League's court conducted trials which determined if the defendant was a "loyal American". If he held worker/union values, or evidence of connection to union organizers was presented, he was determined to be a traitor, and deported.   

Today, Bisbee's narrow steep streets echo the sixties.  Though Bisbee is designated on the National Register of Historic Places, the only monument to those maltreated workers is a very badly sculpted copper miner statue, looking rather aggressively defiant; one comment suggested it looks like a work by Ayn Rand. 

Bisbee's got funky galleries, coffee shops, and antique shops. The brick walls are pinky dusk, and creamy Victorian architectural details add deep charm. An old car driven by a hippie in tie-dye passes a slim white Porsche Carrera on the street. Gentrification and gritty deterioration conflict and seem edgy- attractive, and comfortable, an ambiguous brew. 

 (copper smelter,
early 1900's)
   
On Sunday morning there was downtime; so  I went to church.  St. John's Episcopal Church was right across the parking lot, established in 1896. 

     Seemed it was Social Justice Sunday; the mass and special intention for the day was to support South Sudan in its civil war.  During the service, some visiting choir members sang a song haunting in its rightness for Bisbee:  Woody Guthrie's Deportees.  It commemorates braceros returning to Mexico who died in a plane crash. Their names were never given in the reports; only the white American crew who lost their lives were named.

"…Some have no papers
some are not wanted,
our work contract's out
and we have to move on 
…we died 'neath your trees 
and we died in your bushes
Both sides of the river, 
We died just the same."

…the nightmare of the unwanted
transported in boxcars
so it began a long time ago.

Life in southeastern Arizona is lived with the constant presence of the Border Patrol. White car hoods peek out from chaparral on quiet roads into the canyons.  An drone blimp surveils the skies, its lumpy white shape an badly disguised cloud in the blue blue sky.

Truly, for the issue of returning undocumented workers to Mexico, that ship as sailed; into our daily lives and economic reality.  I'm darkly amused as the operations of advanced industrial capitalism inexorably document its economic mechanics: physical labor done cheaply by poverty-line human beings.