A Keener Eye
Life in the desert
Has trained my eye
To keenness for green.
Against the backdrop of jagged stones
And white-hot dryness
I find more shades
Than I had known even
In the tropics of my youth:
The whispered prayer of green
In the leaves of white sacred sage.
The pearled laurel of brittlebush.
The jade tiger of a striped aloe.
A miraculous frill of soft leaves appears,
Encapsulating thorns
In a single day
After the ocotillo drinks
Her rare shower.
Grasses grow like tiny reeds along the wash,
Their ripening green-gold grains
Become feathered caps
Softly waving in the breeze.
Then there are the tiny
Black-fringed olivine ferns
That unfurl into resurrection
At the first sign of water,
Dark and brittle in one moment,
Vibrant in the next.
Palo verde trees
With their sun-suckling skin
Make a green rhapsody
When they start to blossom,
Holding every verdant hue
In a single branch.
Saguaro.
Yucca.
Purslane.
Bursage.
Mesquite leaf.
Fig beetle.
Sonoran toad.
Collared lizard.
The lushly colored slime
Slithering in the current around a river rock
And the lime-toned lichen clinging to another.
Even the purple prickly pear
Is streaked with viridescence,
Each pad painted like a Monet
As obsidian ants draw toward citrine buds.
Everywhere
The desolation of the desert
Offers opportunities to fall in love with life,
In proofs of persistence
And rugged resilience
Even in the soft feathers
Of tiny velvet leaves.
So too have I learned
To look through the deserts of my life
For the many shades of delight
And kindness.
Surely,
The goddess Chance
Shows up in love
Just as much as she might bring
Disaster.
The gentle ramp,
The tactile pointillism alphabet
Spelling out directions,
And the handicap toilet stall,
Are, in their way,
All whispered welcomes
To those who rely on them.
Is such accommodation
Any less a thing than tenderness
Toward another?
The sunlight rippling
Above the baking rocks
Speaks of water
And reminds us to look beyond
What we think is true.
Is this not, too, a kindness?
Everywhere there is beauty,
Even in the sparks
That rise from the ovens
Of devastation
And the embers of our lives
After a conflagration of loss.
Water at the twist of a lever.
The tiny forest of spines
On the cactus column.
The way the sun shines
Through old glass.
Sparkling specks of mica
In this jagged little rock.
The cloven steps on the trail
Revealing the path of the deer,
Which I may never see,
But which I still know is beautiful
Because I can remember.
I can remember the doe’s grace
Just as I can recall the sound
Of my grandmother’s voice
As she told me she loved me
Before the tumors took her.
And so I can recall
Infinite smooth pebbles of joy
Along the shoreline of my memory,
Just as I can remind myself
To train my eye toward loveliness
Again
Many times a day.
The whole world
Dazzles
With messages of love and plenty.
Even the bottles on the pharmacy shelf
Lined up like a congregation
As I wait in line
Speak to order
And to the fact that I live
In a time of science
That has surely prolonged my life.
Everywhere I look
I see evidence
That even in a random world
And a universe of chaos
There are also unscripted lines
Of adoration
Being spoken over me
By a billion blessings:
For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
All whispering just enough
For us to notice
All the love
That over and around us lies.
Don’t you hear it too?
I grew up in a little town called Crystal River, once known as “the center of Florida’s Nature Coast.” Home to manatees, crystalline waters, Gulf Coast beaches, mangrove wetlands, and more types of wildlife than you could imagine. This was the kind of place people envision when they conjured images of old-fashioned Florida. Palm trees swayed, Spanish moss hung from giant oaks, and sparkling rainbows rippled across the sandy bottoms of our pristine rivers.
In many ways, Crystal River was a paradise, and I took great solace in her beauty, even in the toughest of times during a difficult childhood.
By the time I reached my late teens, however, my tiny town had grown, and in its growth it also grew polluted. My beloved Legion Spring Beach became unsafe to swim in due to toxic chemicals and bacteria in the water, and huge swaths of wetlands and forests were mowed down for strip malls, highways, condos, and lots for sale. The loss of this idyll inspired me to become a conservationist and taught me how quickly an entire ecosystem can change almost overnight.
When I went back in 2004 to swim with the manatees again, visibility in the once glass-clear river was only a foot, and the springs had been choked by invasive species. There were still places where signs warned people of contaminants in the water, and the freshwater fragrance of the river had stagnated into something unpleasant, briny, slightly bog-like, and dark. Where I had grown up swimming in brightly-lit crystal lagoons with hundreds of manatees — those gentle and playful giants I adored as a child — I now realized that I couldn’t even see my own feet.
Even though one of my friends in high school had been attacked by an alligator, I’d never been afraid of them before, because alligators were generally afraid of people and the water was so clear we could quickly see if any were nearby. This was no longer true. I had absolutely no way of knowing what else might be in the murky water with me. What used to be one of my favorite experiences had suddenly become terrifying. Swimming next to these massive manatees, some as long as fifteen feet and weighing almost four thousand pounds, was no longer magical like it used to be when I was a child hand-feeding them lettuce leaves. The manatees in this opaque and sunless water became giant shadowy figures moving around me like scary creatures from a horror movie, indiscernible from alligators until right in front of me.
All around me, though, tourism was bustling. Thousands of people still flocked to Crystal River for its beauty, and signs all up and down the highway welcomed visitors to “Florida’s Beautiful Nature Coast.” Customers waited for outdoor seating at waterfront restaurants, dive shops bustled with eager tourists renting equipment, and the river and its fingerling tributaries buzzed with every manner of watercraft, from canoes and kayaks to jet skis and speedboats. People from all over were still enthralled by the beauty, and more than I once I heard someone describe it as “unspoiled.”
Unspoiled? Ha! They had no idea!
And yet, to them, many of whom were from New York and New Jersey, this must have been a perfect picture of southern charm, of Floridian ideals — of nature. They were ignorant of how it used to be, and so they were able to enjoy it as it was in that moment rather than look mournfully to the way it would never be again.
That experience changed me. At first I was irritated by the fact that people were content with what I considered a ruined landscape and polluted environment, but as I thought about it, I realized that there was still a lot of beauty to appreciate there. And I would never be able to appreciate it if I just looked at it through my old experience.
Sure, the water might be murky now, but the way the sun sparkled across its surface and reflected on the palm fronds rustling gently in the breeze was still very pretty. Sure, my childhood oaks had been chopped down to make way for a road, and the pond near my house where I used to pretend my little canoe was a pirate ship had been filled in for a shopping mall, but there were still places where enormous oak trees on both sides of the street wore tangles of moss as they stretched to meet each other’s branches across the roadway.
Yes, it was still beautiful. And even more, I could focus on being grateful for the amazing privilege of having experienced such a rare piece of Florida’s history and environment while it was still pristine. Those are memories I will always cherish.
Back in 1996, however, I couldn’t see it. I fled a Florida I saw as destroyed by privatization and greed, overpopulated and polluted by the throngs of people seeking their own slice of the Sunshine State.
I moved to Tucson sight unseen, and I instantly fell in love with the desert. The mountains! Entire forests of giant cacti! Unspoiled miles of natural habitats in and around the city, nestled in the unparalleled beauty of the Sonoran Desert!
I was home. Again.
Even now, almost thirty years later, I still get overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. The mountains still amaze me, rising from the ground like islands that ring the city. Although Tucson has more than doubled in size, I still hold this city with a spirit of grateful adoration. And after that encounter with the rapt Floridian tourists in 2004, I learned to keep looking for the beauty.
As I’ve written a lot lately, many of the people in my life are suffering tremendously, plus I’ve been very busy, and so I found myself tumbling toward mental exhaustion and empathy fatigue. The cure, though, was the same as it was back when I healed the grief over the lost habitat of my childhood, the same as it was during Covid lockdown, the same as it was during my health crises last year:
Look for beauty. Make it a daily quest.
I was reminded to do this as the palo verde trees started to bloom. Every year they are a vivid reminder to notice that even the harsh desert is full of vibrancy and life. A few weeks ago, just before darting into a movie theater I saw a pair of blooming palo verde trees in the parking lot, and after taking a moment to look closely, I noticed that in those trees, with their green bark, green branches, green buds, and yellow flowers, all mottled with shadows in the afternoon light, just about every shade of green was present. Even in a parking lot. Even in the desert.
I then realized that the desert has taught me to notice the various shades of green and to appreciate them much more intentionally than I did when I lived in the unspoiled natural glory of Crystal River in the 80s. It’s harder to take it for granted here.
Suddenly, I recognized that living in the desert has made my senses keen. And I remembered that I could use that keenness to consciously train my mind again on discovering the beauty hiding all around me.
Every day, I set out to discover some evidence of beauty that I’d previously missed. I started a sensual journey, feeling, smelling, and even tasting the things around me to see if there were some lovely mysteries waiting to be unveiled.
The first of these was in the yerba mansa flowers growing in the dampness of my fountain’s splash zone. I’d planted this native medicinal herb several years ago from a cutting I got at one of our local farmers markets, and over time it took over our yard. Even though I’ve cut the flowers for untold numbers of arrangements over the years, I’d never once smelled them, so I leaned over and inhaled deeply.
They smelled like honey!
How had I missed this all these years? I have a habit of smelling the roses, lilac vines, citrus blossoms, honeysuckle, and other obviously fragrant flowers in my yard, but I’d never thought to get close enough to smell these healing blooms.
This was the beginning of a renewed dedication to reorienting myself toward delight. I’ve known to do this, and it often comes naturally to me, but with daily news of war, my friends navigating enormous loss and heartbreak, conflict between people I love, and numerous medical and insurance frustrations, I needed to be reminded to look for beauty again. In fact, some part of me felt guilty for looking for pleasure and beauty when so many people in the world are facing devastating loss. But I needed a reset, and an eye for goodness in the world was the ticket out of my fugue.
Besides, as Audre Lorde said, "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."
I set a reminder on my phone to “discover evidence of kindness, love, or beauty” multiple times a day. After just a couple of days of this, my dread of deadlines and looming travel began to shift to excited anticipation and curiosity about what I would find along the way.
Looking out my living room window one morning, I was enraptured by the different shades of green coming into the newly sprouting branches outside. As I packed my clothes for the upcoming trip I noticed details in the fabric patterns and the quality of buttons. I inhaled the seeming contradiction of olive leaves, which somehow smell both dusty and clean at the same time. I noticed groups of complimentary-colored wildflowers blooming together as if planted there on purpose. At the pharmacy, even waiting in a long line, I got a little surge of delight when I noticed that the Tums bottles had been redesigned with curving caps that looked like stylized ocean waves when lined up on the shelf.
I knew I was making serious headway when I got to the airport and almost got teary-eyed when I realized that the entire place had been set up to be accessible to the disabled, from gently sloping ramps to grab-bars in the toilet stalls. Was this not evidence of kindness, of love, of inclusion? And how many times had I walked by those examples of thoughtful care and never even noticed?
Even after a fairly awful flight, I looked up when we landed to see all the different lights and buttons lit, and I saw the little icon for the flight attendants’ call button. It was a tiny symbol of service, of care, gesturing in an act of kindness. I was so moved that I took a photo, smiling at everything that little line drawing represented, from the power of symbols to the type of patient and caring person that would be drawn to vocations of service like that.
I have to say that this intentional attention to beauty and the diligent pursuit of noticing (and being moved by) all the wonders I might have missed made my trip to New York a deeply spiritual and inspiring experience. While there, I had three of the most incredible art experiences of my life. I reveled in the intimacy and cared I have with my friends that I got to see again. Architectural and cultural elements grabbed my attention in a new way. I believe my practice of noticing and appreciating beauty opened my heart to enjoy these experiences even more. I was primed for gratitude, for being moved, for being present to wonder and joy.
Patterns in sidewalk cracks, fashions strangers wore, scattered blossoms swirling in the wind, the tessellation of open and closed windows on skyscrapers, and the textures of bricks and stone beneath the shadows of tree branches, graffiti patchworks on crumbling concrete, the hum of neon, the distant rustle of a subway snaking beneath my feet, the attention lavished on a clever logo design, the incredible synchrony of two hundred voices singing Handel at Carnegie Hall, an impossibly large tree somehow growing in a rooftop garden up in the sky, the realization that I was standing in the same place as Harriett Tubman as she led her people to freedom 170 years ago…it was all a wonder. All an opportunity to feel a myself in relationship to a majestic earth, both set apart from and part of the natural world and its history. All an invitation to gratitude, to love, to presence, to belonging.
Even the people picking up after their dogs became a touchstone of humanity, reminding me that the only reason cities can even exist is because humans work together to create a community. And what is that if not love for one’s neighbor and for oneself?
I could write an entire book about the last few weeks of doing this practice, but instead of listing all the wonder, all the beauty, all the opportunities for awe and gratitude — both grand and minuscule — hiding in plain sight all around us, I’ll just encourage you to do that same. Set a reminder if you need to, and go exploring with all your senses, looking for a reason to smile.
As I wrote about a few weeks ago, if we live in a random universe of chance and luck, why not focus on the loveliness inherent in such a life? Everywhere the world calls to us, as Mary Oliver said:
the world offers itself to your imagination calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
This, my friend, is a beautiful kindness — and it is everywhere. I promise you can find it if you only look with eyes keen toward the lovely.
A Keener Eye
Life in the desert
Has trained my eye
To keenness for green.
Against the backdrop of jagged stones
And white-hot dryness
I find more shades
Than I had known even
In the tropics of my youth:
The whispered prayer of green
In the leaves of white sacred sage.
The pearled laurel of brittlebush.
The jade tiger of a striped aloe.
A miraculous frill of soft leaves appears,
Encapsulating thorns
In a single day
After the ocotillo drinks
Her rare shower.
Grasses grow like tiny reeds along the wash,
Their ripening green-gold grains
Become feathered caps
Softly waving in the breeze.
Then there are the tiny
Black-fringed olivine ferns
That unfurl into resurrection
At the first sign of water,
Dark and brittle in one moment,
Vibrant in the next.
Palo verde trees
With their sun-suckling skin
Make a green rhapsody
When they start to blossom,
Holding every verdant hue
In a single branch.
Saguaro.
Yucca.
Purslane.
Bursage.
Mesquite leaf.
Fig beetle.
Sonoran toad.
Collared lizard.
The lushly colored slime
Slithering in the current around a river rock
And the lime-toned lichen clinging to another.
Even the purple prickly pear
Is streaked with viridescence,
Each pad painted like a Monet
As obsidian ants draw toward citrine buds.
Everywhere
The desolation of the desert
Offers opportunities to fall in love with life,
In proofs of persistence
And rugged resilience
Even in the soft feathers
Of tiny velvet leaves.
So too have I learned
To look through the deserts of my life
For the many shades of delight
And kindness.
Surely,
The goddess Chance
Shows up in love
Just as much as she might bring
Disaster.
The gentle ramp,
The tactile pointillism alphabet
Spelling out directions,
And the handicap toilet stall,
Are, in their way,
All whispered welcomes
To those who rely on them.
Is such accommodation
Any less a thing than tenderness
Toward another?
The sunlight rippling
Above the baking rocks
Speaks of water
And reminds us to look beyond
What we think is true.
Is this not, too, a kindness?
Everywhere there is beauty,
Even in the sparks
That rise from the ovens
Of devastation
And the embers of our lives
After a conflagration of loss.
Water at the twist of a lever.
The tiny forest of spines
On the cactus column.
The way the sun shines
Through old glass.
Sparkling specks of mica
In this jagged little rock.
The cloven steps on the trail
Revealing the path of the deer,
Which I may never see,
But which I still know is beautiful
Because I can remember.
I can remember the doe’s grace
Just as I can recall the sound
Of my grandmother’s voice
As she told me she loved me
Before the tumors took her.
And so I can recall
Infinite smooth pebbles of joy
Along the shoreline of my memory,
Just as I can remind myself
To train my eye toward loveliness
Again
Many times a day.
The whole world
Dazzles
With messages of love and plenty.
Even the bottles on the pharmacy shelf
Lined up like a congregation
As I wait in line
Speak to order
And to the fact that I live
In a time of science
That has surely prolonged my life.
Everywhere I look
I see evidence
That even in a random world
And a universe of chaos
There are also unscripted lines
Of adoration
Being spoken over me
By a billion blessings:
For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
All whispering just enough
For us to notice
All the love
That over and around us lies.
Don’t you hear it too?I love you,
Eric
PS — Save the date! My colleagues and I are organizing an online workshop based on the idea of Epiphany, and my Everyday Divinas process will be a major part of it. The workshop will be Sunday, June 9th, from 2:00-3:30 Arizona time (Arizona does not have Daylight Saving Time, so we are in MST year-round). I’ll be sending out more details soon. I hope to see you there!
Thank you, Eric. I'm very honoured that you should call me a 'sister in writing.' 💜✨🌞
Your words are a warm, nourishing meal for my soul. Every time. Thank you for bringing the beauty of the desert where I once lived and of a city I've never cared to visit, right to my doorstep.