Sping in the Desert ~ An Oxymoron?

Join us again this (and each) Thursday morning at 8:30 at Stone Cup Cafe for coffee and conversation on Spirit & Sustainability. Last week, we had a lively discussion on the sustainability of North Korea (before getting back to Nabhan) with seven people attending.

Winner of the 1986 John Burroughs Medal for Outstanding Nature Writing, Gathering the Desert by Gary Paul Nabhan is in good company. A few others are the following: Song of the Sky by Guy Murchie won in 1956, On the Trail of Vanishing Birds by Robert Porter Allen won in 1958, and Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold won in 1977.

This week we take up Nabhan's section on spring in the Sonoran Desert, specifically looking at "mutualism" between the sandfood plant and Sand Papago, mesquite as a mirror of human failings, and the rain-festive quality of the organpipe catus.

Next week, it is onto summer in the desert--when temperatures rise to 140 degrees Fahrenheit and nomadic people people head to the coast. I recommend reading Nabhan's Cultures of Habitat (I can loan it out for a week), a book that asserts that environmental policy-makers must include the information and cultural patterns of the "native" before making policy decisions on conservation.