ABOUT THIS BOOK

In this refreshing collection, one of our best writers on desert places, Gary Paul Nabhan, challenges traditional notions of the desert. Beautiful, reflective, and at times humorous, Nabhan’s extended essay also called “The Nature of Desert Nature” reveals the complexity of what a desert is and can be. He passionately writes about what it is like to visit a desert and what living in a desert looks like when viewed through a new frame, turning age-old notions of the desert on their heads.

Nabhan invites a prism of voices—friends, colleagues, and advisors from his more than four decades of study of deserts—to bring their own perspectives. Scientists, artists, desert contemplatives, poets, and writers bring the desert into view and investigate why these places compel us to walk through their sands and beneath their cacti and acacia. We observe the spines and spears, stings and songs of the desert anew. Unexpected. Surprising. Enchanting. Like the desert itself, each essay offers renewed vocabulary and thoughtful perceptions.

The desert inspires wonder. Attending to history, culture, science, and spirit, The Nature of Desert Nature celebrates the bounty and the significance of desert places.

Contributors
Thomas M. Antonio
Homero Aridjis
James Aronson
Tessa Bielecki
Alberto Búrquez Montijo
Francisco Cantú
Douglas Christie
Paul Dayton
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Father David Denny
Exequiel Ezcurra
Thomas Lowe Fleischner
Jack Loeffler
Ellen McMahon
Rubén Martínez
Curt Meine
Alberto Mellado Moreno
Paul Mirocha
Gary Paul Nabhan
Ray Perotti
Larry Stevens
Stephen Trimble
Octaviana V. Trujillo
Benjamin T. Wilder
Andy Wilkinson
Ofelia Zepeda

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Gary Paul Nabhan is the Kellogg Endowed Chair at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Center. He is author or editor of more than thirty books, including Enduring Seeds, Gathering in the Desert, and Food from the Radical Center. Honored with a MacArthur “Genius” Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, and other awards, Nabhan has lived in the desert for more than forty years.

REVIEWS

"The writings in this collection echo, each in their own ways, the surprising declaration made by contributor Paul Mirocha in 'Staring at the Walls,' an essay on Southern Arizona public art: “The desert is succulent—it’s downright juicy out there.”—Kristine Morris, Foreward Reviews

“This book is a celebration, an exploration, an accumulation of voices swept up together in a circle of wind, a deployment of all the senses, including the ones you might have forgotten you had. It is magic, science, memory, miracle. If the desert had a seed, a genetic capsule of itself, it would be this book. And you, reader, are the rain that falls, bringing it to life.”—Craig Childs, author of Virga Bone: Essays from Dry Places

“It’s about time. Who better to tackle the nature of desert, in its fullness, than Gary Nabhan and these contributors. As a desert musician who loves music that credits landscape and place, this book is my textbook for understanding the nature of what moves me to music.”—Hal Cannon, author of Cowboy Poetry: A Gathering

“Mary Austin, Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, Gary Nabhan—the sonorous voices of Arid America. None more knowledgeable than Nabhan, who here leads a choir of voices in a desert chorale.”—J. Baird Callicott, author of Greek Natural Philosophy: The Presocratics and Their Importance for Environmental Philosophy

“We’ve been slow to warm to deserts as places worth learning and caring about. This original and probing little book, led by one of the pioneers in our understanding of desert ecology and culture, should lay to rest the notion that there isn’t much to see (or feel) in these lands of little rain. A bracing and deeply thoughtful collection that should appeal to desert rationalists and romantics everywhere.”—Ben A. Minteer, author of The Fall of the Wild: Extinction, De-Extinction, and the Ethics of Conservation
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
The Nature of Desert Nature: A Deep History of Everything that Sticks, Stinks, Stings, Sings, Swings, Springs, or Clings in Arid Landscapes
GARY PAUL NABHAN

NATIVE WAYS OF ENVISIONING DESERTS
Where Wilderness Begins
OFELIA ZEPEDA
Heeno
ALBERTO MELLADO MORENO
I Commit to Memory the Desert Village, My Family, and My Home
OCTAVIANA V. TRUJILLO

GROWING UP DESERTED
A Sense of Place and a Sense of Self: The Acquisition of Compassion from the Desert
PAUL DAYTON
My Childhood Desert
ALBERTO BÚRQUEZ
Reconciling Cooperation vs. Competition Among Desert Creatures
RAY PIEROTTI
At the Desert’s Edge
BENJAMIN T. WILDER

DESERT CONTEMPLATIVES
The Insurmountable Darkness of Love
DOUGLAS CHRISTIE
Falling in Love
TESSA BIELECKI
Encountering Openness
THOMAS LOWE FLEISCHNER
A Hoosier’s Desert
FATHER DAVID DENNY
Listening to Our Sibling Deserts: Restoring
Indigenous Mindfulness
JACK LOEFFLER

DESERT AS ATZLAN AND DIVIDED TURF
Clearly Marked Ghosts
FRANCISCO CANTÚ
A White Body Out in the Desert
HOMERO ARIDJIS
The Desert Dark
RUBÉN MARTÍNEZ

DESERTS SEEN FROM OTHER PLACES
Desert Epiphany
LARRY STEVENS
Longing for el Monte
EXEQUIEL EZCURRA
Oriented Southwest
CURT MEINE
A Thousand Miles from Inhabited Land
JAMES ARONSON
Desert City / Ocean Home: Five Offerings of Gratitude
ALISON HAWTHORNE DEMING

DESERT AS ART / ECOLOGY NEXUS
On the Edge: Listen to Your Plants
THOMAS M. ANTONIO
Empty and Full | Far and Near | Alone and Together
ELLEN MACMAHON
A Bright and Shining Place
STEPHEN TRIMBLE
Desert Sonnet
ANDY WILKINSON
Postscript. Staring at the Walls: Views of the Desert in Southern Arizona Public Art
PAUL MIROCHA
Contributors