In Which I Become the Tender of the Ironwood's Secret

 I spent last Sunday fearing that the contractor would arrive the next morning and tearing up the desert near to my favorite spot. Sure enough they arrived the next morning, parking in the little stub of road across from the back entrance to the shopping center. They spent the day using the Cat earth mover to big a hole. They were extending the water main from the street into the undeveloped property.

They spent the day installing this small extension, then at the end of the day, they covered up the hole and left. The next day they retrieved the earth movers and left a pipe sticking up out of the ground. They had tested the water flow, as evidenced by a big muddy puddle they left behind. They also left behind.about a dozen large PVC pipes on the ground nearby.

And that was it. That is all they did all week. So far my favorite spots are left undisturbed. Of course that could all change tomorrow. But for now all is peaceful again. They did not use the Cat to smash through the dry wash again.

Yet it was a strange week. Weird things happened almost every day. 

On Tuesday, I went out to inspect the remnants of their work and found that they have furthered desecrated the secret of the Ironwood, flinging part of it onto the muddy ground by the road. I took it and placed it under a bush. I did not take it back to the Ironwood, because I figured it was not my place to do that. Someone else had placed it there, and tended it, even replacing it and restoring it in the past when teenagers had desecrated it.

I waited for that unknown person, to whom I feel connected, to come back and restore it perhaps, but I don't think they will do so, because it is evident that the City does not want it there for now, because of this project they are undertaking of developing the parcel.

So in placing the remnants of the Secret below the bush, so it would not be noticed by passers-by, I had become the tender of the Secret, I suppose.

The nature of the Secret is one that brings people from all over the world, as I have learned, to seek out the Ironwood. That probably tells you a lot about it. There was even a visitor log. After I had placed the remnant under a bush by the road, and become the tender of the Secret, I noticed that part of the visitory log had fallen into the mud. I picked it up and examined it. The last visitor's entry was visible in the little plastic over. The date was the date of my last birthday, and the signature was "LuckyOne80".

Later, it walking back past the spot, I was startled to see the road runner hopping over the spot where the workers had buried the water main. It is rare to see the road runner there. I paused in the bushes, barely noticed by the bird, and watched it in silence until it forgot about me, and scampered away, running with the swift motion of the legs that gives the bird its distinct nature, and is almost comical to watch.

Perhaps the crew will come back tomorrow in the new week, but for now, all has been peaceful. When they go back, I am hoping they will install those PVC pipes along the road, and down around the corner to the place where they will build the lake, as they call it. If so, they will stay quite a ways away from the Ironwood and the Sandy Bottom, and the Animal Crossing and the Rocky Ford, and all the other secret places I have given my own names to, that are a treasure to have access to. 

But for now, all is good. Maybe eventually I will replace the Secret back at the Ironwood, and even restore the visitor log. I'll give a chance to the unknown person to restore it themselves. But it seems a theme lately in my life, of stepping into a role, when no one else will do someone.

Cat Tracks

 This morning was quiet on the last bit of the ranch. The Cat excavator left in place by the contractors, in preparation for the Monday assault, is the only piece of equipment visible. But it is parked in such a way as to be prominently in view while standing in the Sandy Bottom and looking towards the McDowell Mountains. 

It is a hundred yards away at least, but it is parked facing directly towards my position, and the Saguaro, and the Ironwood, as if it tasted victory and wants more. I wonder if the tire tracks that slash across both channels of the dry wash upstream from the Palo Verde were the result of any need, or perhaps Friday afternoon joyriding. 

At least it is the best place they could have chosen to slash through the brush. The important crossing is slightly downstream, not at the Sandy Bottom---which is sheltered by the brush---but downstream from the Ironwood about twenty feet. 

One finds a natural path made by the animals as they cut diagonally across the property. I have seen a coyote there, as well as a pod of deer scampering on the same route. The roadrunner is never far off its track. 

From there the animals come and go through an opening in what remains of the barbed wire fence at the property line, going into to State Land Trust property on the other side, where one finds the power lines. It is to there I may have to retreat soon as well. Every day is a treasure now, that I can linger in my favorite spots.

Desecration

 Sunday was Peak Scottsdale. It was the last day of the golf tournament, which usually falls on the day of the Super Bowl as well.  Neither J or I are golf fans, and the players meant nothing to us per se. but we turned on the television during the day to watch coverage, if nothing else to experience surreality of having something on television which is also happening in real life around you. 

During various shots we got catch glimpses on television of the background of the mountains which are so familiar to us nearby. From our kitchen window we could see plane circling over the golf course on the other side of 101 with its advertising banner. 

Two men named Xander and Justin were competing for the lead. In a normal year, up until a year ago, the sides of the fairways would be crammed with people watching, and sometimes scurrying to get from one hole to another to follow a player, or staying put to watch the flow of players come through part of the course, all climaxing in the hole that is surrounded by the outdoor stadium where the crowd cheers on the players as they put, looking down from the stands as in a theater. This year the fairways were empty. The crowds in the stands, unseen, were enough to produce cheers. But the atmosphere felt drained of its hype.

I went out walking in the late afternoon before the football game. I noticed a city worker's truck parked in the small stub of blocked-off road by the undeveloped desert. The next morning I discovered what they had been up to. All of the trees and large shrubs in my familiar patch, including the Ironwood and the Palo Verde, bore plastic tags, either red or blue, with a number written on them with a black sharpie. The Saguaro was tagged by having a red cord wrapped around its base. I had seen such tagging before on plants in the property, seemingly randomly assigned, but now there were many more. I shuddered to think what they could mean, and what was about to happen.

Worst yet, the secret of the Ironwood was desecrated. It was ejected, presumably by a city inspector, who removed it and took it to the edge of the property line by the road, leaving it in the bushes there. It was not the first time the secret had been desecrated. Teenagers had destroyed it in the past, and whoever was curating it had replaced it dutifully. But no more, I think. The city was telling us that such frivolities would no longer be welcome. 

All during this week---perhaps the last quiet week this bit of the desert will experience---I walked over to continue my normal paths and passed by the ejected secret. It saddened to me to think that the secret community I had formed with the person who also cherished the Ironwood was now broken. We were all of us exiles now. I would continue to sneak into the property for my walks, but with the trucks now parked in the stub of the road where I cross, I now feel not only like an interloper but a trespasser. I have already begun altering my route when there are workers visible. 

Yesterday I watched as contractors arrived to deliver the equipment to begin excavating the lake. From the shelter of the Ironwood, I  spied on one of the crew members as they drove a truck across the dirt road that they have created to access the part of the property where the lake will be excavated. I watched as he stopped his truck, got out, and removed the makeshift ramp of plywood that the teenagers had erected, and which had stood there since I arrived a couple years ago. The era of their usage of the land was now over as well.

Still I thought that the wash would be untouched. I was wrong. Later in the afternoon I went out again, after the crews had left. To my horror I found deep rutted tracks from a truck or other equipment that had rammed its wash across the wash, just next to the Palo Verde, slashing across the Natural Causeway where the roadrunner would run, and crushing the main wash in the part that I call the Rocky Ford, since it is natural place to cross. I could not imagine what business they would have, driving some piece of power equipment through the bushes there, flattening them and leaving a destructive trail there. It was a brutal reminder that the city crew will do whatever it wants to with the land, and there is nothing I can do about it. 

Last Bit of the Ranch

 My undeveloped desert in the last bit of the old ranch. The property boundary is marked by a barbed wire fence that is at least fifty years old, predating the subdivision. The paths where I walk are remnants of the cattle paths. It is the last, lowest corner as the old property, which once stretched north and east into the McDowell Mountains. It is the least desirable for development, and it hits the part that was ceded to create the giant power lines that cross the valley here. 

The wash is the lowest bit of drainage. Looking out to the south I see a flat scablands that has been scoured by many rains and floods. The desert blooms with vegetation and birds here. It is boom or bust. One day a flood will come down off the McDowells and overwhelm the creeks, coming off the parking lots of the shopping center upstream. One day the Ironwood and and the Saguaro will be swept away. It is the cycle of the decades and the centuries.

Tomorrow I think they begin reclaiming some of it for the park, which has a lake of more than acre, as I learned from a friendly neighbor a few days ago, which flagged me down because she thought I was the project architect. It was the clipboard I was carrying.

The Tournament Begins

 At mid day the red balloon was back, again behind the power lines, but not to the south by Bell Road, but to the southwest. It was past the 101, in the part of Scottsdale within the loop. From its position it was obvious that it was over the golf course where the tournament is taking place. It has been a big spectacor event here locally for years.

I walked along the Natural Causeway until I saw the balloon positioned behind the four lined-up. metal towers, with the balloon in the central diamond between the mid sections of the two inner towers, like a beating heart in the symmetric center of the towers and the lines. 

Nearby to it, and also behind the power lines a light plane circled with a large advertising banner promoting a brand of beer.

The big planes are still coming in, swooping low and heavy over the undeveloped desert and they clear the power lines in their approach to the old Thunderbird runway, which is over eight thousand feet long, and capable of accommodating large aircraft.. 

The Gift of Sound

Often I walk in the undeveloped desert to exercise my eyesight. This morning the Ironwood brought me gift of sound. I had lingered under the tree, standing in the wash. I was thinking of how the day before I had learned that the city crews are to arrive in about two weeks time, to begin the clearing of the nearby land to turn it into a park. I was thinking how I hoped that the arrival of the equipment would not be too disruptive while I am still here. Perhaps the noise of the equipment will be rather noxious for awhile. I could already imagine the beeping in my head, that would probably happen all day long.

Then my thoughts turned from fretting towards the days tasks. I outlined some notes on my clipboard with my pencil. Minutes went by. Then I was brought out of my thoughts by a sharp rattling noise from above me. It was a woodpecker banging its beak into one of the high branches of the ironwood. 

I slowly craned my head until I saw the bird. It was absorbed with its own activity. Were I to move quickly, I might startle it away, so I moved slowly and kept writing notes on my clipboard. 

Usually when I notice woodpeckers, it is when I see on the saguaros. The tall saguaros develop holes and cavities through bird activity, and the woodpeckers like to scour them for insects. On the saguaro, their pecking barely makes any noise. But on the ironwood it is like a hard rattle. It rose above the noise of the nearby traffic on Pima Road as if an engine of one of the cars was sputtering at ten times the volume.

My patience in standing below the tree and keeping my movements slow was eventually rewarded by the arrival of a second woodpecker, which rattled as if response to the other one, in a softer sound. The wood was not as old there perhaps. 

Scarlet Night and Day

Last night in the minutes just after sunset, when the light was intense from the unseen sun, the rim of the horizon below the clouds was a rich scarlet, as red as any sunset I have seen. The form of Shadow Mountain in the preserve to the west, that we can see in the daytime, was outlined in perfect black against the red. We stood at the windows and marveled at the spectacle.

This morning the red had returned, in different form. I went out walking after sunrise, and coming back in the still fresh morning, I decided to detour into the part of the undeveloped desert that is about to become developed. The trucks might arrive any day and the place will change.

The sky was perfect crisp blue. My detour rewarded by a rare sight, a hot air balloon, brilliant red, floating in the south, past the storage unit facility. It looked to be over the undeveloped land around Bell Road. From where I could it it,  it was in the air behind the power lines at a point where the towers made the sagging cables cross in multiple cross hatches. The balloon looked to be in the web of the lines. I watched while it made its wade through the lines horizontally, with some upward momentum. By the time I turned and looked again, it had lifted itself out from them into the blue sky.

Thunderbird Field #2

(source)

Last night was warm, almost like summer. We left the patio door open, only the screen door, and in the morning before sunrise a smell of light came inside.

I went out walking earlier than usual this morning, even putting on a rain coat to protect against the few large drops that had started up again. It was just a dusting of water, but it felt healthy in ones nostrils and healthy to see around at the mountains.

Many planes came in while I walked, mostly small ones. The biggest ones, that come in this time of year, come in during the very early morning and evening. A large craft startled me a couple nights ago, right after sundown. I saw its trail swooping in towards the power lines, already on a low approach as it came over us. 

Meditating by the Ironwood, I thought of how Wictor could possibly be right, and that Trump is still legally president. It sounds absurd on the surface, but it would explain a lot things going on.

I am glad I am not in Washington, D.C., but far outside and away from it. We are all in the middle of it, smack in the middle of it, to be sure, but I prefer the dry wash of the desert for the moment.

SDL. During World War II the airfield was used by the United States Army Air Forces Army Air Forces Training Command as "Thunderbird Field #2" on June 22, 1942, as a primary flight training school for aviation cadets. Since its inception, Thunderbird #2 graduated more than 5,500 students, a total three times greater than the entire total contemplated by the AAF's original expansion program. In addition, Thunderbird #2 pilots flew nearly 26,500,000 miles, more than 3,000 times around the world at the equator. The school was deactivated on October 16, 1944.

The Approach into Scottsdale

My daily walks in my undeveloped patch of desert take me under the approach path for the small  small airport the south, in the now-developed part of Scottsdale within the 101 Loop freeway. It has one runway, but it is long.

On most days out walking I see plenty of small craft coming and going from the airport, The private jets often come in from the northeast over the McDowell Mountains, which form the backdrop of my vista the east.

Sometimes I can tell that someone is taking flying lessons. They come out over the freeway and clear the power lines in one engine small crafts and then circle above the power lines to descend again to the airport, under the guidance of instructor perhaps.

Some of the pilots---the more experienced ones---use the dry wash as a guide as they approach the power lines, before descending towards the airport on the other side of the freeway. They fly almost directly over me. Perhaps some of them recognize me.

This time of year, however, the traffic coming into the airport is heavy, and the planes are large. They are bigger private jets---Embraers and Bombardier aircraft bringing in people solo and in groups. The golf tournament, which begins on Thursday, and other events---the horse show, the auto show---are the big draws.  Golf is huge here, a spectator sport.

The Modern Burgundian Superstate

 "The blind passion with which a man supported his party and his lord and, at the same time, pursued his own interests was, in part, an expression of an unmistakable, stone-hard sense of right that medieval man thought proper. It demonstrated an unshakable certainty that every deed justified ultimate retribution. The sense of justice was still three quarters heathen and dominated by a need for vengeance." The Autumn of the Middle Ages, p. 20

For his classic work on the 15th century, Huizinga chose as his starting point a date five hundred years before he published it in 1919.

The event is the 1419 assassination of John the Fearless, the Duke of Burgundy. It was a pivotal development in the long brutal civil war between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs for control of France, which itself was set against the backdrop of the Hundred Year's War and other European conflicts, including the Fall of Constantinople.

One learns quickly that for Huizinga, the nation that typified the late Middle Ages in Europe was Burgundy, a nation that no longer exists in the formal sense. In the middle of the 15th century, Burgundy was arguably the strongest nation on the continent.  Within a century it has ceased to exist but in remnants that became parts of other nations. 

Or did it? One looks at the western front of the war that Huizinga and Europe suffered through and one sees the scar of ancient Burgundy. Emerging out of those conflicts, one can see the unified Europe of today as Burgundian creation, not only in its geographical location (the organs of the EU are on former Burgundian lands), and its formal creation and evolution, but in its spirit (this last part I am learning from reading the book). The very essence of European internationalism and patchwork secular allegiances can be argued to be Burgundian influenced (including the Swiss model, as Switzerland itself to some degree emerged out of a successful Burgundian secessionist movement). 

In this view, we have partially re-created the world of six hundred years ago, with Burgundy having absorbed the rest of the West in a Burgundian Superstate.  The modern word state in reference to a political entity was retrofitted in order to apply to Burgundy during that era, as no other word for its national polity sufficed. 

The most significant modern parallel that I can identify so far from that era of Burgundian history is the decline of Christian institutions and the rise of secular power politics based on personalities, with its corresponding absolutism and urban factionalism.  

Burgundy was a sophisticated place, the most advanced and prosperous part of the continent.

John the Fearless (French: Jean sans Peur ; Dutch: Jan zonder Vrees; 28 May 1371 – 10 September 1419) was a scion of the French royal family who ruled the Burgundian State from 1404 until his death in 1419.

Notes from the Underground Forum: "I Could Be Wrong"

Saul, battling with the tens of thousands of new arrivals in his forum, while struggling to keep the servers from crashing, has turned defensive and absolutist in certain issues. Any discussion of Kyew-anawn gets one booted immediately.

Saul and Wictor still do podcasts together, but they are strained as Wictor cannot talk about most things he wants to talk about. Mostly it is fear of Youtube demonetization. Also Wictor and Saul are at odds on certain things, but Saul tends to be converted to Wictor's optimism over time.

Wictor's theory is that Trump is still President, and that moreover this will be revealed in the near future. Wictor doesn't explain this in detail, as he spends most of his time arguing with and explaining himself to the new arrivals who try to tear him down.

I'll credit Wictor for this: he has enlightened me as how the worst sin in the contemporary world has become being wrong. One is not allowed to be wrong.  We are trained to tear down everything we think is wrong. That means it is impossible to disagree with any consensus. The narrative must be held, no matter what. It's a nightmare of groupthink. It means that people of fragile psyche must constantly tell themselves how right they are about everything. Anyone who does this is suffering from mental illness.

Wictor defies the ignorant masses by not only admitting to his mental illnesses, but by allowing himself to formulate guesses that might be wrong. 

I could be wrong! he says, shaking his fist at his enemies. It is an act of freedom to say as much. Who on their side could say those words with conviction, without a gut reaction of fear overcoming them? 

Poetry and Civilization

 From Empson (1930) 

"....there is a sort of meaning, the sort that people are thinking of when they say 'this poet will mean more to you when have more experience of life,'...They mean by this not so much that you will have more information (which could be given at once) as that the information will have been digested; that you will be more experienced in the apprehension of verbal subtleties or of the poet's social tone; that you will have become the sort of person that can feel at home in, or imagine, or extract experience from, what is described by the poetry; that you will have included it among the things you are prepared to apprehend." (p. 3)

From Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919)

"When the world was half a thousand years younger all events had much sharper outlines than now. The distance between sadness and joy, between good and bad fortune, seemed to be much greater than for us; every experience had that degree of directness and absoluteness that joy and sadness still have in the mind of a child. Every event, every deed wad defined in given and expressive forms and was in accord with the solemnity of a tight, invariable life cycle. The great events of human life---birth, marriage, death---by virtue of the sacraments, basked in the radiance of divine mystery. But even the lesser events---a journey, a labor, a visit---were accompanied by a multitude of blessings, ceremonies, sayings, and conventions." (Opening of Chapter 1, "The Passionate Intensity of Life")

Imitating the Ancients

  “Who is so patient of the foolish [wicked] city, so iron-willed, as to contain himself?”

Two of the early works of by the young Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) that established his reputation are not completely original to him. Instead they are imitations of works by ancient authors. 

An imitation was popular form in Johnson's era. It meant a loose adaption or the original work , not being a strict translation but rewritten in updated language with contemporary subjects and themes.

Johnson's 1749 poem London, for. example, is such an imitation of an ancient Roman author's work.

Name the original author and work:

b. Juvenal, Third Satire

c. Virgil, Aeneid

d. Horace, Odes II.14

Answer will appear in the comments in 24 hours.