The Desert Is a Beautiful Place

Having lived in the Sonoran Desert my entire life, I've always had cacti growing right outside my door.

I never paid much attention to the tall desert dwellers around me, other than avoiding those pesky Jumping Cholla and looking on in awe at the magnicifent Saguaro standing proudly in the sunlight with their floral crowns. And yet, it all seemed very dry, very barren to me when I considered the masses of ivy growing farther north, and the rich, endless green that just isn't characteristic of a desert climate.

It wasn't until I took an interest in raising common houseplants, and then succulents thereafter, that I began to see and appreciate the vast amounts of beauty and hidden life to be found in Arizona. Simply, all it takes is a closer look -- a glimpse beyond the dust and thorns --
to see snakes and lizards catching rays on the faces of warm rocks, bright magenta adorning the prickly pears and woodpeckers clinging, undaunted, to the spines of Saguaros..

"If we open our eyes, if we open our minds, if we open our hearts, we will find that this world is a magical place. It is magical not because it tricks us or changes unexpectedly into something else, but because it can be so vividly and brilliantly." -- Chogyam Trungpa