October brings flocks of vultures engaged in inexplicable aerial maneuvers high above the highway. It brings flocks of tourists to the desert, and hundreds of hermit artists open their studio doors to all of us, hoping for connection, recognition, or a sale. Elsewhere, especially in the Northern regions, September feels like the dawn of this autumn season. But here in the desert, October is the door that brings us out of scorched, parched hallucinatory summer days and into, in many ways, rebirth.
Rattlesnake grass is growing out of control near any plants we're watering. The beavertail cactus we thought was dead when we moved in has new growth (it took us a year to revive it completely). The sweet potatoes the coyotes stole somehow still sent new leaves up from the ground, and seem to be living on. Rosemary and sage are blooming, embracing cooler days despite this weekend's heat wave. Wheat grows, we assume some kind of wild cultivar, dormant most of the year. It usually only grows a few inches before summer cuts it down again, but we always wonder at the fact that it grows at all when no one tends it. It's a relic from a time before this place was stripped of its diversity, and it no longer is suited enough to the environment to grow large enough to fruit. It grows alongside carpets of tiny yellow flowers, another oddity that has lived dormant in this sand, triggered by heavy August rains.
We wonder at life here, and consider life elsewhere, and seek to reconnect with ourselves and our community during this new season. We plan celebrations and engagements to honor this time of abundance and rebirth, knowing that we can truly never engage this ecosystem in the way it's meant to be. But we surely can try, and so we do.
