Springtime in Flagstaff

Note: I wrote this a month ago, but didn't have the opportunity to post it. Thought you all might like to hear more about some of the places I've been visiting here and my thoughts about some of the changes in my life recently.

It is hard to compare springtime in Flagstaff with springtime in Iowa. By now (March/early April) in Iowa, the fields would be hazed with brilliant green, the redbud and magnolia trees would be blooming in the woods, crabapple trees would be in full riotous blossom and the tulips would be out. Here in Flagstaff, the cool of early mountain spring slows things way down. In the old part of town brilliant forsythia glows in neon profusion against the dark basalt that many of the older buildings are made of. It is one of the few signs of spring. Here and there, daffodils struggle to bloom and the aspen quiver with dangling catkins. To see real signs of spring, one must go down Oak Creek Canyon where the altitude drops sharply and the temperatures rise accordingly. There the trees are already well hazed with the new green of young leaves and crabapple trees bloom in profusion near dwellings.


While I miss the lush green brilliance of Iowa, I am learning to enjoy the beauties of Arizona too. While hiking in Boynton Canyon near Sedona, I saw the manzanita in bloom with clusters of tiny white fairy bells edged in pink dangling from the tips of orange-red branches so smooth they feel like a new dipped candle.








(This isn't the clearest of pictures, but you can get the idea of the waxy looking smooth red bark and the small clusters of tiny bell like flowers.



The contrast of deep red rocks against a brilliant spring blue sky is magnificent.



The perfectly checkered bark of the alligator juniper makes one wonder if someone came along and scored the bark with a ruler and knife.


The ponderosa plateau from Flagstaff to the rim of the Grand Canyon is filled with bluebirds, both Mountain and Western varieties, bright blue jewels amongst the red and green of the trees. What a joyful sight they are!




Other treasures of Arizona are the many geologic features and a wealth of ruins of earlier inhabitants. The Flagstaff area is home to over 600 volcanic features. Even the peaks that rise above the city are the remains of a once massive volcano that may have erupted in a manner similar to Mount St. Helens, though thousands of years earlier. This is my watercolor sketch of the peaks from the Kachina Wetlands south of Flagstaff.





The latest eruption in the area, 1000 years ago, was at Sunset Crater where a cinder cone rises 1000 feet. The cinders at the top oxidized into reds and ochre’s while the lower cinders from earlier in the eruption are a deep blue/black color.
Even now, 1000 years later, vegetation still struggles to grow in much of the cinder covered area surrounding the cone. At its base, a lava field of sharp jagged jumbled rock lays catastrophically across the landscape. The few trees that gain a foothold here grow twisted and tortured as they struggle to survive. In spots, brilliant yellow clusters appear like flowers, but in reality, these are the slow thousand-year growth of lichens. Pristine black cinder dunes sport sand dune like ripples across their surface.
Around the same time that Sunset Crater Volcano erupted, the Sinagua, ancestors to the modern Hopi, lived in pueblos north of here in what is now Wupatki National Monument. Driving across the flat plain at the eastern front of the volcano field, arroyos of red rock begin to appear. Riding on an outcropping in the middle of one of these is the Wukoki Pueblo. Built of deep red rock and clay mortar, its sharply rectangular form catches the evening sun, making it standout sharply in an otherwise weather rounded terrain. Viewed from below, its walls remind one of medieval fortifications in Europe in the same time frame. From the road, one can spot many small ruins. A wall here, a mound of fallen rock that marks a long tumbled building there.



The Wupatki Pueblo is large, complete with ceremonial court, a large ball field and a natural wonder ~ a blow hole. At this spot, one can experience the earth breathing as air rushes in or out of some cavern deep below the surface at the rate of 35 miles an hour.

Driving on, one crosses a Pinion/juniper plain with pale ochre grasses and comes to a small butte. At first it appears non-descript, a black mound rising above a small pueblo. But as one walks the trail up and around it, red stonewalls that follow the serpentine contours of the black basalt become apparent. Rising higher, one sees that the walls here are not the ordinary red walls of the other pueblos, but these have patterns made in the walls with dark basalt. The contrast of deep red and black is stunning. Behind the mound, a limestone sinkhole comes into view with massive perpendicular walls soaring above a vast space. And then the path curves around the top of the mound and stepping through the door in the wall, one sees that the entire top of the mound was once built upon. From here one looks out of the pinion/juniper plain and a vast expanse of bleached grass to the seemingly endless vista of the Painted Desert. Turning, the sharp peaks of the snow capped San Francisco Peaks loom in the west. With a careful eye and a good pair of binoculars one can see eight other ruins from here. It is a lofty perch and for me, more moving than the Grand Canyon. It is utterly silent the day I am there. Not a person or car in sight in any direction. Just a vast silence that reaches back through the eons of time. The sound of my heart beating is the loudest sound there is.

On another outing, I drive east to Walnut Canyon National Monument. Here one climbs down many steps into Walnut Canyon and traverses a narrow ridge to an “island” in the canyon. The canyon walls descend sharply down through the upper layers of creamy limestone to the gray convoluted layers of coconino sandstone. Horizontal scourings from water long ago eroded softer layers out from between harder layers leaving large sheltering ledges at several levels within the canyon. Here the people of the time, Sinagua of an earlier time than those of Wupatki built walls of golden limestone under these protective overhangs and lived in this lush valley. Gamble oak, Arizona walnut and other trees cling to the canyon sides along with berries and numerous plants with many edible and medicinal uses. Compared to the dry land on top of the canyon, it was and is a veritable paradise. The inhabitants must have been masters at climbing and I find myself wondering how mother’s kept their young children from plummeting over the edges. But these homes would have been snug and protected from many of the elements and surrounded with views that even people today envy.

But, I didn’t come to Arizona just for the ruins and rugged beauty of the landscape. Rather, it was the opportunity to start my nursing career in a place that would teach and train me to be the best nurse that I can be. I’m grateful to say that this is exactly what I am experiencing! The people I work with have been wonderful, encouraging and ever so helpful as I make this transition from newly graduated nurse to a well functioning RN. By mid April, I will be off orientation and working on my own and at long last, feeling ready to do so! At this point, I can truly say that everything I hoped for as I went to nursing school has come to pass. I am working in the field of my choice, loving it and finding the satisfaction that I hoped for in my day-to-day working life. Members of the hospital have expressed hope that I will soon join the Childbirth education team and while the time is not yet right, I anticipate it with a happy heart in the near future. I’m working nights now and have found the transition to nights an easy one for me. I always was a night owl!

When I look back upon all that has occurred in my life since our house fire in 1999, I can see God’s hand at work. He took what could have been an overwhelming tragedy and brought challenge and blessings from it. It has been an amazing journey. As I have traveled from Colorado to Iowa to Arizona, God has touched my life in tangible ways and I have learned first hand what he said in Psalm 139.

If I take the wings of the morning
And settle at the furthest limits of the sea
Even there your hand shall lead me
And your right hand shall hold me fast. ~ Psalm 139: 9-10

God’s hand has led me, his hand has held me fast, even when I doubted and despaired, he did not give up on me, He held me fast and continues to show me grace. He was with me when I breathed in the lush verdant air of springtime in Iowa, when I struggled through the ups and downs of nursing school. He was there when I stood on the continental divide in Colorado surrounded by my children and the times I was surrounded by family and friends in Colorado. He was there when I stood alone in a desolate landscape in communion with 1000 years of human history in Arizona. I have much to be thankful for and so I leave you with a prayer of thanksgiving:

I am bending my knee
In the eye of the God who created me
In the eye of the Son who died for me
In the eye of the Spirit who moves me
In love and in desire
For the many gifts you have bestowed on me
Each day and night, each sea and land
Each weather fair, each calm each wild
Thanks be to you O God.
From Celtic Prayers from Iona by J. Philip Newell