Placemakers: Honoring and Tending the Landscape We Inhabit

Recently I sat in the theater at the Saguaro National Park Visitor Center and watched a delightful movie about the Sonoran desert. The movie offered fascinating details of place, the land and the beliefs of native peoples, all told with dignity, respect, and honor both for the land and the inhabitants while completely immersing the audience in wonder and beauty.

Just when the audience was completely filled with awe, the movie ended. The screen rolled up, the curtains behind the screen parted to reveal a stunning view of the desert landscape through a wall-sized window. No one moved. We sat soaking up what we were experiencing: knowledge, history, wisdom, beauty and the invitation to respectfully explore the desert world outside. What a feast for the mind, body and soul!

Catus fruit

The movie was like a placemaker for me. It showcased this desert space, the people shaped by the landscape, the honor and mutual connection between people and land. One of my greatest desires is to be a placemaker; one who honors, tends, works with the dangers,

Figurine at the entrance to the Desert House of Prayer

beauty and mystery of the landscape I inhabit, entering into a mutual relationship with it, knowing both the wildness and the ordered rhythms, being utterly grateful for the bounty provided while inviting others to do the same.

People of faith and no-faith alike find their grounding through placemakers: the peoples, presentations, trees, rocks, streams, mountains, deserts, woodlands, and their creatures. Wisdom sayings abound like Isaiah 55:12 from my own faith tradition – “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” I find this very similar to the native peoples who say, go out into the desert at sunset and gaze at all the saguaros in the distance. Let your eyes relax and you might see people; sometimes you will even see family groups.

Saguaros in the rear, Jumping Cholla in the foreground

“In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught." ~ Baba Dioum (born 15 October 1937 - a Senegalese forestry engineer.)

In my home landscape  - the first blooms at Starry Meadows - Aconite!