7 Desert Wisdom’s Great Reads
For contemplatives living the connection between sacred desert places and the soul within, I offer a partial list of books on my shelf. Each is a great comfort and an invaluable resource for “homing” Art and Faith in the Desert. Every time I open one of these books, I find exact passages or quotes I am looking for: natural gleanings, like minerals in alluvial plains, placer gold in the black-sand bottoms of arroyos.
In the pages, I meet my intrepid peers: writers walking the margins, kindred spirits searching, seeking, questing… and I no longer feel alone. I settle into an easy chair and take my place in a chorus of voices speaking for the heart of the desert…
Note: Unless otherwise stated, all nonfiction selections include market descriptions. You can find many of these titles in used book stores, thrift stores, & garage sales. One of my favorite haunts is the all-volunteer “Friends of the Library” shops. If you can not find one in your community, start one!
Part 1 of the Series
1. A Beautiful, Cruel Country by Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce.
“Cruce’s book, rich with imagery and dialogue, brings Arivaca area to life in the early 1900’s. Her story of homesteading Arizona Territory, America’s last frontier, by Anglo and Mexican settlers alike, with Indian populations on the periphery, is built around the annual cycle of ranch life – its spring and fall roundups, planting and harvesting – and features a cavalcade of border characters, anecdotes about folk medicine, and recollections of events that were most meaningful in a young girl’s life.”
2. The Solace of Fierce Landscapes by Belden C. Lane
“In the tradition of Kathleen Norris, Terry Tempest Williams, and Thomas Merton, Belden Lane explores the impulse that has drawn seekers into the wilderness for centuries and offers eloquent testimony to the healing power of mountain silence and desert indifference….
Drawing upon the Wisdom of St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhardt, Simone Weil, Edward Abby, and many other Christian and non-Christian writers, Lane also demonstrates how those of us cut off from the wilderness might “make some desert in our lives.”
3. The Voice of the Desert; A Naturalist’s Interpretation by Joseph Wood Krutch
“This book explores the rich, intriguing, unexpected variety of life in the desert of America’s southwest. It is both for the lovers of natural history and for those who enjoy the ruminations of a wise mind. ‘A sound naturalist in the philosophical rather than the merely botanical and biological sense,’ Krutch’s adventure with the natural wonders of the desert is a joyful, wise and witty credo by a man who knows that the proper study of mankind extends to all of Nature.
4. Rain of Gold by Victor Villasenor
“Rain of Gold is a true-life saga of love, family, and destiny that pulses with bold vitality, sweeping from the war-ravaged Mexican mountains of Pancho Villa s revolution to the days of Prohibition in California.
An all-American story of struggle and success, Rain of Gold focuses on three generations of Villasenor s kin, their spiritual and cultural roots back in Mexico, their immigration to California and overcoming poverty, prejudice, and economic exploitation. It is the warm-hearted and spirited account of the wily, wary and persevering forebears of Victor Villasenor.”
4. The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton
The Wisdom of the Desert was one of Thomas Merton’s favorites among his own books―surely because he had hoped to spend his last years as a hermit.
The personal tones of the translations, the blend of reverence and humor so characteristic of him, show how deeply Merton identified with the legendary authors of these sayings and parables, the fourth-century Christian Fathers who sought solitude and contemplation in the deserts of the Near East.
The hermits of Screte who turned their backs on a corrupt society remarkably like our own had much in common with the Zen masters of China and Japan, and Father Merton made his selection from them with an eye to the kind of impact produced by the Zen Mondo.
5. Desert Cantos, by Photographer Richard Misrach, (a favorite submitted by Tucson Photographer Stephanie Stayton.)
“…His desert pictures as part of a single great work, divided by smaller themes and stylistic treatments. When collected together, they become a monumental study constructed by wide-ranging explorations of many aspects of a complex subject with a long history and ultimately a rumination on self and identity. The American West is the landscape that defined the American psyche as we know it. Through his work, we come to understand that both may be stranger than we think.” http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/blog/9107/a-lifes-work-richard-misrach/
7. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams
“In the early 80’s, The Great Salt Lake began to rise to record heights, threatening the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the herons, owls, and snowy egrets that Williams, a poet, and naturalist, had come to gauge her life by. One event was nature at its most random, the other a by-product of rogue technology: Terry’s mother, and Terry herself had been exposed to the fallout of atomic bomb tests in the 1950s. As it interweaves these narratives of dying & accommodation, Refuge transforms tragedy into a document of renewal and spiritual grace, resulting in a work that has become a classic.”
Curated by Valarie lee James
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* Add your own favorite Great Reads about the desert to the comments Section to be included on the next list in Desert Wisdom’s Great Reads. Stay tuned!
Art & Faith in the Desert 