Cactus Sayings And Quotes

Roses may say “I love you,” but the cactus says “Fuck off.

The name says it all. That's where Dad (Hades) tries out his new punishment ideas, but he says the traditional ones still work best: the lava flows, the minefields full of exploding surprises, burning at the stake, running naked through cactus patches... You name it, we've got it here - Nico di Angelo

Flailing and thrashing, Buttercup wept and tossed and paced and wept some more, and there have been three great cases of jealousy since David of Galilee was first afflicted with the emotion when he could no longer stand the fact that his neighbor Saul's cactus outshone his own. (Originally, jealousy pertained solely to plants, other people's cactus or ginkgoes, or, later, when there was grass, grass, which is why, even to this day, we say that someone is green with jealousy.) Buttercup's case rated a close fourth on the all-time list. It was a very long and very green night.

Where am I?" Magnus croaked. "Nazca." "Oh, so we went on a little trip." "You broke into a man's house," Catarina said. "You stole a carpet and enchanted it to fly. Then you sped off into the night air. We pursued you on foot." "Ah," said Magnus. "You were shouting some things." "What things?" "I prefer not to repeat them," Catarina said. "I also prefer not to remember the time we spent in the desert. It is a mammoth desert, Magnus. Ordinary deserts are quite large. Mammoth deserts are so called because they are larger than ordinary deserts." "Thank you for that interesting and enlightening information," Magnus croaked. "You told us to leave you in the desert, because you planned to start a new life as a cactus," Catarina said, her voice flat. "Then you conjured up tiny needles and threw them at us. With pinpoint accuracy." "Well," he said with dignity. "Considering my highly intoxicated state, you must have been impressed with my aim." "'Impressed' is not the word to use to describe how I felt last night, Magnus." "I thank you for stopping me there," Magnus said. "It was for the best. You are a true friend. No harm done. Let's say no more about it. Could you possibly fetch me - " "Oh, we couldn't stop you," Catarina interrupted. "We tried, but you giggled, leaped onto the carpet, and flew away again. You kept saying that you wanted to go to Moquegua." "What did I do in Moquegua?" "You never got there," Catarina said. "But you were flying about and yelling and trying to, ahem, write messages for us with your carpet in the sky." "We then stopped for a meal," Catarina said. "You were most insistent that we try a local specialty that you called cuy. We actually had a very pleasant meal, even though you were still very drunk." "I'm sure I must have been sobering up at that point," Magnus argued. "Magnus, you were trying to flirt with your own plate." "I'm a very open-minded sort of fellow!" "Ragnor is not," Catarina said. "When he found out that you were feeding us guinea pigs, he hit you over the head with your plate. It broke." "So ended our love," Magnus said. "Ah, well. It would never have worked between me and the plate anyway. I'm sure the food did me good, Catarina, and you were very good to feed me and put me to bed - " Catarina shook her head."You fell down on the floor. Honestly, we thought it best to leave you sleeping on the ground. We thought you would remain there for some time, but we took our eyes off you for one minute, and then you scuttled off. Ragnor claims he saw you making for the carpet, crawling like a huge demented crab.

Prickly?" I say. "I'm not prickly." "Felicity Montague, you are a cactus.

God’s mercy is greater than your sins or circumstances. His compassionate love embraces the cactus parts of you that you swear no one could hug. His grace celebrates the parts of you that nobody claps for. God loved you before you were even created, before you even knew of Him. As the Qur’an says, “It is He who sent down tranquility into the hearts of the believers, that they may add faith to their faith for to Allah belong the forces of the heavens and the Earth and Allah is full of Knowledge and Wisdom” (48:4).

I think Connor would be the last person to label you like that. You shouldn't get so offended if someone calls you disabled, Aven. You DO have extra challenges that others don't have. It DOES take you longer to do most tasks. Your movements ARE limited. There's a big difference between saying you're disabled and saying you're incapable.

Both a rose and a cactus have thorns, and while the rose may say, "I love you," the cactus says, "Fuck off." I think that's important to remember, and it's the ideal way to farm ducks.

It's dying," I say. "When the center is exposed like that, it doesn't have a chance." "But it's beautiful," she points out, I stare at the shriveling cactus and try to see the beauty in it. "That's the way I want to go out," she decides. "What?" I ask. "Torn up and ripped open?" She shakes her head. "Totally exposed, with no regrets. You can tell this cactus lived; it has the battle scars to prove it. Why go out looking perfect and put together? It means you didn't experience anything. You didn't take any risks.

Sad to say, in my four-thousand-plus years, the times I'd felt most at home had all happened during the past few months: at Camp Half-Blood, sharing a cabin with my demigod children; at the Waystation with Emma, Jo, Georgina, Leo and Calypso, all of us sitting around the kitchen table chopping vegetables from the garden for dinner; at the Cistern in Palm Springs with Meg, Grover, Mellie, Coach Hedge and a prickly assortment of cactus dryads; and now at Camp Jupiter, where the anxious, grief-stricken Romans, despite their many problems, despite the fact that I brought misery and disaster wherever I went, had welcomed me with respect, a room above their coffee shop and some lovely bed linen to wear. These places were homes. Whether I deserved to be part of them or not - that was a different question.

Well what I was going to say was that it reminds me of us because a cactus can grow and thrive without a lot of water and attention. Even if it gets neglected on a shelf, it can blossom and still develop into something beautiful.

ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Be courteous, kind, and forgiving. Be gentle and peaceful each day. Be warm and human and grateful, And have a good thing to say. Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike, Be witty and happy and wise. Be honest and love all your neighbors, Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant. Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus. Be dull and boring and omnipresent. Criticize things you don’t know about. Be oblong and have your knees removed. Be sure to stop at stop signs, And drive fifty-five miles an hour. Pick up hitchhikers foaming at the mouth, And when you get home get a master’s degree in geology. Be tasteless, rude, and offensive. Live in a swamp and be three-dimensional. Put a live chicken in your underwear. Go into a closet and suck eggs.

I want to say one thing, be a certain way, but it gets all tangled up on its way out of my mouth. A pumpkin trying to be flowers and coming off like a cactus. It's frustrating.

Be sharp like a cactus, people are afraid to touch and not a sort of rubbish.

They say that difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations. If I had known that you'd be my destination, I wouldn't have been afraid of the dark lonely nights. I wouldn't have cursed the bumpy ride through the cruel Demonland of my thoughts. I would've laughed through the pain if I had known that you were waiting for me on the other side of the cactus field

Mom likes to take me grocery shopping with her. She says it’s because I need to learn how to grocery shop on my own, but I really think it’s because she likes having a child slave to command.

One of my Norwegian teachers once asked me a question. 'If you were a flower, Bjørn, what kind of flower would you be?' She always came up with the strangest questions. I think she liked messing around with me. I was an appreciative victim. I was seventeen. She was twice that. 'A flower, Bjørn?' she repeated. Her voice was compassionate, pleasant. She leaned over my desk. I still remember her scent: warm, spicy, full of moist secrets. Everyone was quiet. Everyone was wondering what kind of flower Bjørn would be. Or they were all hoping i would stammer and blush, as i was wont to do whenever she leaned over me with all her scents and heady temptations. But for once i had an answer to one of her incessant questions. I told her about the Haleakala Silversword. It grows only in and around the Haleakala volcano on Maui. It spends twenty years as a modest ball covered with shimmering silver hairs storing up its energy, and then suddenly one summer it explodes extravagantly into bloom in yellows and purples. Then it dies. My answer flummoxed her. For a long while she just stood there by my desk, staring at me. What the heck had she been expecting me to say? a cactus?

But it’s hard to meet people when you have social anxiety as bad as I do. I panic. Or I want to say one thing, be a certain way, but it gets all tangled up on its way out of my mouth. A pumpkin trying to be flowers and coming off like a cactus. It’s frustrating.

We're cactus girls. We'd prick each other with a glance." "I withdraw my cactus comparison," she says. "Or, if you're to be a cactus, you're one of the furry ones. The ones that look like they have spines but if you're brave enough to press your hand against it, you realize it's soft.

And now it is said of me That my love is nothing because I have borne no children, Or because I have fathered none; That I twisted the twig in my hands And cut the blossom free too soon from the seed; That I lay across the fire, And snuffed it dead sooner than draft or rain. But I have turned away, and drawn myself Upright to walk along the room alone. Across the dark the spines of cactus plants Remind me how I go—aloof, obscure, Indifferent to the words the children chalk Against my house and down the garden walls. They cannot tear the garden out of me, Nor smear my love with names. Love is a cliff, A clear, cold curve of stone, mottled by stars, smirched by the morning, carved by the dark sea Till stars and dawn and waves can slash no more, Till the rock’s heart is found and shaped again. I keep the house and say no words, the evening Falls like a petal down the shawl of trees. I light the fire and see the blossom dance On air alone; I will not douse that flame, That searing flower; I will burn in it. I will not banish love to empty rain. For I know that I am asked to hate myself For their sweet sake Who sow the world with child. I am given to burn on the dark fire they make With their sly voices. But I have burned already down to bone. There is a fire that burns beyond the names Of sludge and filth of which this world is made. Agony sears the dark flesh of the body, And lifts me higher than the smoke, to rise Above the earth, above the sacrifice; Until my soul flares outward like a blue Blossom of gas fire dancing in mid-air: Free of the body’s work of twisted iron.

It bothers me. There’s a stigma, especially for guys. Especially for guys who are about to hit thirty. It’s not that I want to be a . . . you know . . .” He can’t bring himself to verbalize it. “But it’s hard to meet people when you have social anxiety as bad as I do. I panic. Or I want to say one thing, be a certain way, but it gets all tangled up on its way out of my mouth. A pumpkin trying to be flowers and coming off like a cactus. It’s frustrating. “You’re much more flowers than you are cactus,” I tell him, meaning every word. I hope he believes it. “But for what it’s worth, pumpkins are the best.

The Dieter's Daughter Mom's got this taco guy's poem taped to the fridge, some ode to celery, which she is always eating. The celery, I mean, not the poem which talks about green angels and fragile corsets. I don't get it, but Mom says by the time she reads it she forgets she's hungry. One stalk for breakfast, along with half a grapefruit, or a glass of aloe vera juice, you know that stuff that comes from cactus, and one stalk for lunch with some protein drink that tastes like dried placenta, did you know that they put cow placenta in make-up, face cream, stuff like that? Yuck. Well, Mom says it's never too early to wish you looked different, which means I got to eat that crap too. Mom says: your body is a temple, not the place all good twinkies go to. Mom says: that boys remember girls that're slender. Mom says that underneath all this fat there's a whole new me, one I'd really like if only I gave myself the chance. Mom says: you are what you eat, which is why she eats celery, because she wants to be thin, not green or stringy, of course-- am I talking too fast?-- but thin as paper like the hearts we cut out and send to ourselves, don't tell anyone, like the hearts of gold melons we eat down to the bitter rind.

O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me woud I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.” Here He, the holy One, is in contrast to every good man in all past ages. It was never known that God forsook a righteous man. There He is on that Cross, the absolutely righteous One, dying, forsaken of God. Oh, He says, I have gone down lower than any man ever went before, “I am a worm, and no man.” The word He used for worm is the word “tola,” and the tola of the orient is a little worm something like the cochineal of Mexico which feeds on a certain kind of cactus. The people beat these plants until the cochineal fall into a basin and then they crush those little insects and the blood is that brilliant crimson dye that makes those bright Mexican garments. In Palestine and Syria they use the tola in the same way and it makes the beautiful permanent scarlet dye of the orient It was very expensive and was worn only by the great and the rich and the noble. It is referred to again and again in Scripture. Solomon is said to have clothed the maidens of Israel in scarlet. Daniel was to be clothed in scarlet by Belshazzar. And that word “scarlet” is literally “the splendor of a worm.” “They shall be clothed in the splendor of a worm.” Now the Lord Jesus Christ says, “I am a worm; I am the tola,” and He had to be crushed in death that you and I might be clothed in glory. The glorious garments of our salvation are the garments that have been procured as a result of His death and His suffering.

Are we to treat persons known for liars and strife-makers as the children of the devil or not? Are we to turn away from them, and refuse to acknowledge them, rousing an ignorant strife of tongues concerning our conduct? Are we guilty of connivance, when silent as to the ambush whence we know the wicked arrow privily shot? Are we to call the traitor to account? or are we to give warning of any sort? I have no answer. Each must carry the question that perplexes to the Light of the World. To what purpose is the spirit of God promised to them that ask it, if not to help them order their way aright? One thing is plain—that we must love the strife-maker; another is nearly as plain—that, if we do not love him, we must leave him alone; for without love there can be no peace-making, and words will but occasion more strife. To be kind neither hurts nor compromises. Kindness has many phases, and the fitting form of it may avoid offence, and must avoid untruth. We must not fear what man can do to us, but commit our way to the Father of the Family. We must be nowise anxious to defend ourselves; and if not ourselves because God is our defence, then why our friends? is he not their defence as much as ours? Commit thy friend's cause also to him who judgeth righteously. Be ready to bear testimony for thy friend, as thou wouldst to receive the blow struck at him; but do not plunge into a nest of scorpions to rescue his handkerchief. Be true to him thyself, nor spare to show thou lovest and honourest him; but defence may dishonour: men may say, What! is thy friend's esteem then so small? He is unwise who drags a rich veil from a cactus-bush.

ONCE, WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN YEARS old, my parents moved me from the land of flat, grassy prairies and towering, angry tornadoes and life-giving cool country air to the mysterious land of suffocating dust and prickly cactus and life-sucking desert heat to lord over a park of western-themed amusements that bring delight to many young children and a handful of immature grown-ups. In other words, we moved from Kansas to Arizona to run a theme park, but it sounds much more exciting when I say it the other way, and I want you to think this is going to be an exciting story. What I mean is, it’s absolutely going to be an exciting story. Prepare yourselves accordingly.

Middle Head: I’m surrounded by idiots. No really, I’ve got one on either side. Between the gardener and the bleeding heart, it’s amazing that we’ve made it this far. Left is right about one thing, though; the pyramid will make a good base of operations while we plan out our next move. And he’s right that we should probably stop blowing up everything on the way there. We’re making a rather obvious trail of destruction. He’s so annoying when he’s right. Well, I guess “Right” isn’t exactly the right word. Right is a complete idiot. And now I’ve confused him again. Well, it’s easier to just wait until he gets distracted than try to explain it. Right Head: But really, though. Left can’t be Right, right? I’m Right! Is there more than one Right? That has to be it. I’m on our right, but Left would be Right to someone else. Right? @_@ Oh no, my head hurts. Oh, more cacti! I like them a lot! They get so tall! =) And sometimes they blow up! =D Middle says those ones are actually creepers, but I know better. I want to grow my own cactus bombs! >=) Day Fourteen Right Head: The pyramid is super fun! =D I blew it all up!! >=D All it took was one little explosion, and then boom, boom, BOOM!!! Middle isn’t very happy with me, but he’s never happy. =/ Left is pretty mad too. And he never gets mad. =( I didn’t mean to blow everything up, but it was so much fun! I had a good day. =) Middle Head: That complete, utter, absolute moron! We finally make it to the pyramid after a whole day’s journey across the hot desert, and he blows it up! First thing! No conversation! Left says that we should check for booby traps, and then the idiot just starts shooting skulls all over the place! It’s a miracle that the explosion wasn’t even bigger! He’s lucky that we don’t have skin. I would tear his off and make it into a coat. Or shoes, if we had feet. All the fires of the Nether wouldn’t be enough to burn the stink of stupidity from my skull. Humph. Well, Left convinced me that we need to keep looking for Steve. He isn’t in this desert, and east still feels like the best way to go. We’ve been asking any skeletons we see about the best places to look. The zombies are all obsessed with some village nearby, and nothing else seems willing to talk to us.

Why all this sudden interest in your father?” Mom asked. “Just curious.” “Well, you know what they say about curiosity,” Mom said. “It killed the cat.” “Nope,” Mom said. “It’s the sign of a powerful brain.” I smiled. “Who says that?” “Science.

Did you do the jump yet?” “Meh.” “Why haven’t you done it?” I moved my eyes from the bright window to Zion. “I can’t hold on. I’ll fall off.” I rolled my eyes. “Duh.” Zion crossed his arms. “Duh?” “Would you want to ride a big roller coaster without a harness?” “That’s not a very good comparison.” “Would you skydive without a parachute?” “That’s worse,” Zion said. “Not even close. Just do the jump. Stop being a scaredy-cat.” “No one says scaredy-cat.” “I totally just did.

Stop saying 'no' to everything and start saying 'yes.' What's the worst that can happen? A bit of embarrassment, a bit of awkwardness. And what's the best that can happen? You might meet some interesting people, have some new experiences, enjoy yourself

Hey Porkins,” said Carl, “you reckon you could hit that cactus over there? You’re a good shot with an arrow, but how about pearl throwing?” “Watch and see,” grinned Porkins. “Your old pal Porkins is a terrific shot—even if I do say so myself!” He threw the pearl and, true to his word, it hit the cactus. Porkins grinned, but then suddenly he was gone—disappearing into thin air. “Where is he?!” said Dave. Then he heard a familiar voice nearby: “Owwww!” Somehow Porkins was on top of the cactus. He jumped off, clutching his behind. Carl was laughing hysterically. “What happened?” said Dave, feeling very confused. “Throwing the pearls makes you teleport,” said Carl, wiping away a tear of laughter. “I found out the other day when I accidentally dropped one.” “You little blighter,” said Porkins, coming back over. He was pulling cactus needles out of his back.

To say the least, my life has been a fine line between wonderful and unfair and hard. But we get stronger in the hard days and years. I was weak but I learned. I suffered, was insulted and faced a huge amount of sadness. The more my family was hurt, the more we became stronger. We got used to the suffering as we were sold from one country to another. Wow, how many painful years we faced; but I am not sorry for the past and not afraid of what’s coming. The cruel years taught me strength. We walk on the meadows of pain and fire, and when we get to the other side, the honey will taste bitter like a Cactus. Suffering will not fill our days. We will not close our dream book. We will not break down. We will not accept to live even one dark day. To live, we will give and bend, even with pain under our wings.

This beautiful mystery woman had a very white complexion and wore her blond, silky hair tied back from her face in a braid, which she had tucked under her fur coat. As she got closer, I could see that her facial features were not detailed in the way of an earthly human face. She had beautiful, small eyes and a very small nose with a tip that somehow looked unfinished. It was the same with her tiny mouth, something about the corners looked unfinished as well. I was frozen and I did not know what to do. Honestly, my mind stopped functioning and seemed to travel far away, wandering over my head in search of an explanation or an answer for this apparition. And then this beautiful mystery woman arrived in front of me and inexplicably hugged me very tight, with unusual passion for a stranger. With what felt like the deepest, genuine love, the beautiful mystery woman placed her forehead very tightly against the right side of my neck and then she raised her head until her warm right cheek was tight against my right cheek, so tight I could feel the bones of her face. Her left arm held me tight around my waist, while her right arm was over my left shoulder, squeezing me from behind my neck. She did not say ‘hi’ or any word; she just kept holding me tight that I started to feel her body heat.

Neville, who appeared to have nothing more to say either, was gazing fondly at his moonlit cactus.

》Insidious《 "Why are you so cold hearted", she asks. Words of wise say 'There is a pagoda inside every human being'. I want to see. She drops a destination pin twisted at end. In his silence, she sinks into abyss inside him, travelling canyons, caverns and reaches a red dead barren land like amidst of kangaroo country. The only things one see here are Zigzag paths created by Horned vipers, young barrel cactus and corpus of human emotions. "Come under the shelter of this Uluru hill", a thunderous voice she hears. This is blood which trickles like sand in hour glass. The lightning in anonymity is the veins where it flows. That dark clot moving towards mind is sudden anger, spreading in entire body and generates uncontrolled hypertension. Deceit, dishonesty, falsity and hypocrisy of travellers from ages has evolved this place. "But.. but where is that heart soft as fairyfloss? Let me go inside that rock" she urges. You don't need to go there. Purify your heart as of a child in cradle. You will inhale the fumes of fragrance approaching you like incense stick. Then again visit and observe this place, no less than Garden of Eden.

The Aztecs located the Templo Mayor and surrounding sacred precinct – by far the grandest and most powerful nepantla-middled ritual time-place stretched out and put in place by human beings – at tlallinepantla (“in the middle of the earth”).159 Tlallinepantla coincided with the center of the earth (tlalli olloco),160 the navel of the earth (tlalxicco), the crossroads of the horizontal forces of the Fifth Sun-Earth Ordering, the confluence of vertical malinalli-twisting-spinning forces that ascend from below and descend from above the earth, and the axis mundi. Here is the meeting point of the four roads created by the four sons of Tonacatecuhtli~Tonacacihuatl (each associated with one of four intercardinal directions).161 In so doing, they arranged the earth into four quadrants and a center. Here, too, is the time-place defined by the crossing of two springs, red and blue (or yellow), on a small island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Mendieta describes their crossing as formada a manera de una aspa de san Andrés (“shaped like a Saint Andrew’s cross”).162 Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc likewise describes a spot defined by two springs intersecting one another. Van Zantwjik, Berdan and Anawalt, and Heyden read Tezozomoc as claiming the two springs are Tleatl-Atlatlayan (“Fire Water, Place of Burning Water”) and Matlalatl-Toxpalatl (“Dark Blue Water, Yellow Water”). The former ran from east to west, the latter, from north to south, and so they crossed one another.163 López Austin and López Lujan, however, read Tezozomoc as identifying the two intersecting springs as Matlalatl (“Dark Blue Water) and Toxpalatl (“Yellow Water”).164 Either way, their intersecting divides the island into four quadrants and forms the St. Andrew’s cross depicted in Codex Mendoza, fol. 2r. Dúran says the Aztecs found the sight of yellow and blue streams “espanto” (“frightening, terrifying, astonishing, awesome”).165 Next to this spot was where an eagle perched upon a prickly pear cactus. Lastly, here, too, the Aztecs constructed their Huey Tocalli. After building their first temple at the site, the Aztecs ordered the surrounding area divided into four quarters, with the Huey Teocalli at their intersection. The roads of Tepeyac, Itztapalapa, and Tlacopan, which arranged the city into four quadrants and served as communication routes between the island and the surrounding lake shores, intersected at the Huey Teocalli, forming a grand human-constructed crossroads with the Huey Tecocalli at its center.166 All of these crossings and intersectings coincided with one another as well as with the center of the earth, the navel of the earth, and the axis mundi. Codex Mendoza (fol. 2r) depicts the founding of Tenochtitlan at this nepantla-middled, nepantla-intersecting time-place (see Figure 4.10).

How can I be alone when these brain cells chat to me their million messages a minute. But sitting there in the ordinary trance that is any mammal’s birthright, say on a desert boulder or northern stump, a riverbank, we can imitate a barrel cactus, a hemlock tree, the water that flows through time as surely as ourselves. The mind loses its distant machine-gun patter, becomes a frog’s occasional croak. A trout’s last jump in the dark, a horned owl’s occasional hoot, or in the desert alone at night the voiceless stars light my primate fingers that I lift up to curl around their bright cosmic bodies.

As a geezer one grows tired of the story of Sisyphus. Let that boulder stay where it is and, by its presence, exactly where it wished to be, but then I’m old enough to have forgotten what the boulder stood for? I think of all of the tons of junk the climbers have left up on Everest, including a few bodies. Even the pyramids, those imitation mountains, say to the gods, “We can do it too.” Despite planes you can’t get off the earth for long. Even the dead meat strays behind, changing shape, the words drift into the twilight across the lake. I’m not bold enough to give a poetry reading while alone far out in the desert to a gathering of saguaro and organ-pipe cactus or listen to my strophes reverberate off a mountain wall. At dawn I sat on a huge boulder near Cave Creek deep in the Chiracahuas and listened to it infer that it didn’t want to go way back up the mountain but liked it near the creek where gravity bought its passage so long ago. Everest told me to get this crap off my head or stay at home and make your own little pyramids.

I nod when he says things like that because Mama always said any right-minded person will favor a rose over a cactus. Trick is, make them think you’re a rose while all the time being a cactus underneath.

What’s there that’s so great? Internet? Television? Department stores? Fast food?” Richard leaned forward and began counting on his fingers. “Medicine, clean water, sanitation, midwifery, roads, transport, everything that pulled this world out of the dark ages and took the nasty, brutish, and short out of life.” He rabbit-eared his fingers. “You think that ‘going back to nature’ is going to make your life more enjoyable? You’re a fantasist, Ed, and a selfish one. What about your kids and your wife? You think they’d be all right? You think you could really support them and protect them? You probably couldn’t even keep a cactus alive, let alone feed your family from a vegetable patch.” “And what’s that supposed to mean?” I said. “I’m saying society has evolved, Ed. It’s not what it used to be for one very good reason: it was shit and people weren’t very good at staying alive. We got sick and died daily. Childbirth usually ended in death for the child, the mother, or both. Pain, filth, famine, and war were everywhere, and you were lucky to reach thirty without being stabbed, shot, tortured, decapitated, hung, drawn and quartered, burned at the stake, or thrown in a dungeon to rot. People didn’t live in some blissful utopia where everyone had an allotment and looked after one another. We killed each other because we were starving and terrified most of the time. The last two hundred years have seen us grow, understand, build systems and infrastructures that keep us healthy and happy. We can dive to the bottom of the ocean, fly around the world, go to the moon, Mars, beyond. And all you want to do is go live in a cave. We’re not supposed to live in the fucking dirt, Ed. We’re not.

It is dying””, I say. “When the center is exposed like that, it doesn`t have a chance”. “But it is beautiful”, she points out. I stare at the shriveling cactus and try to see the beauty in it. “ That`s the way I want to go out”, she decides. “What?”, I ask. “Torn up and ripped open?” She shakes her head. “Totally exposed, with no regrets. You can tell this cactus lived; it has the battle, scars to prove it. Why go out looking perfect and put together? It means you didn`t experienced anything. You didn`t take any risks.

People, says Tarantoga, believe what they want to believe. Take astrology for instance. Astronomers, who after all should know more than anyone about the stars, tell us that they are giant balls of incandescent gas spinning since the world began and that their influence on our fate is considerably less than the influence of a banana peel, on which you can slip and break your leg. But there is no interest in banana peels, whereas serious periodicals include horoscopes and there are even pocket computers you can consult before you invest in the stock market to find out if the stars are favorable. Anyone who says that the skin of a fruit can have more effect on a person’s future than all the planets and stars combined won’t be listened to. An individual comes into the world because his father, say, didn’t withdraw in time, thereby becoming a father. The mother-to-be, seeing what happened, took quinine and jumped from the top of the dresser to the floor but that didn’t help. So the individual is born and he finishes school and works in a store selling suspenders, or in a post office. Then suddenly he learns that that’s not the way it was at all. The planets came into conjunction, the signs of the zodiac arranged themselves carefully into a special pattern, half the sky cooperated with the other half so that he could come into being and stand behind this counter or sit behind this desk. It lifts his spirits. The whole universe revolves around him, and even if things aren’t going well, even if the stars are lined up in such a way that the suspenders manufacturer loses his shirt and the individual consequently loses his job, it’s still more comforting than to know that the stars don’t really give a damn. Knock astrology out of his head, and the belief too that the cactus on his windowsill cares about him, and what is left? Barefoot, naked despair. So says Professor Tarantoga, but I see I am digressing.

we both mistake solitude for safety find comfort in wishing ourselves untouchable you a cloud & i fog daily i remind myself every life must be s e e d e d with fingerprints i say a prayer to an unnameable god the constant motion rotating constellations across a sky that will always be my favorite blue the cactus that has & will continue to bloom every spring of my life & hope it's enough to find you whistling a song only birds sing in morning's memory waiting for me to be present in our living

Dayna, wait,” she called ahead. “I hear Tux up there.” She pointed at the tumbled rocks. She saw Dayna slowly turn Champagne and head back at a slow walk. “Why would Shane’s dog go up there?” she drawled. “Maybe he found Bando.” Liv tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Isn’t that what we’re all trying to do?” “I don’t hear any barking,” Dayna said doubtfully. Liv blew out an exasperated breath. “Well, I heard him. Are you coming with me to look, or not?” “Oh all right, but this is a total waste of time,” she heard Dayna mutter behind her. “We’re never gonna find that colt alive.” “Don’t be so sure.” Liv called over her shoulder as she leaned forward to help Cactus Jack climb over the stony surface. “These Spanish horses have survival skills your fancy palominos could only wish for.” Dayna caught up. “That’s a laugh.” She shrugged. “My dad says your grandparents’ horses are just scruffy little leftovers from the past. The herd is down to, what? Thirty-three horses now and it’s gonna keep shrinking. So much for their survival skills.” “We can build it up again. And there are thirty-four horses if we can find Bando.

As they tramped in, Temo turned from the big stone barbecue with a long grilling fork in his hand. He froze at the sight of Dayna. Once more, it was as though the two of them were alone in the sunny ramada with its roof of woven grass and the light filtering through on their faces. No one else mattered. A short woman with her hair piled on her head hurried from behind the barbecue with a platter of tacos in her hand. “Temo, aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friends?” she asked with a smile. “Temo, what is wrong? Are you sick?” “No, Madre,” Temo muttered, but he still couldn’t take his eyes off Dayna. Dayna’s mother, Brenda Regis, picked that exact moment to stride in from the spa. “Howdy, everybody,” she crooned. “Hope you’re all hungry as coyotes.” She glanced at her daughter, who was still gazing at Temo with lovesick eyes. “Dayna, what’s the matter with you, honey?” She looked Dayna up and down, then her eyes went to Temo, and then to Temo’s mother. The two women stiffened. Say something, Sophie prayed silently to Dayna. Order Temo around in that bossy voice of yours. Quick, before your mother and his mother figure this out. But Dayna stood stunned, incapable of speech. Sophie gave Liv a nudge. “Follow my lead,” she whispered and then in a louder voice shouted, “Hey, is this a good time to break the piñata?” She dived forward to snatch the long fork from Temo’s hand. “Whee!” she shouted. “Fun! Come on, everybody. Let’s see what’s inside!” She poked at the paper horse. Liv grabbed a barbecue brush and bashed at it too. Cheyenne and Hailey joined in with shouts of glee. The paper horse flew to pieces, scattering small objects and cactus candy all over the picnic table. Some fell into the punch bowl with a splash. More landed in the salad plate. Laughter and confusion broke the spell of tension in the air as they all dived for the piñata’s. Dayna snapped out of her trance. “Look what I’ve got!” She held up a plastic whistle, then blew a shrill note. “Time to eat, everybody.” Temo turned back to the barbecue. The spell was broken, the danger past. His mother, Marita, gave him another frightened glance, but went on laying food on the table. Dayna’s mother picked a piece of candy out of her hair and said, “Well! We usually break the piñata after the meal, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

I'm going to need some cactus-of-tongues. The shaman screwed up his eyes, making a hissing sound that expressed both shock and disapproval. It's very strong, he said, something to try once in a lifetime, maybe twice, and this would be the fourth or fifth time I've given you one; you might get lost on the trip. The huey tlatoani closed his eyes. The empire weighs on one's shoulders, he said, sometimes too heavy; help is needed. What do you want it for? My meeting is with the chief of the Caxtilteca. Who? Make it ready, that's an order: two pieces, no more. The shaman shrugged. You're the boss, he said, but don't say later that I didn't warn you.