Deep in the heart of the Sonoran Desert lies an oasis of ebony mountains, golden poppies, stately saguaros and the organ pipe cactus, "a prickly octopus turned on its head."
A terrain where one learns to pay attention to the details: the tracks of a sidewinder in the sand, the tiny eggs of a cactus wren, the flash of a vermilion flycatcher against the azure sky.
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument lies in southwestern Arizona on the Mexican border. It is an isolated park that for Carol Ann Bassett has long been a place of solitude a silent refuge where she often camped out...

Drawing on her wide-ranging travels, from the Canadian Arctic to southern Chile, and from the Kalahari to the deserts of the American Southwest, Carol Ann Bassett takes readers on an intimate journey into the communities, ceremonies, and lives of traditional peoples struggling to survive in the face of rapid change.