Stu Jenks is the photographer whose fiery spiral images have become forever associated with Mythic Journeys. He is also an accomplished musician and recording artist, as well as a very fine writer. (Click on the image below to view a full-sized version of the photo.)

"Jesus Christ"

My windshield is suddenly peppered with the sound of soft BBs. Bug juice is everywhere. A few hundred yards up Highway 86 West, I see a roadside picnic table and I pull over. As I get out with Windex and paper towels in hand, I now see what I drove through. Dozens of dead and dying bees are all over my windshield and front grill. I spray the windshield with Windex and wipe the carcasses and bee sludge away. Killer bees. They've been here a few years now. In my 20 plus years of living and driving in the Sonoran Desert, I've never driven through a swarm of Killer Bees before. After cleaning the windshield, I look toward the telescopes on Kitt Peak to the south and wonder if this is a good sign or a bad sign or any sign at all.

I tend to be a little superstitious but today I'm more so.

It's Good Friday and I'm going to the cave where God lives.

Another fifteen minutes on Highway 86 West and I'm at Sells, Arizona, the tribal capital of the Tohono O'Odham Indian Nation. Sells reminds me, in a microcosmic way, of Atlanta in the 70's when all of the highways in that Southern city seemed to be in a constant state of repair, creation and re- creation. Sells is that way but smaller. I only make it to Downtown Sells about once every couple of years but every time I'm there, they always seem to be tearing up the streets, putting in new gutters, laying down new pavement, taking the road down to the dirt or replacing a sewer conduit. Today, it's a sewer conduit repair, closing three blocks of downtown with no workers in sight. Actually no one in sight. Again, it is Good Friday.

Tohono O'Odham religion is an odd and beautiful mix of Christian devotion and Tohono mysticism. The T.O.s go to their local Roman Catholic Church and pray for the forgiveness of their sins, but they are also aware that I'Itoi is not far away, living in a cave just below Baboquivari Peak. I'Itoi, Elder brother, it is said, led the Tohono O'Odham into this world from the Underworld, and now resides in a cave just South of here. It is also said that you can enter the cave and visit with I'Itoi, but you must bring a gift. If you do not bring a gift, you may not find your way out of the cave.

I have a gift with me today.

I turn left on the tribal road heading south that goes through the little village of Topawa, where the new high school is, Baboquivari High, home of the Warriors. A bit after the high school, I take a left onto a long dirt road that goes to a campground and a couple of trail heads. In bumpiness and general rattle producing, this dirt road rivals some of the worst roads in Utah I've been on. A jeep trail is almost better than this road, with its grapefruit sized rocks and its deep wash board texture. Fast or slow, 4 x 4 or sedan, it doesn't matter. You're going to be beat up.

After a half hour, I'm at the old picnic area that is at the base of the foothills of the Baboquivaris. I'm alone. As I'm parking my truck I notice something white on one of the concrete picnics. After pulling the emergency brake and shutting down the Pathfinder, I walk over to the table and find two large cow bones; one, part of a femur and the other, a thoracic vertebrate with very long transverse processes. Both are completely bleached white and clean. I pick up the vertebrate and consider taking it to my truck and then reconsider. Maybe after I've come back from I'Itoi's Cave, I'll take the bone. Maybe not.

The trailhead is just where Michael said it would be, when I talked with him last weekend at a small art opening of mine at Endicott West Art Foundation. I begin my hike up, with just a large Nalgene bottle of water and my Kodak Brownie Starflash slung over my shoulder. After hiking on this trail for a few hundred yards, I become aware that this is unlike any trail I've ever been on. No U.S. Park or Forest Service trail here. Those government trails are built with numerous gentle switch backs so overweight middle aged people can hike up a mountain on a Saturday morning. This trail goes pretty much straight up, using the natural contours of the hill to create its shape. There are switch backs but they are steep and created from necessity nor comfort. The path is narrow, one person wide, not two or three, for this isn't a trail for tourists or hikers. This is a trail created by the Devout. Those who are seeking an audience with God.

The rains have been heavy this Spring, the result being more Mexican poppies and other wildflowers covering the hills and mountains than in many a year. Here they are so thick that my shorts quickly become stained with yellow poppy powder, as I brush through them. The saguaros are plump, unusual for this time of year. I pop a quick panorama with the Brownie and then continue my hike up this narrow winding path. I wonder how far until the Cave? It really doesn't matter, I think to myself. Be it long or short, I'm going the distance today.

An hour goes by. Still going up. Then suddenly I notice a primitive stone wall laid near the base of the sheer face of the mountain. The trail splits then comes back. An old mesquite tree hugs the mountain, and then I see it. A slit in the mountain. A cut of blackness in the reddish rock. All the little trails are leading to this slit. I unsling my camera and hang it from a branch of the old mesquite. I check my pocket. The gift is there. I walk toward the entrance of the cave, place my hands on either side of the slit and look inside.

[No one will ever say that boundaries are my middle name. I've been known to interrupt people when they are speaking, and reveal more about my feelings and thoughts than is perhaps appropriate. I tend to be naïve and treat acquaintances as friends, saying more than I should. Just read about any of these Circle Stories and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about. But occasionally I get a clue. Occasionally, I keep my mouth shut. This is one of those times. Sure, I could tell you about my experience in I'Itoi's cave, about what I saw, heard and felt there, about the journey in and the journey out, but I won't. As a friend Byron once said, "Be careful not to give away the gold." Plus too often these days, folk believe that the map is the territory. Believing that, let's say, a film of the Gobi Desert gives you the experience of the Gobi, which it doesn't. It gives you an experience of a film about the Gobi Desert, not the desert itself. Also, for me to describe what it's like in I'Itoi's cave will rob you of your own experience if and when you come here. From this story, you can figure out how to get here. But I ain't telling what went on in there. You're just going to have to come and see for yourself. Or not. But remember. If you decide to come and visit, bring a gift.]

I sit for a good long while on a large rock near the cave's entrance after my visit inside. I drink some water, have a smoke, and look out at the wide Baboquivari Valley below. I also look closer at the large boulder I'm sitting on. There are many worn and smooth areas here and there on this stone. A lot of people have sat on this boulder, I think to myself. Beyond count. I finish my smoke, field dress the butt, drink a splash more water and begin to head down the trail.

Even though I have few words for it, I feel changed. Sturdier but somehow lighter, like a beam of light has broken me gently apart in a healing way. Difficult to find words. Joseph Campbell once said something to the effect that there are three types of things: Things we can talk about, things we talk about that we have no words for, but try and talk about them anyways, and then there are those things we don't even try and talk about, for words are useless.

This is one of those no-talking times.

I take it slow coming down the mountain, saying nothing.

The road out was like the road in, slow, and bumpy, but this time I have Byron Metcalf's new work, "The Shaman's Heart" playing on the truck's CD player. Buffalo skin drums, raven's calls, bear rattles, ambient synthesizer winds. The inner lightness grows. I'm a little sleepy.

I reach the pavement and turn toward Sells. After only a few miles, I'm in Topawa when suddenly off to my right, I notice rows of wooden crosses brightly lit by the setting sun. It's the Magic Hour, the last hour of light before the sun sets. I drive past the graveyard, do a quick Bat Turn and head back toward the crosses. It reminds me of that old Ansel Adams' shot, "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico". Story goes he had very little time to take the shot, took one negative and wondered for days if he had the image. I look at the sun. I've got about 20 minutes I'm guessing. I don't dally.

At the eastern end of the cemetery is a car and two or three T.Os. It appears they have been tending to someone's grave and they look to be slowly walking back to their car. I park far away on the west end so as not to disturb them, grab my Brownie and head toward the row of crosses I saw from the road. The wind is blowing hard now. The sun is setting fast. I don't waste any time.

I spend a couple minutes looking at a few select graves here and there. Old wooden crosses with just a name. A new granite headstone with a basketball etched in the stone. The gymnasium of Baboquivari High is not far away. I smile and then turn toward the East and the large field of crosses. The three T.O.s are gone. The sun is going, just a few minutes more before it sets behind the Ajo Mountains to the West. I compose a triptych, not taking any shots, just setting it up. I look at the white crosses through the small Kodak viewfinder. It being Good Friday isn't lost on me. As I compose, I can see the dome of Baboquivari Peak to the East, and off to the North, I can see the lower ridge where God lives, where I'Itoi resides. I smile and breathe in the wind. I see my long shadow in the frame. I decide to leave it in, work it into the composition. I have no choice really if I'm going to get this angle. I usually work hard to not have me in my photographs. Today, I'm allowing me in.

The wind continues to blow. The sun's going down fast. I raise my camera to my eye and pop three exposures to form a triptych. I fire off three more and finish up the roll. I crank the roll of Black and White 127 film past the red circular film counter, watching the black and red arrows go by and then leave altogether. I look up and give quiet thanks.

To the white crosses in front of me. To Baboquivari Peak in the distance.

To God in his cave.

[Postscript: No Killer Bees on the way home that night, but a rather nice Full Moon Rise over the Tucson Mountains instead. And on my kitchen counter now, sits a large bleach-white Bovine vertebrate with its long transverse processes. Like flying cow wings. Like the horizonal part of a cross.]

Copyright © 2005, Stu Jenks and used with permission

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