I’ll tell ya, friends: Few things in life are as profound as a strong sense of place. Nothing compares to possessing intimate knowledge of a specific spot on this Earth, a piece of the world that is yours, which belongs to you and, deeper still, to which you belong.
Who I am was formed here, in the land of the saguaro.
Here is my territory.
Here is my country.
Here is my patria.
Easy for me: wings. I cannot abide even the smell of them.
Now, if you were to remove wings from that list and replace it with saguaro fruit…now I’ve got a problem.
Listening to Parsifal in the night as I’ve often done for decades, it seems clear to me that whatever the man Wagner was, the artist Wagner was somehow in touch with the Divine. Blake said Milton was of the Devil’s party without knowing it. Maybe Wagner was in league with Heaven.