yerba santa

chia: Salvia columbariae

native vine

shooting star

wild onion

indian lettuce

chocolate lily

peony heaven

the alarm rings at 5:20. i get up, dress, pack my camera in the car, and head out to pauma valley to meet rose at the coffee shop on the 76. we had agreed to meet at 6:15. we were anxious to arrive at peony heaven, on the 78 east of ramona, before the sun rose. we had been to the site four days earlier, but the winds were too strong to photograph, and the sun was already to high in the sky, washing out all the details we hoped to capture in this most elusive of blooms. the peony flower is small, secretive, nodding. To photograph the flower, it's necessary to get down on the ground, to prostrate yourself before it. The tripod has to be prostrate as well, with the center post removed and the tripod legs completely flattened. the area we call peony heaven burned in the witch fires in october, 2007. now the peonies are prolific, more so than i've ever seen before. in one area, the wild cucumber is climbing over the peonies, but for the most part, the plants are colonizing the area by themselves. rose and i brought towels to lay down upon, because the ground is full of ash. after awhile, i forget the towel, so i'm laying directly on the ashen soil. i tell rose later how much i enjoy this. i feel as if i'm 6 again, playing in the dirt.

the peony makes us work for the photos. this is no crayola orange poppy flaunting its saturated color, or parry's phacelia blinding our eyes with its intensely deep blues. The wine colored petals of the peony curve inward, protecting and hiding the large pistels and stamens from the casual gaze of a biped. the lizard position is necessary . . .

poppies

"Humans are creatures in search of exultation," Ellen Meloy writes. Exultation = the Lake Elsinore poppy fields. Saturday. Cold. Misty rain. Windy . . . Less than ideal conditions to photograph fields of Eschscholzia californica. Fields of glorious unopened poppies. Poppies that at 6:15 am don't put us to sleep but whose neon orange jolts us wide awake. Rose, Joe and I are in search of exultation in the form of wildflowers, masses of them. Yesterday, on a reconnaissance mission, we had found canterbury bells (Phacelia campanularia) off the I-15 on Main Street exit, yellow fiddlenecks and canterbury bells on the Nichols exit, and poppies, thousands of poppies, on Lake Street. Today, we're positioned to photograph as the sun comes up over the mountains in the east. Full sun had been predicted, but it's inordinately cloudy, Through my macro lens, I photograph the dew as it clings to the poppies. The hour of the wolf is the time before sunrise when bird song stimulates plants to drink morning dew. The hour of the wolf is also the time when we should be sipping our lattes (this is southern California). We're wet and cold, but we photograph the poppies for over an hour.
I'm smitten by one blue dicks, aka wild hyacinth, growing in the midst of the poppies. We discuss the next time we'll come back, when the conditions will be ideal. For wildflower addicts, there's always a next time, another exultation.

On the west side of the I-15, we find El Comal, a small Salvadoran restaurant with pupusas stuffed with cheese and squash and beans. I tell Rose and Joe how I travelled to El Salvador 24 years ago in 1984 to attend a conference sponsored by Co-Madres, Mothers of the Disappeared. The desaparecidos were labor leaders, peasant organizers, student demonstrators, human rights activists, anyone with a progressive agenda who defied the U.S. trained military/paramilitary and the U.S. supported government in power. Anyone who defied our sphere of influence, our vital interests, our investment climate, our national security . . . Humans are creatures in search of human rights, social justice, life without death squads or state-sanctioned torture.

In search of a life with pupusas and wildflower fields, morning dew and exultation.