Joshua Tree

The Joshua Tree Forest: A Tale of Resilience in the Desert

Unusual plants grow in this park; they are called Joshua Trees. This National Park is in a desert land, sculpted by strong winds and occasional torrents of rain. Whenever I visit this place, which is only a 2-3 hours’ drive from Los Angeles, I think of the depth these desert trees’ roots must go into the ground to draw out some water. And how the silence between the rocks and the sky deepens my own roots into the wellspring of life. Joshua tree forests tell a story of survival, resilience, and beauty borne through perseverance.

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

2022: Living Inside a Piece of Art: Robert Stone’s Acido Dorado House in Joshua Tree

We spent a weekend with friends at the Acido Dorado house in Joshua Tree, designed by the architect Robert Stone. It’s a minimalist two-bedroom house with ample space. The gold color is dominant yet not overwhelming; it blends perfectly with the surrounding desert. The house boasts a variety of mirrored surfaces, including sliding doors, a tiled ceiling, a dining room table, and a coffee table, creating a unique and artistic living experience. I had the rare sensation of living inside a piece of art. It reminiscent of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room.

Gold is a color that carries many connotations, some uplifting, others downgrading. Many of them are culturally related and thus differ from culture to culture. Some art observers perceive gold color as low culture. Robert Stone says, “The only people that care about distinctions between high and low culture aren’t interested in beauty or truth anyway.”

It was a perfect location to observe the cosmic wonder as the earth’s shadow covered the moon.

Cosmic wonder as Earth’s shadow covers the moon.

2021: Exploring the Beauty of Joshua Tree National Park in the Cold December Days

“Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.” – Erol Ozan

It’s so easy to take the other path when the days are short and cold, hunker down, and not venture out. In December, the park’s temperature is cold, and the sky’s color is exceptional, which gives the visiting experience a sense of a particular intensity. The park is heaven for photography.

The sky is stunning; I dare say, at times, even more than the moon-like imagery of the boulders. The rocks look as if they were piled up one on top of the other like in child’s play, but in reality, they were carved by wind and water very patiently over millions of years. In my mind, the spiky trees conjure up the nude drawings of Egon Schiele, the Austrian painter, or maybe, Danna would say, a page from a Dr. Seuss book.

It’s a relatively short drive from our house in Los Angeles, only 2-3 hours. The park is a mecca for rock climbers, but I no longer possess the need to climb on top of each boulder. Much of the beauty can be easily seen without leaving the car, but short hikes give the experience a different perspective. The Split Rock and Hidden Valley hikes and a stop at the Cholla Cactus Garden are not to be missed.

We listened to Benjamin Labtut’s book: “When We Cease to Understand the World.” The name says a lot of what the book is about, but it’s much more than that. It was surreal to listen to it while driving through the park.

2020: The Joshua Tree: Symbol of Faith and Hope Amid the Dry and Barren Desert

Yucca Brevifolia, commonly known as the Joshua tree, is a large, slow-growing tree belonging to the Yucca genus. It grows only in the Mojave Desert of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. The Joshua tree, which grows in fiercely adverse conditions, was seen by U2 as a symbol of faith and hope amid the dry and barren desert. The tree was named, by early Mormon settlers, after the Old Testament prophet Joshua, as its branches reminded them of Joshua raising his arms to pray.

The song With or Without You from U2’s album The Joshua Tree brings forth spiritual longing, desire, soaring falsetto vocals, and ridiculous amounts of reverberating guitar effects. The lyrics are simple but evocative. Some considered it the bend’s most beautiful ballad. 

With or Without You

See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you
Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails, she makes me wait
And I wait without you

With or without you
With or without you

Through the storm, we reach the shore
You give it all, but I want more
And I’m waiting for you

With or without you
With or without you, ah, ah
I can’t live
With or without you

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

My hands are tied
My body bruised, she’s got me with
Nothing to win and
Nothing left to lose

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

With or without you
With or without you, oh
I can’t live
With or without you
Oh, oh
Oh, oh

With or without you
With or without you, oh
I can’t live
With or without you

With or without you

2019: The Symbolism of the Joshua Tree in U2’s Album “The Joshua Tree”

“Be strong and of a good courage: for unto these people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I swear unto their fathers to give them.” Joshua 1:6-9 King James Version (KJV)

The gap between the ideal of the so-called Promised Land and the real America is one of the driving forces behind the most critically acclaimed of U2 albums, The Joshua Tree. The album’s essence is shaped around the band’s musical exploration of American and Irish folk roots. Throughout the album, we are confronted with the desolation of a deserted, immense, timeless landscape. And with a nation of progress and oppressors in a place where dreams and violence co-exist. The desert’s physical desolation is also related to the desert of the soul and the desert of ‘our love,’ which finds its restoration in the spiritual triumph of a small solitary tree, itself lost in the vastness of hostile territory. This tree can survive very harsh conditions. It can live without water. Its branches cry for hope, reaching out like a form of prayer. No other U2 album is as politically and spiritually dense as The Joshua Tree.

The desert is the leitmotif of the whole album. Following a 1985 trip to Ethiopia, Bono explained that witnessing people living in poverty with such a strong spirit made him realize that “they may have a physical desert, but we’ve got other kinds of deserts.”  He was attracted to the desert idea as a symbol, evoking the American landscape’s openness and brutality and the pervading contemporary spiritual drought. ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ may be interpreted as a spiritual quest.

2017: Why is the Joshua Tree Called the Joshua Tree?

The Joshua tree’s upraised branches impressed Mormon pioneers who crossed the Mojave Desert in the 1850s. The tree reminded them of a Biblical story in which Joshua, who led the Israelites into the Promised Land, reached his hands up to the sky in prayer. The Mormons coined the tree’s name, and it stuck, unlike other less intriguing Joshua tree names: Cabbage Tree, Spanish Bayonet Tree, Yucca Palm, Yucca Tree, or Tree Lily.

How Do Joshua Trees Contribute to the Mojave Desert Ecosystem?

Joshua trees are essential to the Mojave Desert ecosystems, providing food and habitat for many other living things. Dozens of bird species nest in the Joshua tree, and the desert night lizard lives in the trees’ fallen branches. Numerous animals feed on Joshua tree flowers, fruit, and seeds.

What Geologic Processes Created the Iconic Boulders in Joshua Tree National Park?

Massive rock piles cover the park’s landscape. They are arranged in such a way that it seems more like intentional art than natural erosion. These unusual rock formations were created by billions of years of heating and cooling in the earth’s crust, earthquakes, and wind and water erosion. This short-animated video illustrates the complex geologic processes that created the park’s iconic boulders.