Juniper & Crow

The essence of Life and Spirit is found in this eclectic land of stone and heat, thorn and spiral. Stories are contained in the watercolors of bone-dry canyons and dusty horizons... These words are a love letter for the vastness of wild land, the mercurial nature of desert creatures and the holy presence of Life transcending constraint.

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Aleah Sato

Aleah Sato

Aleah Sato is a woodswoman, a poet and a desert wanderer who practices Gaia love every day. An eclectic pagan of no particular path, she seeks to find meaning in the sacred earth and its wild creatures. A lover of symbolism, oracles and omens, she aspires to find answers in the small and deep meaning in the ordinary. Her totem is the elusive yet ever-curious fox.

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Greetings to all!

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   "to the seeds,
    to the beginnings; to one clear word for which
    there is no disguise and no alternative.”
    ~ Brackenbury

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She’s looking at herself in the bathroom mirror of a motel on Van Buren and 24th. Her friend is staying next door. It’s early and the sun creeps between the ripped curtains and missing blinds. A man is in the bed, another on the sofa. She hid a bottle last night and pulls it out from the pack she carried through various parts of town. Her hands are dry. Her mouth cracks. There is no water and the fan makes annoying sounds. Her head has hurt for two weeks. A few pills line her jean pocket. Lovers speak in muffled sighs and sentences she cannot fully make out. She can no longer look into her eyes, only at her hair, an eyebrow, the curve of her shoulder. The wrinkles are showing up in every inch of skin, a world map of miles she never intended to travel. There’s never enough time, yet all she has is time. Limitless time. Time like a knife killing minutes. She’s stopped wondering what happened. Now all she must do is move. There’s a word from the bed. She knows it’s time to go again.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Jamie
    Jamie says #
    Ms. Sato, Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. I've not seen the things you've seen, nor is my life probably very much
  • Aleah Sato
    Aleah Sato says #
    Thank you for your comment and for the work you do. It seems we are coming from similar perspectives and approaches, although perh
  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    Ah, I see, thank you for correcting my intial impression. Yes, giving addicts only one option is stupid if not abusive. As to yo
  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    Lol, that was supposed to read onward in the good fight, not good fit! :-)
  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    Hi, I like your piece a lot. There are many commonalities I share with it, but here are two. 1) My work as a shamanic guide help

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On to Something


I am the letter and you are the hot wax.
I am the needle and you, the dancing midget.
We stuff our mouths – breadcrumbs and magpies.

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On Wednesday, I placed a soft blanket on my lap.  I invited my cat to be comforted. His breath was labored. His body was clearly shutting down. The will to live is stronger than any other emotion or drive. He wanted to live. He was bewildered. He knew he was losing the battle. He collapsed on the blanket, took two long inhales and let out a long moan that was the end of his life. The sound of death is perhaps unlike any other. The sound of that sigh – I cannot describe. Poetry has no language here - my words utter only stupid rhetoric. To experience this is more than can be expressed, but I try. I try because it is vastly important to me to know what death is and to not hate life for its cruel finality. Right now, it is difficult to feel peace with this life. I struggle to understand why - despite the ache of the body and the deep, known suffering - the will to live is so strong. When he passed, it was not like some say, this ethereal light leaving. His eyes shone bright. His body, warm. It was my light that diminished. My eyes were those that shut, unwilling to see the end. I could not sense the sweat and blood, or hear the hum of awaiting insects near the dirt that would cover him.

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  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    Aleah, I am sorry to hear of your loss. I just lost my own kitty, and know how it feels. I also commend you for selflessly using y
  • Paola Suarez
    Paola Suarez says #
    It's been awhile since I've read something reminding me of my dearest Ginger's sigh as she died. How you can't really describe it
  • Lia Hunter
    Lia Hunter says #
    This was a beautiful meditation. I appreciate your experience and thank you for sharing it.
  • William Welsh
    William Welsh says #
    I also have walked a path very different but oh so similar to that of you, my sister Aleah. We must be strong and ever seeking the
  • Lizann Bassham
    Lizann Bassham says #
    Thank you so much for these beautiful and honest words.

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  • Lizann Bassham
    Lizann Bassham says #
    Beautifully written - my father's people lived in the small mining/logging communities in the Trinity Mountains of CA, having migr

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There is a subtle narrative that exists in the desert, where I meander through a series of washes that lead into canyons. I am nicely secluded, despite being in the middle of one of the West’s largest cities. Summertime in the Sonoran Desert is perfect for a solitary fox like me… I scurry and watch, quietly observing ripening tunas on prickly pear, and listen to the curve-billed thrasher chiming a sharp morning hello to fellow winged compadres. The air is hot, even at 4:30am. The breeze is close but discomforting in its stagnant hold of sand and baked stone. I take a seat on the granite, smoothed by monsoon water flow, and wait for a story to be told.

This is the wash where I have spent many hours. When I arrived in Phoenix in 2007, South Mountain Park, or Muhadag Do’ag, as the range is known by the O’odham nations, was my first taste of this unusual land of light and edge. I have met many wild companions during my solo hikes here. I have listened to the song of five coyotes as they created day from night – turning stars into saguaro blooms. This is the place I watched resident owls descent in twilight, swooping low from their granite and gneiss shelters and out onto the cityscape, into December’s near-chill nights.

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  • Aleah Sato
    Aleah Sato says #
    Thank you, Nancy. I am so pleased the post resonated with you.
  • Nancy Vedder-Shults
    Nancy Vedder-Shults says #
    Your prose brings the morning you describe alive with its incandescent hummingbird!

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