IN THE LAND OF THE SUN,

IN THE LAND OF THE SUN, THE SUN

A yowling knob of hellish fire drifts untethered in blueblack space. So solitary is this immense lump of boiling flames that it gives light and warmth only to itself and to the few poor droplets of its own cooled flesh whirling near.

In the snarling, rumbling center of this blistering ball of flaming gas, nearly half a million miles deep beneath its surface, 4.7 tons of matter are converted into energy each second. Cobbled with imperfections, raked by surface winds of more than a thousand miles an hour, pimpled with cold black spots more than thirty thousand miles across and whiskered with prominences that tendril two hundred thousand miles into the indifferent void surrounding it, this great furnace has been devouring itself with horrid violence for over a billion years.

It is a star, one of ten billion like it in our galaxy; it is the one we call the Sun, its mass 332,000 times that of Earth, and at a distance from Earth of 92,900,000 miles. It is an ordinary star, a minor star. At its raging heart the temperature is 35,000 degrees fahrenheit, at its seething surface 11,000 degrees. As a luminous celestial body of light, it has a linear diameter of 864,000 miles. At the Earth, the solar energy is about one and a half horsepower per square yard, and, yet, of the sun's tremendous energy output, the Earth receives but one twobillionths. For the next twenty-five million generations, as it exhausts its two million million million tons of matter, the sun will continue as the source of energy, of all life on earth, the core and center of our galactic system.

IS KING

Man has never seen the sun as it appears in absolute space, but he early understood that his survival was at the sufferance of this hotly staring cosmic eye. At first he invested the sun's power with motive and called it god. Shamash, Ra, Helios, Bog, Amaterasu, Frey, Rama Chandra, Ipalnemohualni - the sun diety wore a thousand names as countless populations begged for forbearance from its evident but unfathomable influence over their lives.

The Chinese early recorded the sun's regularity and could predict eclipses, but it was the irreverent Greeks who secularized the sun in earnest. Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Philolaus, Heraclitus of Pontus and Hipparchus of Rhodes had correctly defined the nature and relationships of the sun, The stars and the planets a century before Christ, and in the twenty centuries following astronomers from every western nation accumulated whole libraries of information about the sun. With each new fact painstakingly gathered and confirmed, the sun was stripped of a little more of its mystery. By the end of the 19th century the civilized world had lost its awe of the sun.

Yet there remain regions on our spinning clod of mud where the sun is not so easily dismissed as just a natural phenomenon of great magnitude. Arizona is one such place. Here the sun, if no longer a god, is still the King, advancing in its daily progress with the pomp, pageantry and power of an absolute monarch.

NOTES FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

PHOTOGRAPHER DAVID MUENCH, CHASING THE SUN WITH HIS CAMERA, ASKS US TO JOIN HIM IN HIS CHASE FOR WHAT WE THINK ARE THE UNUSUAL AND OUTSTANDING PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE FOLLOWING COLOR PORTFOLIO.

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS WERE TAKEN WITH A 4x5 LINHOF CAMERA, IN WHICH HE USED EKTACHROME E3 FILM. OTHER "SHOOTING" INFORMATION ACCOMPANIES EACH PHOTOGRAPHER'S NOTE. THE SUN PROVES A NOBLE SUBJECT!

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"MARKINGS OF TIME AND WEATHER" Monument Valley ripples of time on south exposure of Sand Springs Dune, only a few hundred feet from much photographed sheep crossing at Sand Springs itself. Excitement of late sun skimming across blown sands lends a delineated pattern sometimes leaving an almost blurred image if viewed too long. The intangible quality is broken only by a lone salt bush and the delicate print of a passing bird's visit. As winds will prevail toward sundown, a steady camera hand is quite often needed to photograph during those late and early moments of rich color and design. f.25 at 1/25th sec.; 8" Zeiss Tessar lens; October; date afternoon, just before sundown; meter reading 13+.

Accent of yellow in Black Canyon scene. f.28 at 1/25th sec.; 5" Schneider Symmar lens; April; mid-morning light; meter reading 14.

"LET THERE BE LIGHT AND THERE WAS LIGHT" Scene made along southwestern shores of Canyon Lake, along Arizona 88 (Apache Trail). Quiet scene brought such a contemplative mood, windstill, reflective, deeply saturated tones seem to bring together the past and future into a precious moment of nothingness. The swooping motion of a motor boat soon broke the spell. f.28 at 1/25th sec.; 4" Wide Field Ektar lens; April; brilliant side light absorbed in saturated quality of scene; meter reading 14-.

FOLLOWING PAGES

"PATTERNS OF THE HIGH PLATEAU DESERT" Scene of desert plateau pattern was made on drive in Monument Valley to North Window looking west to Three Sisters at base of Elephant Rock. Dry run thunderstorms finally relented to a balmy, glowing burst of sunlight toward sunset. Here sun highlights tender growth of desert-plateau brush. Gathering sands lend a background of simplicity to light staccato on the bushes. f.34 at 1/10th sec.; 5" Schneider Symmar lens; August; late afternoon; overcast; meter reading 14-.

"CHOLLAS AND DANCING SUNBEAMS" Teddy Bear (Jump-ing Cactus) scene made along (just off) Ajo Mountain drive in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Puerto Blanco Mountains in distance. Sun forms "rim light" on delightfully formidable Teddy Bear colony. There is always the fascination of propulsion in the Teddy Bear; how-ever, it is you that jumps when in contact with a stem. Cylindropuntia Bigelovii. f.34 at 1/50 sec.; 8" Zeiss Tessar lens; August; brilliant against light; meter reading 15+.

"RISING SUN BRINGS LIGHT TO MONUMENT VALLEY" Monument Valley sunrise view of Left Mitten was made from camp-ground at Tribal Park Headquarters. Brilliant confrontation with sun at sunrise can be a rewarding experience photographically. However, precautions are in order. Direct viewing into the sun can be harmful to the eyes don't stare! Accurate recordings of the rapidly changing moods can only be haphazardly guessed at as light meter readings vary so quickly as to leave out exacting studies. Some bracketing and the touch of luck are a good potent for satisfying results. G-4 filter used primarily in black and white photography amplifies a rising heat on the plateau. f.25 at 1/100th sec.; 15" Apo Ronar Rodenstock lens; August; sunrise very brilliant; meter reading 16+.

"THE BRILLIANT SKY OF THE SETTING SUN" Scene made in Joshua Forest just off U.S. 93 to Signal (junction ten miles south of Wikieup) in Mohave County. Stratus clouds flow across blazing sun in image of silhouetted arms of the "praying plant" a personally most profound scene of the desert. You truly may not know the desert until bearing witness to one of these dramatic performances. Yucca brevifolia. Sunset glow is again contained in a sea of saturated blues and congealing cloud layers. f.32 at 1/100th sec.; 15" Apo Ronar Rodenstock lens; August; brilliant sunset; meter reading 16+ "AUGUST SUN BESPEAKS A HOT DAY" Summer sunrise taken south of Sand Springs Dune massif east through Yebechai Rock formations. Monument Valley's 1000 foot Totem Pole on left. Stratus formation of clouds made this image most unpredictable to capture on film. Four or five rapid fire exposures finally turned out the low saturation in moods desired sun is contained, with under-exposure, to a respectable image in perspective to the scene. f.16 at 1/100th sec.; 15" Apo Ronar Rodenstock lens; August; brilliant sunrise; meter reading 16.

"DAY'S END AT SAN XAVIER MISSION" From the grounds of historic Mission San Xavier del Bac near Tucson. Exquisite "Dove of the Desert" sets a peaceful scene below a most salient mood of the desert in summer. Blazing sun makes a brief appearance through aperture in passing of majestic thunderstorms to the west. f.22 at 1/50th sec.; 15" Apo Ronar Rodenstock lens; August; brilliant sunglow between saturated cloud layers; meter reading 16.

"A GLOWING DESERT TORCH" Twins photographed along old "66" on the western flank of the Black Mountains just below Sitgreaves Pass, Mohave County. Canyon leads west to Colorado River. Rugged, serrated ridges lend rich blacks to set off highlighted blooms of the Noling Bigelovii. The "absence" of sunlight is an ever present "must" to delineate its great power in forming the landscape for the eye. f.25 at 1/50th sec.; 5" Schneider Symmar lens; August; brilliant against deep blacks; late afternoon; meter reading 14+

CENTER PANEL

"BRIGHT SPRING DAY AT WILLOW BEACH" Lake Mohave scene over rabbitbrush taken along beach front at Willow Beach landing and Marina. Well scattered winter rains have lent this brilliant "SUNRISE IN THE RED CLIFFS" This first snow-view of Oak Creek Canyon's red cliffs was made from along Schnebly Hill Road on the outskirts of Sedona. How rich the reward to come upon the aftermath of a night's snow at sunrise calm air prevails the sun for a quick instant lays bare the storm's full glory of white soon to vanish under the building warmth. f.18 at 1/25th sec.; 8" Zeiss Tessar lens; late November; low key winter-like saturation; meter reading 12+.

"THE SUN GUIDES THE SHEEP HOME" Monument Valley again the scene is on the Sand Springs Dunes area. Sheep and goats of a Navajo herd send shadow-spears ahead for a first quick drink. The late sun plays fascinating games with unsuspecting objects in its relentless path across the zenith. A sandstone monolith rises with great weight against "El Sol" seemingly into obscurity almost, but rarely, is there a lack of reflective light. f.25 at 1/100th sec.; 8" Zeiss Tessar lens; October; late afternoon; brilliant light; meter reading 15+.

NOTES FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS . . . Continued from page twelve

"SUN HAS THE LAST SAY ON STORMY DAY AT GRAND FALLS" Grand Falls is the termination of a well marked road nine miles off the Flagstaff-Leupp road in Coconino County. The sun's ego in its full glory a white puff of cloud a drop of rain - a few more soon a stream then a finale of madly dashing, roaring river of mud and debris all culminate in this phenomena that is Grand Falls truly a "Niagara of the Desert." The occasion is of short duration as Little Colorado usually runs little water. One photograph of this boisterous excitement is devastating on camera equipment taking a good portion of the day to cleanse the unique "mud-mist" from every exposed element. f.14.5 at 1/100th sec.; 4" Wide Field Ektar lens; August; contrasty light.

"SUN SAYS FAREWELL UNTIL TOMORROW - HAWLEY LAKE" Hawley Lake is a well-known White Mountain resort summer retreat area south of Arizona 73. Sunset image is across lake from its northeastern shores. Scintillating points of light gather in narrow shaft of light blending in stature with the noble Western Yellow Pine. Autumn winds prevail on into the dusk with intensity during this season of transition despite the brilliant parting of the sun, the mood calmness persists. f.20 at 1/100th sec.; 15" Apo Ronar Rodenstock lens; late October; slightly diffused for a sunset mood; meter reading 15-.

"SETTING SUN IN SAGUAROLAND" These saguaros are a part of younger saguaro community found in Saguaro National Monument western section in mountains. Sunset image made a few hundred yards from Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The sun makes brief trespass on a desert summer evening all day storms wallow in moisture laden air, intensifying with each moment. Then, as if from a preset signal, diminish and pull up reins into a canopy of stratus clouds. Saguaros stretch their design. f.28 at 1/100th sec.; 15" Apo Ronar Rodenstock lens; August; brilliant sunset against dark blacks; meter reading 16-.

"EARLY MORNING SUN ILLUMINATES ASPEN BANNERS" View along forest roadway leading into San Francisco Peaks amphitheatre. Agassiz Peak above. Autumn's glowing transition begins early at the upper levels of the San Francisco Peaks. The sun has nurtured these quakies in its daily rendezvous since its vernal equinox. Now a final flush of orange terminates in another cycle in Nature's color spectacle. f.22 at 1/50th sec.; 8" Zeiss Tessar lens; October morning; brilliant contrast; meter reading 14.

"SUNRISE AFTER A DESERT SNOW STORM" This community of Mohave Yuccas are on the flank of Cerbat Mountains in Detrital Valley off U.S. 93-466, the Kingman to Las Vegas road. A winter's gentle carpet invades the desert flats normally held fast by the sun. The quiet interlude is short, for the first warm touch of sunlight quickly melts away the snow. f.25 at 1/200th sec.; 5" Schneider Symmar lens; December morning; extremely brilliant; meter reading 16+.

"NATURE'S QUIET WORLD OF SNOW, SUN, SILENCE" Another view taken in Detrital Valley in Mohave County. A driving winter night storm leaves a peaceful transformation on this scene. The sun is making a rapid entrance. f.32 at 1/5th sec.; 15" Apo Ronar Rodenstock lens; December sunrise; quite dim; meter reading 12-.

"ANOTHER DAY IN A MILLION YEARS GRAND CANYON" Sunburst image made from Hopi Point, South Rim of Grand Canyon, looking west. "Man" is so dwarfed in these depths. Time and space unravel from a matrix, displaying hundreds of millions of years in Nature's handiwork. f.25 at 1/200th sec.; 5" Schneider Symmar lens; August afternoon; extremely brilliant; meter reading 16+.

"LIGHT AND SHADOW IN CANYON DEPTHS" This canyon image made along Virgin River in Temple of Sinawava (end of canyon drive) Zion National Park, Utah. Sudden brilliance strikes the dark and saturated scene rustling leaves in its quick passing. The low waters make for easy wading. Here is a place to just sit and contemplate the changing scene. f.18 at 1/50th sec.; 5" Schneider Symmar lens; dark saturation with bright accent of trees; meter reading 13+.

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"DEEP IN THE SUNLIT FOREST" Scene of Western Yellow Pines taken along Alt. U.S. 89 in Oak Creek Canyon where the highway begins climb to Flagstaff. The sun penetrates the quiet interior of the forest with the hand of the sculptor drawing the form and drawing a pungent scent from needles, branch and trunk where showers have shortly passed before. A truly fragrant image! f.28 at 1/25th sec.; 8" Zeiss Tessar lens; August; contrasting; meter reading 14APRIL The greens of April Blow over the desert And cling To the cactus and sand; The stark ocotillos now fling Little fires to the sunshine And gaunt Palo Verde Turns flaunting and yellow With spring. Sylvia Lewis Kinney

LAND OF THE SUN from page 11

Sunrise marks its first flourishing entrance upon the land. In Monument Valley early risers blink as they watch the sun reach up to pierce the knobbled fissures of the Yebechai Rocks with solid sabers of streaming light. And the sun itself explodes through the sandstone barricades and springs into the early morning sky. On the hillsides sheep tiptoe daintily to be met by dogs that chivy them back to their bands. A few nervous baa-baa-baas and the valley is awake, as calm as before, except that Navajo herdsmen now are stirring themselves in the cool light.

Not far away, campers at the Tribal Park Headquarters at the entrance to the Valley are stunned awake by the shattering impact of the sun's light splattering between the sandstone pillars called the Mittens. As long shadows slip smoothly down the fiery red walls of exposed cliffs the sound of rattling crockery drifts from a dozen camps and the aroma of freshbrewed coffee gives body to the morning breeze. At Goulding's Lodge the dogs come awake first, grumbling and snuffling as the sun leaps suddenly into sight. A parade of towering stone monoliths, as if on signal, trail out long black shadow capes behind them from the nibbling light unleashed.

More than one hundred fifty miles to the west and south of Monument Valley, at Grand Canyon, the autumn sun rises into a peach-pink and rose-yellow sky like a lemon-colored marble, cold and brittle as glass. Light enters gingerly into the hushed and windless depths of the canyon, like an old man getting into a cold bath. The sun will have its way when the spires and minarets of the canyon walls splash the plunging light of the risen sun into a spray of vivid color, but at sunrise the light is frail and paltry against this abysmal seam splitting the earth's skin.

At the far southern edge of Arizona the sun lunges up from behind the Ajo Mountain peaks to hurl its sharp light vainly after the retreating shadows racing for safety to the lee slopes. There they cling beneath rocks, scuttle into crevices and secrete themselves to cower as the sun marches past overhead. The freshly risen sun bloodies the sides of ancient Sunset Crater, silhouettes the Wukoki Ruin in Wupatki National Monument as a fantastic desert shipwreck, forever battered by solid waves of jumbled sandstone, and filters through a shimmering sieve of leaves to gleam in the quiet pools and bask on the water-smoothed rocks of Oak Creek Canyon.

With the possible exception of mining, the sun's presence has prompted most of Arizona's phenomenal economic growth in the last century. It is the uninterrupted sunlight that permits from six to eight harvests of certain crops in several localities of the state and three to four in others. It is this sunlight that nourishes thirty varieties of vegetables, twenty kinds of fruit, and feed and seed crops as well as cotton, which is the principal crop grown in the state. Agriculture and livestock account for substantially more than a half billion dollars annually in the Arizona economy. ($567,900,000 in 1966.) Surprising, perhaps, to the stranger, is the fact that the major source of revenue to the state's economy is manufacturing. Even more surprising is the sun's part in the growth of this activity. For decades, growing numbers of skilled, able men and women have deserted the deep-wintered east and midwest for the sun drenched Arizona landscape, creating as a side-effect a large reservoir of labor in the state. To expanding industry looking for new site locations, this surplus labor pool has been an attractive inducement to locate in Arizona, and many have done so, and are still doing so. Manufacturing accounted for $450,000,000 in income in 1956. Ten years later the figure was $1,350,000,000.

The sun has risen over Arizona, and everywhere life responds. A hundred yards from the Kaibab Trail, in Grand Canyon, a rock squirrel emerges from his burrow, scampers in short bursts to the spike-leafed base of a century plant, pauses for one long frozen moment, then leaps for the stalk rising up from the center. Clutching it as it sways under the impact of his leap, the squirrel gnaws at the juicy stem. From a nearby promontory the twitching of that single stem in a forest of stationary plumes catches the attention of a gray fox, and he pads off toward it with apparent unconcern. When the squirrel fells the succulent stem and jumps down to drag it away, he becomes breakfast for the fox. In the flat, desert land around remote Palm Canyon in the Kofa Mountains, tarantulas have waited tensed near their holes all night for the maddening touch of an unwary insect. Dimly they perceive the sun through their eight blind eyes and end their hunting. Lifting their hairy legs in time to an otherworldly rhythm, they creep away in a slow dance to await the night. In the White Mountains, owls clumsily regain their perches, their hunting ended too. In the streets of Flagstaff, Phoenix, Prescott, Tucson and other places, automobiles are ferrying the first platoons of workers to their jobs, many of which the sun created.

Mining was a major Arizona industry from almost the first moment of man's arrival, and it has been pursued vigorously by Indian, Spanish, Mexican and American populations. Many Arizona communities now and in the past have been organized around prominent mines: Tombstone, Jerome, Oatman in years past were major population centers; Ajo, Bisbee, Globe, Morenci, Miami are the same today. By far the majority of the Arizona mines are copper producers, and the state accounts for more than half of domestic production in this country.

With an average year of more than 300 sunshine days, the sector of the economy which traces its vitality most directly to the sun is also the fastest growing: the business of catering to sunseekers. Each year, Arizona is besieged by growing armies of travelers. They come to wonder at the spectacular scenery, to laze along hiking and bridle trails, to explore the patched and sagging ghost towns, to swim, to ski, to hunt and fish but most of all to feel the effect on their exposed skin of the 0.29 calory of heat energy per square inch per minute cast to the earth's surface by the sun. Because of a benign sun and a gentle climate, and because Arizona's hosts (motel, hotel, resort, ranch, trailer court) have created superb accommodations for the visitor throughout the year, Arizona is one of the nation's leading travel and vacation states. Tourism, in all its ramifications, is a “big business” in this state. Tourism and travel expenditures in Arizona in 1966 was $450,000,000. Ten years before, it was $200,000,000.

The sun dictates the quality of life here, orders the conditions under which man and the most minute plant spores shall live. They, and all forms of life in between, are thriving. At midday the sun decrees a different character for the land. In summer the earth shimmers under the merciless heat of the lowlands. Shadows, dwarfed by the brassy presence overhead, tuck themselves deeper into tiny places of concealment. Animals and insects go to cover, except that gaudy lizards dart and skip over the rocks in stupid recreation, their tiny minds excited to a frenzy by the blazing heat. One variety of lizard that lives in shifting dune sand has feet especially fringed to speed his movements over the yielding surface of his territory. Other creatures in the land of the sun have adopted special characteristics, such as the kangaroo rat, who lives without drinking water. The moisture he requires for life is extracted by a highly specialized metabolic process from the solid vegetable matter on which he feeds. It is well that they do adapt, for the penalty for the lack of this ability is death or banishment. Ten thousand years ago, when man first settled in the sun's domain, he hunted mammoths, ground sloths, horses, camels and buffalo until his own prowess and the drying climate annihilated them or forced them to more humid lands. In the sky clouds appear. Little white pufferbellies at first, they swell to impressive size, sides stretched as smooth and glistening as carved soap. The edges darken. In moments the

the clouds are obese tumors blotting up the sunlight and wadding every crevice through which the sky appears. And then they burst, splitting open everywhere at once like waterbags, drenching the soil and passing on. Within an hour the steaming earth has sucked up what moisture has not rushed down longdry washes, boiling with mud and furious with energy to nourish the rivers.

Summer's rains are gifts from the sea, products of warm, moist air that slips like a fugitive around the edges of an Atlantic Ocean high pressure area and smuggles itself into Arizona via the Gulf of Mexico. When these masses of unstable air are roughed across the southern and eastern mountaintops like sopping coveralls over a washboard, rain crashes down with thunder and lightning. Mainly, summer storms are imports from Mexico, products of tropical disturbances off her West Coast which cross the border with cloud wrappings intact to spill down rain over wide areas of the state in a steady downpour. Winter's storms are seldom those received in other parts of the country, for the storm belt of the middle latitudes does not often reach south to Arizona. Instead, billowing knots of cold, fretful air drift east from Hawaii and loiter over Southern California for several days before being dragged up into the high, northeasterly jet stream. Above Arizona these air pillows relax their grip on the chilly moisture carried in from the sea, letting fall rain and snow in various grades of intensity.

Precipitation is niggardly at all seasons in Arizona, but it is stingy in the northeast corner, beyond the Little Colorado River, and in the desert regions of the state. These regions are efficiently barricaded against the intrusion of moist air by brawny mountain ranges.

Because water reaches Arizona's surface so seldom, and in such small amounts, and because much of what does fall to earth is lost at once to evaporation, the climate is extremely dry, the humidity extremely low. Only in the central mountain belt is precipitation relatively heavy and reasonably dependable from year to year.

Cactus plants gorge themselves with water until they bulge. Creosote bushes, their tiny varnished leaves washed free of dust, perfume the air with a rich turpentine scent. To survive the impact of the sun's enormous presence in Arizona's lowland deserts, plant life has been forced to daring gambles.

The saguaro cactus, for example, the sun's emissary to the south, sends roots braiding out from the base of its trunk in every direction, scarcely a finger's length deep in the sandy soil, to capture every possible molecule of moisture that penetrates the ground for yards around. It grows no leaves from which water might be lost by evaporation, hiding its food producing cells inside uplifted arms and in its single trunk instead, where no pores can let the precious fluid escape to the wind. The glossy skin of the saguaro is impervious to sun and wind alike and sheathes a layer of small chlorophyll-green cells which in turn contains flesh of the plant, a network of butternut colored hexagonal cells storing the moisture sucked up from the sand by the roots. Like the camel, the saguaro stores its own water for survival in the droughted provinces of the sun, and can survive incredible lengths of time even when separated from its roots.

Some cactus species have developed thickly bristling spines which protect them still further from the sun's largesse by casting a soothing, latticed shadow grid across their glistening skin.

The ocotillo, too, has solved the problem of the overpowering presence of the sun. Its thin, naked, thorny stalks rise up in a bundle to twice the height of man, but they feather themselves with leaves only briefly, in the spring, when necessary to the unfurling of bright red flowers from the tip of each nodding pole. The Palo Verde tree has leaves, but they are so tiny in deference to the evaporative heat of the sun and the dry air that they cannot hold enough chlorophyll to sustain the life of the tree. So branches and twigs take on this function, too, providing the graceful tree with a cool, misty, all-green cast. Each plant in the desert lowlands bears evidence of bowing to the demands imposed by the sovereign sun. They are tough, these sun-baked vegetables, and small and sinewed, sharply spined and often bitter to the taste. But few regions of the country can equal the variety of Arizona's 3,370 species of plant life.

In autumn, midday sunlight seeps down the crenellated walls of Zion Canyon to ignite the cottonwoods like red and yellow bonfires against the shadow-patterned walls. At Canyon de Chelly a thirsty band of sheep flows over the valley floor like a woolly flood and dams itself around a pool of water to drink, delighting the watching children. In winter, skiers glide under a jolly sun, their bright clothing like mosaic chips against the snow spread across the side of Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalinas. East of Yuma the sky is dank with clouds flung up like greasy rags from Mexico to drape the sky. From above Kitt Peak a hem drifts down to catch at the mountaintop and glaze it with snow. In summer the afternoon sun begins its downward journey like a sleepily blinking eye gently swabbed with cotton clouds. Already in the canyons and on the eastern hillsides shadows are moving tentatively out of hiding. At Grand Falls, on the Little Colorado, the river celebrates a summer thundershower hours after the event. Tons of muddy rainwater crash over the falls in reckless violence, grinding its bed microscopically deeper in the channel.

Now the day is waning, the sun descending with majestic languor beyond the Colorado. The desert animals brave the heat again. A Gambel's quail, perched jauntily on a cholla, calls for a mate with his sad, low pitched lament. Plume wagging, he repeats his giddy invitation before fluttering away alone. Above a rain pool in the Canyon Diablo, two thousand bats are flying madly, violently, impossibly in a squeaking, shreiking swarm. In the remote highlands of the Chiricahua Mountains parrots from Mexico chatter absentmindedly to one another as they search the landscape for prey.

In winter the sun sets early, its chilly rays illuminating the snowbound San Francisco Peaks. As light departs from these battlements, shadows slither across the timbered slopes like a sudden tremor of gooseflesh. Everything is cold blue and green, and the sun gives little more warmth than a flashlight. The autumn sun descends behind Mission San Xavier del Bac like a floating red balloon, immense with power, gilding the White Dove of the Desert with its rich light. At Easter the sun sets on Organ Pipe National Monument with such symphonic verve that the earth seems to tremble. Shadows as softly purple as baby blankets swathe the throats of Teddy Bear and Estes Canyons and rush out across the plains like floodwaters, faster than a man can run, until they reach the mountains. And then, in the cloud-cobbled sky overhead, to the never-ending wonder of the crowds that gather at Organ Pipe, at the Grand Canyon's Hopi Point, and at hundreds of viewing places around Arizona, the vanished sun imprints its magnificent signature across the western sky: a miles-wide strip of madman's bacon, sizzling with all the colors of the universe. Gold, pale green, red, every shade of blue, bone white, orange, silver, salmon pink, violet, bright yellow, magenta, peach the sun breathes them across the clouds in stately measure. Arizona's fabled sunsets seem to last forever, yet end suddenly.

The hogans of the Navajos face east. Thus the first light of morning sweeps night away and the hot bright light of afternoon is exiled to the back yard. Like all creatures of the sun's domain, the Navajos respect the sun. They have good reason. As children they learned that Coyote, First Man and First Woman found the First World they inhabited too dark and mean, and so traveled to the Second. There, in the dim, gloomy light, they met the two men who would become Sun and Moon, but Sun approached First Woman and attempted to seduce her. Coyote called together the four beings who dwelt within the glimmering lights illuminating the world as arbitrators and they decided that all five should move on to the Third World where there was enough room for Sun and First Woman to live apart forever.

The five were welcomed into the broad, placid Third World by the people who lived on the slopes of the mountains. One mountain rose up at each corner of the world, and at the foot of each mountain was a lake. The mountain people cautioned the newcomers against angering Tieholtsodi, the Water-Monster. But Coyote, irrespressibly curious, explored the lakes and found in one of them two of the Water-Monster's children whom he thought so attractive he could not resist bundling them up in a blanket and hiding them in his pack. The WaterMonster was furious at the disappearance of his children, and when he realized that one of the five newcomers had stolen them he caused the waters of the lakes to rise. The people were forced to pile all the mountains together in the central plain to escape the swelling flood, and still the waters rose. At the summit they planted a giant reed which grew until it pierced the floor of the Fourth World and Sun, Moon, Coyote, First Man and First Woman climbed into the hollow center of the stem with all the people. They climbed four days, emerging into the Fourth World on the fourth night.

The Fourth World was much like the Third, but larger, lit by three dim mists and obscured by a fourth dark one. A river bisected the mountain-cornered land from west to east. For four years the people dwelt peacefully there.

One day the earth was soft under foot. Water began to creep forth over the banks of the lakes and the river. The Water-Monster had discovered them.

Again the people piled up the mountains. Again they planted a giant reed on the pinnacle, and again the refugees clambered up, this time to the Fifth World. But when they had dug upward through the earthen sky, they were horrified to find mud and water above them. Inexorably the water swirled higher below them and agonizingly water trickled down into the giant reed from above. At last Locust volunteered to try the upward passage. Wriggling through the mud he swam to the surface of a large marsh where four swans floated. At first the swans posed an impossible challenge before they would permit anyone to enter the Fifth World, but Locust outwitted them and the way was opened.

As all the fugitives from the Third and Fourth Worlds scrambled up to an island in the swampy lake, the horns of the Water-Monster flashed below them. In guilt and terror everyone pulled open his pack to reveal nothing was there that oughtn't to be. When Coyote was forced to do the same, Tieholtsodi's children were found and cast back toward their parent. At once the waters quieted and began to recede and the three monsters swam off forever.

The people prayed to the god of darkness in the east, and he carved canyons in the unformed land to drain the swamp. Then they prayed to the Four Winds who sent a gale that dried the swampy mud. Gaining the shore, the people piled the damp earth at the corners of the Fifth World into mountains. Then they took Sun and Moon and threw them into the sky. But they did not manage to throw Sun high enough, and he remained too near the earth. For four days the earth expanded and the sun drew away, but still he was too close. On the fifth day everything on the surface of the earth was in danger of burning, but still the sun stood motionless at zenith.

Then the people discovered that the sun could not move because they were immortal. Human death was required to set it moving. A chief's wife offered herself for the sacrifice. As her body grew cold and her last breath vanished, the sun moved upward in the sky.

With this experience to climax their progression into the present world the people understood that here, every day, a Navajo must perish to preserve the alternation of day and night essential to man's survival, that in the Fifth World, death is the price of life.

Latecomers to the land of the sun explain the sun's presence in the sky differently, but it is no coincidence that to all mankind the sun is the symbol of truth, of goodness, beauty, happiness, of life itself, of light's bright victory over night.

The sun has dragged its trailing peacock's tail across the sky and gone, leaving the earth to the night, a single great shadow she casts upon herself. For the space of one long shuddering sigh the earth is unreservedly silent.

The sun is set. The lights of Arizona's cities glitter like beads. Coyotes skulk from their dens. Night birds take wing.

And then the sun, in a negligent afterthought that confirms its majesty, reaches back from beyond the horizon to knight the moon, with dawn's bright sword as its seneschal. Whereupon this pinchbeck viceroy preens itself in borrowed glory and grudgingly doles light dimly down.

For it is the singular duty of this silver bulb in night's black ceiling to hold the earth in thrall with sunlight until the the King's return.