THE NATURE OF THE CHOLLA CACTUS

A Reflection After Mindful Walking at the Desert Renewal Retreat in Tucson, Arizona

After the morning sit, our group of thirty retreatants would go for a mindful walk. As I was rapidly discovering, anything I could do mindlessly I could do mindfully, including walking. Up until that point I am certain that I had never paid attention to the act of walking, or at least certainly not since infancy when I first stood from a crawl, spread my arms and took those first tentative steps towards my mother. Walking is something that I  take for granted, a way of getting from one point to another. But this walking mindfully was a different matter altogether. Not in the sense that the biomechanics are any different, but in the way of paying attention to it. "Notice each step," instructed Father Pat, our Catholic Priest and Zen Master (but that's another story), "notice how it feels, how your foot touches the ground, the sound that the step makes, and then expand your awareness to the path, the other ambient sounds, and the temperature of moment."

The first morning walk in the desert had us meandering in a single line on a path behind the retreat. Marsha (Linehan) led us on the route which took us up a slight hill between the many forms of cactus that call the Sonoran desert home. On reaching the top of the hill, we stopped to take in the sight of the yet-to-rise sun reflecting its light on the pink underbellies of the desert clouds. Then we turned around and went back to the hall for more sitting meditation.

On the way back the person in front of me brushed up ever so slightly against a very bushy, almost cuddly-looking, cactus. A round stem snapped off the cactus and landed on the path in front of me. I need to fast forward to say that I later came to discover that the cactus is also known as the jumping cholla cactus or teddybear cactus. It is said to jump because the joints between the seed-bearing stems are so weak that they break easily, which is its way of ensuring that it will easily disperse and spread its seed. The very thorns of the teddy bear cactus are in turn covered by hundreds of tiny scales. There are thorns on thorns, and there exists no process for easily removing the stems from clothing. I am also told that it is extremely painful to remove if it attaches to the skin.

But I knew none of this as I walked mindfully down the path. When I spotted the stem on the path, and mindful that many of us were wearing sandals, I timed my step so I could kick it off the path for fear that someone would step on it. What happened next was that the stem, which was round and the size of a small apple, stuck to my sandal but it was only after I took the next step that I realized that it was stuck to my footwear. I became increasingly self-conscious with this prickly ball clinging to my sandal. As discreetly as I could, with my next step I tried to shoo the cactus off my sandal by waving my foot into the air. This attempt seemed to embolden the cactus which simply dug in deeper. The battle was on. I did not move faster as we had been instructed to walk at a steady pace. I did not want to disrupt the rhythm of the line, but my attempts became more vigorous in trying to jiggle the cactus off. Eventually I was hopping on one foot and shaking my leg violently, but to no avail. This had to stop. I could not even imagine what my fellow walkers were thinking. I bent down and tried to brush it off with my hand, but all this did was force a few thorns into my fingers. I was contemplating my dilemma when I spotted a forked stick lying ahead on the path. On reaching the stick, I picked it up and pried the cactus off with the fork at the end of the branch, and eventually reached the safety of the meeting room and sat on my cushion.

During the afternoon sitting sessions, when the irritation of the thorns embedded in my fingers was more than I could stand, I was relieved by the opportunity to meet with Father Pat in a one-on-one session to reflect on my experience of the day. This was the one and only time we broke silence and it lasted only minutes. I told him of my attempts at paying attention during the walk, how difficult it had been after my encounter with the cholla cactus. “I don’t think I learned anything today. I have these thorns in my fingers that I want to remove, but I can’t as all I do is sit. I learned nothing about my nature today.” He smiled and looked kindly on me. “Perhaps,” he said, “but today you understood the nature of the cholla cactus.” 

I went back to my cushion, meditating on his brief reflection and the next thing that popped into my head was a joke my brother had once told me.

            “Dad was a man of few words. One day he came up to me and said: “son...”’

That was father Pat. Quiet. A man of few, yet profound words. And then something seemed to make sense. Father Pat was as he was, just as the cactus is as it is and just as I am as I am.