The Tohono O’odham, the “Desert People” who live in southern Arizona, harvest the Saguaro in late June and early July. As they pull the red juicy fruit down from the majestic cactus, they are “pulling down the clouds” to help bring the summer rains.

Dave Denny and I joined a group from the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum with our friends David Levin and Marty Conant to learn how to pick the fruit. We were invited to participate by two generous Tohono O’odham, sister and brother Lynn and Dallas Liston, who warmly welcomed us in their own language.

I loved hearing this sound of the desert and their description of how their people traditionally celebrate this harvest or “picking,” as they call it. They taught us how to do the heart blessing before eating the first fruit and the ceremonial way of handling the outer husk after removing the fruit.

Lynn shared sweet saguaro syrup with us from last year’s harvest in a simple but profound ritual that Dave called a “Saguaro Eucharist” where we received the “blood of Saguaro,” as holy as any Catholic Mass where we receive the blood of Christ.

As Dallas shook his rattle, he and his sister sang a chant, but only one verse so the rain would not come too soon before the people have finished their picking. Then they told us how to make and use the harvesting pole, or ku’ibad, saguaro ribs with a cross piece of creosote to hook the fruit.

Each small group of us chose our ku’ibad and went out into the desert, a hot prickly garden of abundance. David struggled with the pole at first and then got the hang of it. Dave caught the falling fruit in a bucket. Marty and I gathered the fruit he missed.

We pulled down the first fruit and opened it with the serrated end of a dried saguaro blossom, which makes a strong and effective knife, and scooped the fruit out with our fingers. Before we ate, we ritually marked our hearts with the redness and offered prayers of thanksgiving.

And then we tasted the luscious, sweet juicy pulp and crunchy seeds, with a texture like dried figs. A taste of place. This desert place. Our desert. Haashañikam: “the place where saguaro grow in abundance.”

We did not casually toss away the husks of the fruit like garbage. We carefully turned the bright red interiors up to the sun and placed them on the ground to show the rain where to come. In one O’odham folktale, the rain is blind and must be led by Hevel, the wind.

When the morning air temperature rose to nearly 100 degrees, meaning the ground temperature was close to 130 degrees, we walked back to the shady ramada or watto, hot, tired, and happy with our work. We returned our ku’ibad, such a simple but helpful harvesting tool. When the Tohono O’odham look up at the night sky, the constellation we see as the “big dipper,” they see as “cactus puller.”

I was glad to get home to my air-conditioned apartment where Dave and I processed the last of our fruit. We ate some more! We set some out to dry in the sun and eat later as “candy” or snack food. The juicier fruit we’ll add to oatmeal, yogurt, or try in a smoothie.

The Tohono O’odham traditionally make jam, syrup, and wine. This harvest season is the most sacred time in their calendar and the beginning of the Tohono O’odham new year. The annual saguaro wine feast or wine drinking ceremony is the most important ritual in the year’s liturgical celebrations. The people pray for the coming of the monsoon rains and a bountiful harvest of their crops.

When I first got home, I pulled the remaining cactus thorns out of my boots, my long pants, and my body. I sat quietly for a long time, absorbing what had happened that morning. And then I began to weep. I was awestruck by the depth and meaning of this desert experience. I felt even more profoundly connected to this land, to all the ancestors, to all creation and Creator, and above all, to the Sacred, in great harmony, in-tune-ness, at-one-ness. Then I wrote this poem to thank the Tohono O’odham, to thank Haashañ, Saguaro, and to share this ecstatic experience with you.

Pulling Down the Clouds

Tessa Bielecki

I go into the desert before dawn
Walk into the desert before the sun rises
In dawn twilight before the sun

I greet the day
I greet the desert
I greet my people: hahshani, Saguaro People
My relatives, my family, hahshani, Saguaro

It is hashañ bahidag mashad, Saguaro fruit moon
June, the hot moon
I carry my ku’ibad, my harvest pole, my cactus puller
In June, the hot month, the hottest month
Hot or there would be no fruit

With my harvest pole, I will pull down the cactus
The ripe red Saguaro fruit
I will pull down the cactus
I will pull down the clouds
I will pull down the rain

I stand before majestic Saguaro
Hahshani, my relative, my family
With my harvest pole I pull down the first fruit
I pull down the clouds

I break open ripe red fruit
Hard withered blossom my sharp knife
To break open ripe red fruit
I do not eat, it is not time

With fingers I scoop out juicy, red pulp
I mark it on my heart
I say a prayer of thanks
It will not stain my shirt
Red juice, red pulp, a prayer of thanks
Over my heart

I give thanks
I am alive
Hahshani is alive
The desert hahshani bless me and keep me alive

I do not toss the rind like garbage
I lay the husk beneath hahshani
Red rind turned up to the sun
I say my thanks
Clouds please come, please rain here

The rain is blind, red stain shows the way
The way of rain
The way of clouds
Hahshani way
Oh relative, my family, my desert friend

Thick black seeds crunch in my mouth
Mouth pink and sticky
Fingers pink and sticky

We will dry this fruit and roast the seeds
We will make syrup
We will make jam
We will make wine

The desert people will do the rain making ceremony
They will do the wine drinking ceremony
They will bring the rain

See the liquor growing for ceremony
Drinking ceremony to bring the rain
The blind rain will know where to come

Come to the place of red pulped husk
I place beneath hahshani
Red pointing to sky and cloud to pull down rain
As I pull down hahshani fruit

Now they will sing rain songs
Now they will dance rain dances
They will drink sweet cactus wine
And pull down the clouds

Pull down the rain
Upon hahshani
Upon the desert
Rain, blessed rain

Blessed sacred hahshani

Listen to our podcast about the Saguaro Harvest, titled “A Taste of Place,” here or wherever you get your podcasts.