Tucson is named for Chukson. The black hill stands as a guardian over the Old Pueblo. We are surrounded by mountains, The Santa Ritas, The Catalinas….
This land is the longest continuously inhabited place in North America.
The Tohono O’odham, the Pascua Yaqui lived and live here. One hundred and seventy-six years ago, this land was Mexico and many Tucson families can trace their lineage much farther back than that. And Tucson is a land of newcomers. Some plundered and some built. There were massacres and fires and the Old Barrios were stolen and destroyed.
There are Ghosts.
In the 1960’s psychedelia and old-world Mexican Magik found places of sympatico. Artists, Writers, and Musicians have always found inspiration in this place. I came here in the 1990s. I was a traveler, migrating along Route 40, from the East Coast to the West. Wherever I roamed, I stopped in Tucson. Something Peaceful, yet Expansive, Radical yet grounding ruled this place, so I stopped and I stayed.
Back then, Downtown was bedraggled and broken. Night times, artists prowled around the back alleys and pronounced their monologues to empty streets. Musicians and Dancers and Skaters built installations and unusual instruments and half-pipes in leaky state-owned Warehouses with names like Hell Rad and Toole Shed.
There was a lot of Heroin. There was a lot of Death.
I encountered the All Souls Procession by chance on a November night. Masked and costumed, a small band of folks brought their offerings to the City fountains and sang their songs for the Dead- and I felt a void in me be filled. Susan Johnson had begun gathering friends and artists around her in 1990.
“From the beginning, it was different people’s ethnic groups, different cultures, but also it was all these different art forms put together.”- Sue Johnson
With simple actions and simple hand-made creations, a deep cry was answered. A cry for Belonging. A cry for Meaning. A cry for the Sacred.
“If longing is not expressed as a loud, beautiful wail, a song, or a piece of art that’s given as a gift to the spirits, then it will turn into violence against other beings — and, more importantly, against the earth itself, because you will have no understanding of home. But if you are able to feed the other world with your grief, then you can live where your dead are buried, and they will become a part of the landscape in a way.” – Martin Prechtel
My group of friends were children of the 80’s and 90s- Gen X, raised on nihilist punk rock. We formed bands like Useless Pieces of Shit and Crash Worship…lost kids, skater kids looking for hope, looking for a reason to live.
And in our search, we found- Fire.
The history of fire arts is as ancient as fire itself, but the legend goes that in the modern day- some guy would show up at beach parties- light balls on fire- swing them around, and then disappear. Kids started spinning poi on the beaches of New Zealand and Thailand and Indonesia.
Fire brought us back to where we were ignited, where we were born, to our essence, our core. Fire and Drums entrained us together, united our heartbeats, and healed our somatic nervous systems.
The Smoke and the Fire and The Procession and the Dance re-connected us to the Spirit of the Land and the Spirits of our Ancestors.
“ Enacted theatrical ritual repatterns trauma.”- Joshua Shrei- The Emerald Podcast
We began to Remember who we were and why we were here.
With a punk rock ethos, we ran off black and white flyers at Kinkos calling on artists to attend workshops to build large-scale puppets and floats. We had no money. We scavenged metal and wood out of the trash and the gold mine that is Bulky-Brushy.
And then we called on everyone to join us for Free.
To Walk- through the streets to Honor our Dead, to grieve our Losses, to celebrate this Life and our own creativity and ingenuity…and people came—hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands.
It’s been a long journey and the road still stretches out before us-
We fund this labor of love- with hours of grant writing, appeals to small businesses and donations from community. There is no trust fund, no sugar daddy, no black money, no corporate branding.
There is you and me and what we deem worthy in this world. – Where we choose to put our energy- Where we choose to put our hard earned money.
So I hope you will help us keep this tradition- this magical moment alive- in 2026 and into the future.