Juniper Tree Symbol in Desert Solitaire

Juniper trees represent Edward Abbey’s attempt, as a human being, to grasp the mysteries of the desert, a nonhuman entity. The juniper plays a symbolic role in three of Abbey’s central quests: to access the reality beneath visible appearances, to pay adequate tribute to nature’s divinity, and to bond his body mystically with the landscape. Each of these projects boils down to Abbey’s single, overarching wish to understand the landscape. In each experiment, Abbey uses juniper trees as a go-between, a symbolic portal between his humanity and the earth. First, in his wish to access the reality beneath visible things, Abbey immediately turns to the juniper by his trailer. He stares hard at it, meditating and trying to “make a connection through it” to the “essence” that lies beyond. He fails at first but returns to this particular juniper over and over, finally realizing, that the appearance of the tree is enough for him. The tree thus symbolizes humanity’s inability to fully comprehend nature’s mysterious “music.”

Second, as Abbey discovers the holiness of nature, he starts burning juniper symbolically. Because juniper’s pleasing odor is like Catholic incense, in Abbey’s many juniper campfires throughout the book, he notes the smoke’s “ritual,” “propitiatory” (god-pleasing), or “ceremonial” aspect. In worshipping a deity (nature) by using a constituent element (the juniper) of that same deity, Abbey illustrates his important argument that nature is at the same time both God and church. Third, in Abbey’s impossible desire to merge his body into the landscape, he calls the ancient juniper near his trailer a “grandmother” and imagines that it craves liberty. Later, reasoning verbally with Moon-Eye, a horse, Abbey does so from the shelter of a hollowed-out juniper trunk. And when a dead photographer is found under a juniper tree in the desert, Abbey envies the man’s final connection to the physical landscape. In these cases, Abbey imagines that being physically near the juniper is a symbolic way of bringing oneself closer to the earth in each of its animal, vegetable, and mineral manifestations.

Juniper Tree Quotes in Desert Solitaire

The Desert Solitaire quotes below all refer to the symbol of Juniper Tree. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Wilderness, Society, and Liberty Theme Icon

Like a god, like an ogre? The personification of the natural is exactly the tendency I wish to suppress in myself, to eliminate for good. […] I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a piece of quartz, a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities, anti-Kantian, even the categories of scientific description.

Related Characters: Edward Abbey (speaker)

Related Symbols: Juniper Tree

Page Number and Citation: 6

Explanation and Analysis:

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The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante’s paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalysis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West.

Related Characters: Edward Abbey (speaker), Merle McRae, Floyd Bence

Related Symbols: Juniper Tree

Page Number and Citation: 12

Explanation and Analysis:

Juniper Tree Symbol Timeline in Desert Solitaire

The timeline below shows where the symbol Juniper Tree appears in Desert Solitaire. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Humanity, the Environment, and Arrogance Theme Icon

...he wishes to confront nature directly, with no mediator. He wishes to gaze at a juniper tree and see it “as it is in itself, […] anti-Kantian.” The landscape is so... (full context)

...at his wrist, his watch now seems useless. After supper, he makes a fire of juniper wood and meditates on the surfaces of the distant rock formations, on their “unnamed unnamable”... (full context)

...appears in the sky, and Abbey admires it along with the birdsong around him. The juniper smoke, a smell that captures the strange essence of the American West, is sweeter than... (full context)

A 300-year-old juniper near Abbey’s trailer, an “ancient grandmother,” is his favorite. Abbey has been watching it for... (full context)

...an otherwise unpopulated landscape, now infested with black widows. Abbey examines its crude construction: uneven juniper logs, wide foundation cracks, and a sagging thatch roof. (full context)

...the trailer, he watches colors change in the sky at dusk and notes his “private” juniper standing alone. The yucca’s bayonet leaves change color and lose definition. Checking wind gauges at... (full context)

...is coming. One evening, while watching the dusk from his stoop and enjoying a “ritual” juniper fire, Abbey watches a jeep pull up to his trailer. Excited to fine for unauthorized... (full context)

...Billy-Joe spend the whole summer probing the San Rafael Swell for uranium. Finding shade under junipers as they toil along beneath the boiling summer sun, they collect rock specimens to be... (full context)

...into the wilds to find Husk. He chances upon Husk and Billy-Joe huddled around a juniper fire on a ridge. As the helicopter lands, the wind it generates coats their dinner... (full context)

...in the sand during these moments and to contemplate “a far larger world” as the juniper fire burns. This gives him calmness and a sense that all of humanity blends with... (full context)

...waterworks is the drilled well and its accompanying windmill—a sculptural thing of beauty alongside the juniper and cacti. Though Developers claim that the desert lacks water, there is, in fact, water... (full context)

...Despite the temperature, 110ºF, and constant dehydration, Abbey weathers the discomfort by sitting under the juniper outside his trailer. He sticks his feet in the sand, achieving a relaxed, “animal” satisfaction.... (full context)

...through a veil of water. Balanced Rock seems to bend in the heat, while the junipers and pines seem to wave. Though rare, mirages can occur in California, where optical illusions... (full context)

...that Abbey thinks there cannot be another realm beyond reality. He stares at the half-dead juniper and prays for a vision of truth, but he gets no response. He listens intently... (full context)

...tempts him by describing tasty bran, grass, and alfalfa. Soon, only the branches of a juniper separate him from the horse, who stands so still and silent he could be a... (full context)

...able to breathe only with conscious effort. He crawls into the rotted trunk of a juniper and waits. Abbey and Moon-Eye keep staring in silence, with Abbey speaking a sentence every... (full context)

...brother has found the corpse. A mile from the road, under the cover of a juniper on a ridge, the dead photographer is bloated like a balloon. When the others arrive,... (full context)

...the distant mountains—with its water and copious trees—takes over. Abbey packs his truck, tells the juniper goodbye, and asks the buzzard to watch over his trailer. He takes the rough and... (full context)

...It is a riddle without an answer. This doesn’t stop Abbey, however: one whiff of juniper smoke, one poem like The Waste Land, and he’s dying to seek the desert’s truths. (full context)

As the terrain slowly rises, it starts looking like the Grand Canyon. Junipers appear, first as individuals then in small clusters. The females grow berries that taste of... (full context)

...Maze of rock canyons below. The sandstone is striped like Neapolitan ice cream. Building a juniper fire at sundown, the men watch the colors change on the canyon walls and on... (full context)

...they hike back to the jeep, and Abbey daydreams of festooning one of the lonely junipers in Christmas tree ornaments. (full context)

Abbey gathers all his spare juniper trunks into a bonfire—a signal to the world that goes unheeded. It doesn’t matter; all... (full context)

Juniper Tree Symbol Analysis

Juniper Tree Quotes in Desert Solitaire

Juniper Tree Symbol Timeline in Desert Solitaire