Of Cacti and Ikigai
Living Ikigai outside of career.
Crested Saguaro by David Marlow Copyright © 2013
Saguaro: An Ikigai Story
They stand like silent sentries in the desert. The saguaro cactus grows naturally only in a small area of Arizona and northwestern Mexico.
Glimpsing them line the hills above Tucson had become a yearly ritual for me. My late father wintered in Tucson and visits to see him always included time hiking in the desert.
Even among the unique saguaro is an even rarer find.
A crested Saguaro like the one in the picture above. That one I witnessed myself on a hike in Sabino Canyon.
Only 1 in every 200,000 saguaro exhibits the crested crown. There are just over 3,000 documented crested cacti in the world.
National Park Service photo
Connection to Ikigai
Discovering and documenting those rare finds is a small group of people who call themselves the Crested Saguaro Society.
These ten people have a passion for the Sonoran Desert's most uncommon plant.
The Wall Street Journal called them a ‘secret society’ because group membership is limited, and the locations of the finds are kept hidden to protect from potential poachers or vandals.
One member estimated they had spent eight hours a day, twice a week, for six years on the search.
Why would someone do this?
Most are retired from careers and follow the Ikigai principle of never retiring from doing and being.
Ikigai is about experiencing your essence and purpose in harmony with whatever you do.
Ikigai is more than a career. The members of the Crested Saguaro Society are a unique example of living that out.
There is so much in here on ikigai, David. I'm sure every Crest is unique, and they stand out among all their more boring peers.
If what makes us unique is not obvious to others, are we putting ourselves in position to capitalize on those abilities and have a greater effect on Humanity?
I also have been a firm believer in never retiring since before I even left high school. It was only ever a matter of what to not retire from.
I appreciate every beauty and uniqueness in nature yet do not worship it to the extent of many. What the tidbit I may take is that of retirement. We all have people we know that seek retirement and work hard towards that one goal...many to find that when they get there it is not what they expected and there may be no order to their once very ordered life. The part that I too relate is that retirement is not a place or goal to be achieved but if done well each day we achieve that oneness with ourselves and our Creator in harmony with ourselves, others and nature to experience true JOY ;)