Desert Oracle Radio

Happy Ides of March, happy St. Patrick’s Day, and happy five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 lockdown — the beginning of it anyway: 15 days to slow the spread . . . not a great slogan, for what it cost, but that’s what we got. Much of the world is much the same as it was five years ago. Same iPhone, same president, same daylight savings time. Where did the lockdown time go? What did it do to us? Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this advertising-free broadcast at Patreon.com/DesertOracle. Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2024 http://DesertOracle.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Night has fallen on the desert, the desert spring is here, and that means the bugs are coming back, and that means we’ll be seeing a lot more of our beloved desert friend, the wonderful wonderful Cactus Wren. Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025 Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A winter storm cut loose from the mountains, the cold wind whipping around the creosote, rain dripping down through the swamp-cooler vent: 2025 came in like a Lion and it’s the Year of the Snake. We’ve got both out here, in the Mojave Wilderness. Mountain lions, or cougars. And snakes, too, although it’s still a bit early to see our reptile friends up here at 4,000 feet elevation. (Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver, written & hosted by Ken Layne.) Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025 DesertOracle.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a cold, cold night in the wind-blasted desert, and we hear there's snow a-comin', can't come soon enough. Listen to the harrowing sounds of the 1961 Bel Air Fire, prepare for Mojo Nixon's anniversary (of death), and join us in remembering our favorite Intermountain West surrealist, the late great David Lynch. Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Suitable for some families. Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025 http://DesertOracle.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another wild and windy night in these first strange days and nights of our new year. We are monitoring the infernos & catastrophes, but also celebrating the creation of Chuckwalla National Monument in the vast weird desert east of Coachella, all the way to the Colorado River. Plus: A phone call from our High Desert pal Herbie Benham, and soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2025 http://DesertOracle.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've heard some weird news about Saint Nicholas that turns out to be a few years old, but that's all right. Christmas itself is old news, after all. That’s why we love it, because it’s ancient and beautiful, the time for silent walks in the cold night, just the sound of your boots crunching through the snow, the half-moon glowing through the Joshua trees. Plus: Which phrases and words shall be banned in the new year? And: Seasonal soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this advertising-free show at Patreon.com/DesertOracle. Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2024 http://DesertOracle.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is it Thanksgiving time already? Well let's pack up the car and head out to Joshua Tree, everybody's favorite Thanksgiving destination if they live exactly three hours away and don't have anywhere else to go. Plus: What are the ravens up to now? Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2024 http://DesertOracle.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Happy Hallowtide, the three-day festival of the Dead and their various souls & spirits. Tonight we are riding down the nocturnal highway, listening to ghosts of times past crackling through the car-radio speakers. With new soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this commercial-free show at http://patreon.com/desertoracle. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Be not a-feared of our yearly remembrance of the dead, of ghostly visits from our beloved and maybe not-so-beloved relations and ancestors. Know Death as an old friend who always eventually comes around, for you and everyone else. If your belief in the immortality of the soul is secure, do not shudder and sputter over the enjoyment of pumpkins and haystacks and comical gravestones made of scrap wood and whitewash. It's October, as long as you ignore the weather, and that means it's time for spooky tales on Desert Oracle Radio. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you heard what the "green energy" corporations are doing to the Great Basin Desert, with your government's approval, on your public lands? The plan is to cover the pristine basin-and-range interior of Nevada with industrial electricity factories over endless thousands of acres of desert woodland. And the people who should be out protesting this, chaining themselves to the desert trees marked for annihilation, etc., well they don't really care. Because they've been told "environmentalism" now means destroying the last wild places in America, the last wild landscapes, so a fly-by-night solar corporation can get free land to scrape clean, free from the U.S. government. New soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Forest ranger, park ranger, Navy sailor, lumberjack, and cowboy — those were some of the jobs Stanley Jones worked before accidentally becoming a movie actor and composer of classic western music. PLUS: Weird Annie had a bunch of weird raven children. Deus Pascit Corvus. New sounds by RedBlueBlackSilver. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A summertime tour through "strange and weird places," where they held their annual rituals. This is Episode #228. It's on the level. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Did you know the current (?) president's Quiet Quitting (via Twitter) on this Sunday in July was foretold by an astrologer on Twitter, two weeks prior? That's no lie, and you can check it for yourself. The same seer predicted, back in August 2020, that the current vice president would be the party's nominee in 2024, because it coincides with the VP's Second Saturn Return. Which is also hitting your Desert Oracle Radio host right about now. This is an Emergency Broadcast about Prophecy & Portents, with astrologically appropriate soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does one do, in these bunker days of summer? Too hot to work, too hot to think, too hot to sleep, and time is running away. When it's too hot to walk the dog at night, you know you've made a tactical error in life: You're in the Mojave, in July, in yet another historic heat wave. Well, sit yourself down beneath the swamp cooler vent, and get yourself a cold beverage, and enjoy this mid-July episode with soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Thanks for supporting this program on our Patreon.com/desertoracle page. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight we are celebrating the full moon and summer solstice, because it's a midsummer night's dream in the desert. Which means we're halfway to winter solstice, and only three months & change ’til Halloween. Maybe that's why we're talking about Puck of Pook Hill and homemade cranberry sauce. New soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver, who has a Bandcamp site worth your attention! And thanks for supporting this radio program via Patreon.com/desertoracle . Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2024 http://DesertOracle.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's hot as hell and we're throwing everything in the hobo stew tonight: Desert-animal antics, Wild West extravaganzas, history's mysteries, William Shatner shot up into space, etc., etc. The soundscapes are by RedBlueBlackSilver and the rest is by your host & underpaid mail-order professional, Ken Layne. This is Episode #224, Slumgullion Stew. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Public-land managers in the US Southwest seem determined to drive the pinyon jay to extinction. A half-century attack on pinyon & juniper high-desert woodland has led to a 78% drop in pinyon jay populations just in the past 50 years. You can take action, and the Pinyon Juniper Alliance is a good place to start. The pinyon jay is the steward of the pinyon forests, for which the forest feeds and houses this crucial blue crow. Of the thousands of pinyon nuts the blue crow puts away for the winter, usually working with its mate and both returning to the spot throughout the year to store or collect, the few pine nuts left behind grow into new pinyons, expanding the reach of the woodland. More woodland means more wildlife, more carbon-breathing conifers, more precious Western water stored in the ground, more wildlife corridors that connect mule deer and desert bighorn and mountain lions along mountain and valley to vast zones of wilderness. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tonight we're talking ravens, fishes & loaves, and the soul-crushing indoor indoctrination of the Empire's State Religion. Sir James George Frazer, Pliny the Elder and the Gospel Mark are all involved, whether they like it or not. (And the "Bible Friends" podcast mentioned on this episode can be found here.) Thanks for listening to the show, and for supporting the show via our Patreon page or at our online store, DesertOracle.com. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. John Milton Bigelow did not shy away from hard work, challenges, or adventure. At the age of 46, he signed on as surgeon and botanist for the Mexican Boundary Survey, following the U.S.-Mexican War that fulfilled the gold-hungry manifest destiny of the Americans. This adventure took him through the Chihuahuan, Sonoran and Colorado deserts, where he catalogued the great variety of desert plants along with several other botanists on the expedition — including C.C. Parry, namesake of Parry’s Nolina. The work was so pleasing to Bigelow that he readily accepted similar appointments as field botanist in some of America's wildest lands. New soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Desert Oracle Radio (c)(p) 2017-2022 http://DesertOracle.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mariposa Grove was a sacred grove for millennia before it became part of the Yosemite Grant, lovingly tended by Yosemite Guardian Galen Clark for more than a quarter century. Sacred groves and forests are protected for their spiritual and ecological importance. Such groves are found today throughout India (home of more than a million holy forests), Japan (many thousands of chinju no mori surrounding Shinto temples), and Ethiopia (35,000 primal forests circling Ethiopian Orthodox churches). Sacred groves protect many rare, threatened, and endemic species of plants and animals, and are often the last stand of ancient forest in a community. Biodiversity thrives within these sanctified nature preserves, while festivals dating back to antiquity provide people with a deep and lasting connection to their culture, religious practices, folklore and history. Learn more about Galen Clark from the National Park Service. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/desertoracle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.