Guided Joshua Tree Meditation and Performance, 2024
Photo by Juniper Harrower
Guided Joshua Tree Meditation & Performance with Edgar Fabián Frías
On October 26, 2024, Edgar Fabián Frías led a transformative Guided Joshua Tree Meditation & Performance at the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve as part of A Day in the Desert, an initiative under the Getty’s PST ART program. This event, co-created with curator and scientist Juniper Harrower, was part of the Desert Forest exhibition at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) and a part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide. Harrower, whose research focuses on plant communication and desert ecology, shared her scientific insights into the Joshua tree’s root systems, which shaped the structure and meaning of this ceremony.
The ritual took place around a Joshua tree whose root had been carefully uncovered as part of Harrower’s research. This intentional exposure, conducted with permission, offered a rare glimpse into the underground network that sustains the Joshua tree and connects to other species. Participants, guided by Frías and informed by Harrower’s years of ecological study, engaged in acts of reverence, tending to this “wound” in the earth as a symbolic gesture of care and reciprocity. In the ceremony’s closing, attendees refilled the soil around the root, acknowledging the tree’s offering and embodying themes of respect, stewardship, and interconnectedness that are central to Indigenous and animistic practices.
To deepen participants’ connection to the desert landscape, Frías introduced Desert Pact, a custom-crafted energy body mist rooted in Indigenous and animistic practices that form the foundation of their spirituality and creative work. The mist featured an infusion of spring water, Joshua tree, creosote, heliotrope, desert globemallow essences, creosote hydrosol, and juniper essential oil. Each ingredient was selected by Frías for its energetic properties, evoking the spirit and resilience of the desert. Flower essences crafted by Saewon Oh of Sun Song and Corinna Rosella of Milk Thistle Apothecary contributed to the mist’s power, grounding participants in the ritual and enhancing their sensory connection to the land.
Photo documentation by Nicholas Ordoñez and the City of Lancaster unless otherwise stated.
Frías’s artwork "I Listen To The Ancestors" 2023 (above) is featured in the Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees exhibition catalog.
