Animá Lifeways & Herbal School

The Southwest Monsoons:
The Gifting of Storms and Value of Extremes

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

Anima School & Sanctuary

Introduction: I find myself writing about the gift and lessons of our local monsoons, at the same time as villagers in Pakistan are dying by the hundreds in monsoon swollen floods.  All the more reason, to measure not only the ferocity and cost of these patterns, but the depth of their lessons, the value of their example, and the blessings of their life giving side.

The latter part of every Summer, the Southwest United States is host to what even the weather forecasters call the “Monsoons,” a series of thunderous daily showers that have more in common with the weather patterns of flood and drought ravaged Bangladesh than the remaining three quadrants of this country we belong to.  And sorry, friends, there are no monsoons in Oregon or east of Texas, no matter how strong your storms might ever be.  This particular weather dynamic often involves a seasonal speeding up and reversing of predominate wind direction, and on the North American continent always involves powerful winds blowing Northeastwards, powered by the extreme disparity between the Summer heating of land and ocean.  The resulting lower air pressure above the land acts as a siphon, drawing immense volumes of evaporated seawater high into the atmosphere and then releasing it in heavy concentrations on specific if seemingly random targets along its path.

They announce their start with the faint scent of salty ocean swells in deserts and mountains lying hundreds of Mexican desert miles from the Pacific coastline, and are characterized by dramatic dumps rather than slow and steady soakers.  Whereas the Winter monsoon patterns are dispersive and often contribute to drought, their Summer counterparts can result in flash floods in otherwise dry arroyos, and rivers swollen beyond their bed’s capacity.

It is perhaps that which I relate to most, the consistent embrace of wild extremes instead, the roaring and quaking over the calm and quiet storm, full sun followed by darkest imaginable clouds, the chance to thirst as well as to gorge and stretch.  There’s none of the uncertainty or equivocation of softer systems here, delivered on ever so gentle of winds.  And none of the kinder if monotonous storms that subtly inundate other places, settling in over the land and mind like great gray sheets.  Unlike with so many things in life from people’s characters to personal decisions, there are essentially no “gray areas” when it comes to the monsoons of the Southwest.  The boundaries between dense cloud and clarified sky are stark and easily referenced, and natural shape and fanciful form result from the delineation and contrast.  Sudden and severe fluctuations make boredom and desensitization nearly impossible, and contrasts and choices all the more obvious.  Indeed, if storms had minds, these would no doubt come with strongly formed opinions, forcefully argued in thunder’s rumble, and with pointed lightning bolts for impossible to ignore exclamation marks.  As a writer ultimately dealing with complexities and twists, I get relief from their certitude, feel gratefully affirmed by their make-no-bones-about-it honesty.  I find inspiration in their example of not hinging their act on audience response, “doing their thing” regardless of whether the human throngs either dread or adore it.  I only wish I could say as few lines as these storms, and understood as clearly.

I can intimately relate… to the monsoons’ immense energy, dedicated to what is in the end a life saving mission of bringing water to animals, people and plants that would otherwise perish without. To what feels to me like the freedom of the winds, of a great but guileless power answering to no authority other than its own true nature.  To the myth-worthy act of rushing in, accomplishing a goal and literally “making a big splash”, then slipping out before the applause like the Lone Ranger, while the gringo’s scratch their head and ask “Who was that masked man – masked writer, masked activist, masked healer?”

What I can’t relate to, and seem to have resistance to emulating, is the monsoon’s often absurdly consistent schedule, punching in like clockwork and almost always checking out on time.  Like a dinner date, these storms can usually be expected to arrive no later than 2 PM in the afternoon, and to pack up and leave that same night at a reasonable hour.  In the Northwestern sections of the country, folks often wake up to find a laid-back storm still asleep on their couch.  Not so in good ol’ New Mexico, where the Summer fronts storm in, perform a raucous rock n’ roll set for all assembled creation, and then get back on the road before before either their groupies or their detractors know they are gone.

Our monsoons begin after the July temps get up into the 80s.  And in the same way, their clouds seem to wait each day until the the afternoon’s heat is nearly unbearable before rushing in to darken, dampen and delightfully cool the Southwest’s fabled air.  It’s as if it were set up that way, so that we’d first have to really crave – and thus learn to better appreciate – the gift and relief of cooling moisture, before being subjected to what is often a discomforting deluge.

The clouds don’t roll in around here, they’re sucked in, on winds set to send fierce torrents splashing in great waves against the cliffs, bending over the tops of trees an hour before the first rain drop.  The thunder calls from a distance at first, then tumbles closer and louder, causing birds to launch and flutter, and leading a number of insects to take shelter on the protective undersides of leaves.  Magnificent white thunderheads suddenly rise up from behind the mountains like proudly unbeatable warriors, poised to overwhelm our bastion of relative tranquility and peace, a moment that arrests the prattle of the mind and bares the quaking heart.   The lightning arcs just overhead, illuminating both our inescapable mortality and the immanence of resilient life.  And with each thunderclap’s mighty roar, come the rains that pour, and pour, and pour.

Even with the lightning cause fires and the storms’ eroding of precious soils, the monsoons are still a sweep of the arm that bestows blessings.  The land is not just watered but graced.  The dusty greens of area trees and grass instantly brighten as if lit up from inside.  Normally dull pastel rocks shine like polished gemstones.  The seeps flow in serpentine patterns more beautiful than any artist’s design.  And everywhere a rejoicing!  Every person, plant and creature and even the soils themselves seem to give a glad shout!  A resounding “Yes!” to the rains that spur growth, the winds that test, exercise and thus make us strong, to the thunder that awakens and the water and spirit that sates our thirst.

As the monsoons pass over our cabins and Sanctuary, we do our best to gather every drop that pours off the metal roofs, transferring the life-giving liquid from barrel to barrel in what must look to an observer like a ballet of buckets.  We strive to make the most of these seasonal storms when they’re happening, to have our vessel emptied and waiting… and to be gladly willing to do the work of taking it all in.

As quickly as it starts, each monsoon storm stops.  The pummeling wind quickly dissipates, no doubt.  And what looks like a whole new set of stars soon pop back out.

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The following is another post such as will appear in the future Libertarian/Rewilding website magazine, unnamed as yet, and so for now called “The Straight Shot.”  These will consistently feature opinion, sentiment, history and a call to personal responsibility and action.  Read, and Spread Freely.

Exactly 210 miles due north of my backwoods New Mexico home sits the little frontier town of Telluride, nested between the peaks of Colorado’s beautiful San Juans.  It reportedly got its name from the muleskinners yelling “To hell you ride!” as they maneuvered the racing freight wagons down the treacherously steep mountain.  Nine out of ten wagons made it into the village.  One out of ten plummeted off the cliffs.

Long after the mines played out and the only road was paved, it was still quite an effort and an adventure to get there.  Like my nearby village of Reserve, it’s located hundreds of miles from a city of any size.  The roads are twisty, the mountain passes are icy and dangerous in the Winter, and a lonely driver spends hours in his car between cafes and gas stations.  No one wound up there by mistake or on whim.  If you made it to Telluride it was because you really, really wanted to be there!  This was a great benefit to the fourth and fifth generation locals there, who liked to see a little money trickle into the community, but who were always glad the crowds didn’t get too big, and usually smiled with relief when the last tourists left.

For years folks parked in the middle of Main St. to exchange the latest gossip.  And while people complained about the price of food at the only grocery store, they were glad not to have to go to the “darn city” to stock up.  People played softball, attended socials, held dances and celebrated their remote, mountain defined culture.

By the 1960’s the town had started to change but there was no real crime there most of the time.  Sure, there were a large number of heavy drinkers and a few philanderers, but everybody knew who the only thief in town was, and he was more or less tolerated so long as he only stole from well-heeled “touristas.”  The locals hunted the plentiful deer whenever they needed meat, and the Sheriff’s main duties involved helping tipsy saloon patrons walk the two block to their home.  By the 1980’s they were getting pretty well known for their Summer bluegrass festival, but it was still a real adventure for anyone to make the trip, no matter where the heck they were starting from.  Of course, a few well-heeled land developers started talking about the need to “overcome Telluride’s primitive isolation,” but no one really believed things would ever change… or, at least, that they would change so fast.

Until the first airstrip went in, that is.  Suddenly it required neither obsession nor perseverance to make one’s pilgrimage to this special place, and anybody with the price of a ticket could check their golf clubs with the Denver Airport baggage handlers after work on Friday, and by evening be sipping marguerites in sight of Telluride’s scenic waterfall in the heart of the of the once unspoiled San Juans.  Suddenly, instead of intrepid souls and wild eyed adventurers planning for months to make the sojourn of a lifetime, nothing more was required than a momentary whim.  You can easily imagine the tone of the nattily dressed Salt Lake City lawyer or trendy Berkeley bartender, worried most about the area hotel rooms not being modern enough, or the local clubs sufficiently hopping: “I just can’t seem to decide where to go this weekend, and you know how easily bored I get… maybe I’ll buzz over to check out Telluride.”

As a direct result of such newfound convenience, longtime resident’s homes were soon bought out at inflated prices and turned into shops full of “Indian” crafts, souvenir snow globes with clearly drowned plastic skiers, and paintings of the nice way the place used to look before the ski resort spread out.  Swiss Chalets quickly overshadowed the historic log cabins and vintage Victorian style houses.  And worst of all, those apartments for part-timers they call “condominiums” started sprouting up everywhere one looked, like boils on a burn victim.  As a result, people who arrived with the intention of  having an experience in nature found themselves spending all too much of their June in chlorine-filled pools, or sitting in front of the TV’s in their rented rooms.

If that wasn’t enough, the community soon found itself in a major battle over the expansion of the airport, proposed in order to make it possible for small private jets to land.  Environmentalist ski-bums joined with old time ranchers in opposing the plan, but they may have waited too long to band together and resist the changes that were being forced on them.  When it was over, a handful of big-dollar lawyers and investors had effectively bought out or overcome the will of the locals and construction began.  As a consequence, real estate prices rapidly soared.  A good amount of money was made by those who sold their beloved homes and moved away, and those trying desperately to hang on soon found the annual land taxes had gone up to high for them to pay.  Everyday workers were losing their houses to “second home” buyers from from out of state.  They found themselves living in and commuting from Sawpit and Placerville, a 30 minute or more commute from the place where they actually wanted to sleep.

Today the town is not only gussied up but generally gentrified.  The sidewalks are sparkly clean, buildings have been nicely restored and the signs freshly painted.  Unfortunately, the few kids from local bloodlines that still hang out there are stuck with pouring bubbly water for thirsty restaurant patrons.  We find them maintaining the ski lifts in their tee shirts ironically festooned with corporate advertisement, or wearing little white caps to keep the grease out of their hair while flipping veggie burgers for their Winnebago driving patrons.  I remember one ol’ gal, still pissed off about what they’d done to her little town and their once way of life.  I can recall her looking past the blinking traffic lights and three story condos to the storm clouds forming and fuming just above the mountain.  “If only we would have could have done something sooner!” she growled.  “If only we’d seen it coming…”

And “it” is on its way, no matter where you live or may ever visit, to all the places that you might love just as they are: The scenery, transformed not by art or need but by a clumsier hand, into fabrications of the tacky visions of advertising executives with predictable post modern tastes.  The rural, recreational or agrarian culture you may have valued, not vanquished but sidelined, diluted, marginalized, and finally infiltrated, perverted and appropriated.  The Old Town section of your favorite city, with its park or plaza, narrow streets lined with hawking vendors and busking musicians torn down as part of some hallucinatory scheme.  The neighborhood with big yards where children play and flower gardens flourish, inexorably inundated with poured concrete and molten asphalt the way that Hawaiian volcanoes lay claim to nearby schoolyards with their suffocating lava.  The precious quiet, awaiting like a politically correct pacifist for a future mugging by the abrasive tenor of constantly arriving aircraft and consistently congested traffic.  The building of new airports were there were none, but also the swallowing of smaller airports where you may have enjoyed watching takeoffs and landings as a kid, by the broad security perimeters of giant mega-airports.  And you can’t say that you didn’t see it coming… once you’ve had forceful denial and comforting delusion dashed by this unenviable article.

We rightly get angry about those harmful and unbeauteous things that we have no influence over, yet by my reckoning, we need only regret that which we fail act on or respond to.  We’ll certainly have little cause to regret later those things that we successfully – or even unsuccessfully – repelled or resisted now.

-Jesse Wolf Hardin

www.animacenter.org

To read an excellent article on urban guerrilla gardening, sidewalk reclamation and the garden as protest, we recommend checking out:

http://blog.sfmoma.org/2009/06/the-garden-as-protest/

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THE PHOEBES ARE BACK!

It Takes But a Little Bird To Lift the Heart

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

Sayornis saya
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Tyrannidae (Flycatchers)

She’s back!  And she has touched me like no other bird, I confess, with her simple yet incredibly sweet whistling calls so sadly missed during her lengthy Winter absence.  “Pd-eer,” she sings in occasional relaxed cadence, “Pd-eer, Pd-eer,“ as though a special sharing and gift for me.

I don’t mean that she’s a single individual, of course, since I have enjoyed the same April return to the eaves of our cabin since shortly after I built it, over 25 years ago now.  What I am so attached to is no doubt a lineage, sequential generations of these wondrous little flycatchers, with certain broods producing an offspring that will answer to call to root and bond at a cellular level like I have, to a particular place, to what is for us not only essential habitat but our home.

She makes a sound for me as she brakes and flutters when entering her nest, that she doesn’t make any other time, a lovely, bubbly trilling, followed by a few contented “Pd-weep, Pd-weeps” as lands for only a few seconds before flying about again.  No matter how heavy my thoughts or serious my work, every time I hear her landing trill my heart is lifted.

Within a short while she will be attended by a mate, in a monogamous relationship that will bear from 3 to 7 white eggs typically speckled with reddish brown freckles.  These she will sit on and incubate for 12 to 14 days, making constant trips back and forth to the nest to feed her hatchlings thereafter.  Surveying the landscape like a hawk from a convenient perch, this small fluffball will swiftly swoop down on any airborne insect that she sees, sometimes hovering over the tall grass until the perfect opportunity to strike.  While appearing the very epitome of sweetness and preciousness, she will be a protective mother who vigorously drives off any other birds that dare to venture near.  One of the words used to describe a collective of Phoebes is a “swatting”, perhaps as a nod to the earnest and tireless way that they box one bug after another from the sky.

I actually loved and praised my succession of Summer resident long before I knew their name.  For the longest time I had difficulty even seeing one clearly enough to make an identification with the help of our Sibley’s Guide.  This was due in part to their small size, gray backs and buff bellies, but also because they’re so active, only briefly tending to an important survey before dashing off, and otherwise seeming thrilled to be swooshing and rolling about through the air.  What we have here are Say’s Phoebes, named after the naturalist Thomas Say, a little larger than both the common Eastern Phoebe and the local Black Phoebe with its white belly and charcoal toned top.  The Say’s Phoebes are said to mostly spend their Winters in California and western Oregon, yet nest and breed along a huge swath of territory from the bosom of old Mexico all the way to Alaska, the Yukon and the northern Mackenzie, further north than any other flycatcher by far.  Throughout, they frequent more or less open ecotones like prairie and tundra, as well as riparian zones like the river canyon cradling and supporting the Anima Sanctuary.

Like so many species of plants and animals on this planet, the Says’ population is on a slow but steady decline.  The reasons for this are the most obvious and common, a continuous loss of habitat to development as a burgeoning human population understandably seeks to meet it needs for housing, food and roads.  We can only hope that their homes and weedy feeding grounds will be preserved wherever their role as a voracious predator of sometimes troublesome insects is valued, or where their trills and pd-weeps are cherished like here…

…and hope, as well, that we can come to see every living thing – furry or leafen, soft or prickly – as no less dear.

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(For more reflections on nature and place, go to the blog archives at right, or to www.animacenter.org)

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OLD HOUSES AND HEARTFUL HOMAGE:

Mama Taught To Seek More Than Just Shelter

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

I often think about my precious mother, years after her passing, and especially the attitudes and behaviors that most characterized her… things like her great joy in the process of creating as well as her seeming inability to linger and savor what she had created or accomplished, the unfortunate penchant to endlessly migrate but also the meaningful ways she felt about the various places where she stayed.

She had barely moved into what was to be her last house when her uterine cancer reappeared, and yet she never regretted using up the last of her meager assets to make the requisite down payment… not even for a second!  She rationalized the move as a way of situating her  closer to a hospital and advanced medical care, but more than anything else she wanted a larger space for all her pretty collectibles and artsy second hand furniture.  Neither convenience nor size were factors.  As with each of her many previous transitions, she had been looking “not for a house” but for “a home.”

There’s no doubt that even a brand new doublewide mobile can be such a home, as soon as it’s furnished with one’s treasured belongings, and decorated with the personal touches that mark it as our own.  And a structure becomes enriched whenever it’s filled with laughter and gratitude, and its energies deepened once blessed by the holy-water of its residents’ tears.  But Mom had always preferred either unique handmade houses or else the really old ones, thick with memories, marked by attention and love.  Such as converted barns and Victorian bungalows.  Spanish ranch houses and adobe casitas.  Gingerbread cottages for enchanted grandmothers, with trellising gardens and glad teasing flowers.

And it’s much the same with all vintage houses.  Whether a hundred year old East Coast structure with its basement and attic or a moss covered Oregon fishing shanty – we usually experience a “take off your hat and lower your voice” kind of reverence when we first enter.  Once inside we can feel the accumulative emotions and moods of the previous generations of residents, sense their own devotions to place in the handiwork in each board and brick.  Weathered oak floors polished by the shuffle of sock-clad feet, tongue-and-groove boards reflecting the busy shifting images of families growing, dying, and giving birth.  The fence rails absorb the sweat of little hands reaching up, as well as crippled hands struggling for a helpful grip.  They soak up and then radiate with the intentions and dreams, loss and gain, love and anger, desire and satisfaction of those who have called it their home before.  You can take out all the heavy wooden furniture and the dark floral drapes, the faded woolen rug and the leaded glass light fixtures hanging from the center of the ceiling, and bring in bright acrylic pile or modern art with aluminum frames – and still an old house will resound with the echoes of its history.  Repaint the walls as you like, but something of the past will continue to show through.

The last house that Mama bought was a New Mexico adobe that had been more than a shelter for the preceding generations, and it proved to mean far more to her as well.  Like every other building she had ever lived in, it quickly became her refuge and her castle, her consolation and her reward.  Her playground and her kingdom, her service and her glory.  Like all truly good things, it made her not only more happy but more grateful.

Perhaps this could be the real definition of the word “homage”:  honoring the source of all blessings, through the reverence and care of one’s own home.

(For a personal exploration of related issues, consider enrolling in the Anima “Sense of Place and The Search For Home” correspondence course: www.animacenter.org)

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Depths:
Affirmation River, & Mountain-Style

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

www.animacenter.org

After a series of eastward-blowing storms, it’s been brilliantly sunny again.  Besides the pleasant warming ambiance, it has meant the ritual snowmelt, with the quickly saturated ground giving up its overflow in a convulsion of water.  Migrating in sheets off the steep cliffs and mountains, it breaks up into liquid fingers gurgling down parallel gullies, then plummets from the ledges in 2 feet, 6 feet, or 100 feet drops.  No matter their individual mini-headwaters, their destination is the same, gravity combining with earth’s ecosophic purpose to feed a quickly swelling river.

Quickly, I say, sometimes rising from a foot deep to over 20 feet deep, and from gently moving at a relaxed pace to madly rushing like a herd of bison stampeded by lightning.  Today the Sweet Medicine River varied from 3 to 5 feet depending on its width, as well as on the holes scooped out by the swirling force of eddies.  At such times it would be reasonable and perhaps even wise to stay at home here, in wood heated cabins perched far above all but the most biblical flood heights.  Reasonable, however, does not determine my actions when there is a cause to be championed, an innocent to be defended, a mission to be furthered… mail to be mailed, or cream, butter and treats for the gals to be got.

The adventure begins with taking off my pants and shirt and rolling them up, then holding the bundle of boots, clothes and outgoing mail above my head while stepping off into cloudy swirling waters where I can’t see the bottom.  From the second I touch bottom on sucking sand or bruising rock, the current pushes me hard down the canyon and to the southwest and Arizona and Mexico when I need to remain determinedly pointed to the east.  To compensate I set off 30 yards upriver from my preferred landing spot on the opposite bank, then bounce across in leaps that give in equal proportions to the diverging directions of man and river.

I’m very warm blooded, but snowmelt anywhere above the thighs is stunning to say the least, a jolt that arrests all thought even as it so loudly reminds me through every sense that I am alive.  Getting out onto largely muddy ground with clean feet is a trick best accomplished by holding onto railings of exposed Alder roots, and then squatting and dressing in atop its foundation of shore-clutching arms.  The climb to the waiting vehicle starts out at a 30 degree incline, and any thought of being cold is gone within the first third of the ascent.  Sitting for hours writing articles, books and emails is poor exercise and preparation, and my legs begin to complain.  When I was in my 20’s, I made it a practice to run as fast as I could without stopping for the entire 2 mile climb, carrying a pebble in my mouth because I had read the Apache ensured breathing through their noses that way, causing greater stamina.  Now I considered a satisfactory feat just to be able to scramble up its sides on deer trails that for a deer would be a relaxed pace.  And while the snow lay only in patches at the bottom of the canyon, with the first 500 feet of elevation increase the snow had thickened to a 18 inches or more, obliterating any sign of the winding way up.  With familiar landmarks draped or obscured and the ground appearing but a single precipitous angle, I was likely seldom if ever actually a trail, making headway by thrusting the sides of my boots into the snow for each step, and proceeding more sideways than forward myself.

Increasingly aching legs and ever more slippery and indecipherable terrain inspired even greater attention to each committed step.  A slip could mean plummeting at breakneck speeds checked only by collisions of flesh against bark, careening pinball style off one ponderosa tree after another.  The Winter is found no less lovely by the trekker, knowing that growing stiff and weary, or stopping and taking too long of a rest could mean never getting back up again.  There is only continuing as an option for life, as it is with all life forms empowered by this force and will to live, the anima.  And less dramatically, there is never any stopping and giving up for me.  Older and less exercised limbs showed no sign of giving out, but only signs of continuing to give their all.  In fact, the aching actually eased for the most part at the point when the climb was most difficult, and in that I found great encouragement.

The microclimate shifted with each few hundred feet of ascent, such that near the 7000 feet level I found myself walking into a cloud, a strata of airborne strata so pronounced that for a moment I could see my boot clearly while everything at head height was covered by mist.  Like the entrance to Avalon, all magic seems to be veiled for protection by a cloud of unknowing.  But for me then, it was a knowing instead, the knowledge that once in the cloud I was essentially at the mountain’s top and a waiting snow-tucked vehicle.  As always, the cream in our coffee will be made all the more enjoyable by the means through which it was obtained.  The books sent out will have an extra story to go with them, recounting their untypical journey.  And the where and why of our lives is yet again reaffirmed, not by the ease of our admitted paradise but by what we are willing to do for and because of it.  Affirmed mountain and river-style, instead of through its vista and sparkle we come to know its measure by its depth.

(Post and share freely.  Photos (c)2010 by Jesse Wolf Hardin)

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Intro: Our Animá school is situated in isolated Catron County, New Mexico, only 2 percent private land and a populous nationally famous for their their anti-government, libertarian, and sadly but understandably anti-environmentalist views.  Even as they have embraced a tree hugging ex-biker philosopher named “Wolf” as their own, they are terrified of the real wolf introduction program and angry over the ways the program has been operated.  For all its twists and complexities, we are very fortunate to live in a place where individual liberty is a paramount value, wide open spaces treasured, wild food eaten, medicinal herbs appreciated, gardens grown and human bonds strengthened.  Folks jump to help us and each other, and are disappointed if we don’t stop to visit.  If you ever make the trip here you will expect to see the disparaging sign about spotted owls in our landmark Uncle Bill’s Bar, but you may be surprised at the friendly greetings of folks walking or driving your way.  There is a reason why I may be calling my upcoming “straight shot” book of rural humor and land based insights “The Town That Waves.”  This will likely be its opening chapter.  -JWH

The Town That Waves

by Jesse Hardin

I will never forget rolling into my home country for the very first time, awestruck by the sheer physical beauty, giddy with excitement as Sonoran desert gave way to vast stretches of piñon-juniper, then into thick stands of ponderosa pine bearded with dangling usnea.  The continental divide.  The exposed cliffs near the village of Aragon, with that inviting cave within sight of the road.  The bright green meadows fed by generous springs, the twist of the Tularosa river, the view to the north of the Frisco box.  Elk feeding at the edge of the pavement.  Bald eagles circling.  A fox dashing for cover at the sound of my engine.  The vast distances seemed to cast a spell on me, soothing my beastly youthful impatience.  And the land… the land felt animate with the ghosts of the past, its human and natural history somehow still alive for us to sense, learn from, and give thanks for.  Call it the presence of God if you will – or call it the power of the Great Spirit as previous generations of awestruck natives did – but the land seemed to me then and still seems to reflect, embody and vibrate with a divine force, appearing magical even to a hardened modern mind.  The closer I got to what would become my lifetime home, the closer I felt to heaven.  Blooming wildflowers and a buoyant northeastern wind worked in consort together, easing me into a timeless state of mind steeped in reverie on that long, long drive.

I was amazed on that fortuitous initial visit, however, not just by the landscape but also the people.  First, that there were so very few of them, with me seeing only a handful of trucks in the final one hundred and thirty miles.  And second, amazed that the drivers waved as they passed by!

I don’t think that a roadside iguana race hosted by hula dancers would have have been any greater a surprise to the 23 year old me.  Having been a teen runaway in the harder neighborhoods of several cities, I’d grown to expect a “dirty finger” flipped in my direction, or an occasional beer bottle being tossed at me by someone with an aversion for “long-hairs” or chopped motorcycles.  And even in the nicer parts of town, I could expect stiff indifference, pedestrians as well as drivers understandably going by without making eye contact, with me largely anonymous and irrelevant to them.  But waving?  I was dumbfounded.  Nonplussed.  Flabbergasted.  And I might add, deeply touched.

For the first few weeks here I felt guilty, like an impostor, worried that they were confusing my vehicle for someone else’s they knew.  Surely if those folks realized I wasn’t a local, they’d resent the effort.  And up until then I still preferred being ignored to being resented.  But that’s all changed in the decades since, and it’s gotten to where I’d rather be actively disliked than ingloriously ignored.  At this stage, I only feel guilty if I get so distracted with changing the music on the stereo that I fail to wave back.

For all those who wave, needless to say, I’ve noticed there are a few who never do.  These include the occasional stockman, too John Wayne-like stoic to do anything so ostentatious and undignified.  The nearly blind, who drive ten miles an hour and can barely see the yellow lines, let alone make out a raised hand behind the glare of an opposing windshield.  The teens scarcely old enough for a license, who are characteristically way too cool for such things.  And those who are both extremely old and stubbornly willful, working with white-knuckled determination to keep their thirty year old pickups on the road, justifiably afraid to take either hand off the wheel even for a second.

The above are the exceptions, while the majority of my community faithfully continue with this valued practice, going through the motions because we care.  Being a county of individualists, however, no two of these waves are exactly alike.  The personal variations demonstrate both the degree of emotional investment and the current mood of the waver, such as:  A single pointer finger lifted.  The same finger lifted, but wagged.  Two fingers doing the same.  The whole palm lifted, with the heel still on the wheel.  An entire hand raised and held still in the air, like pinto pony-riding Plains Indians meeting up in a flat stretch of buffalo grass.  The whole hand raised and waved back and forth, like a bobbing dashboard hula-dancer.  And there is both hands momentarily off the wheel, flapping wildly in the air because the driver happens to be truly excited to see you.

Such waves are about bonding, affirmation and membership in a way, about being genuinely pleased the other fellow is out on such a good day to be alive!  About fellow county residents sharing a common place and history, and a number of values and hopes.  But the wave is also about recognizing each other as fellow human critters only temporarily boxed up in ironclad machines on wheels, no matter our fellow driver’s place of origin… as sister and brethren sharecroppers working in a fractured economic system, breathing the same air, struggling with the same issues of growing up or parenting, of aging and health.  The same prostituted politicians and freedom-robbing legislation.  And similar purpose and belief, hardship and hope.

That said, my rural neighbors and I aren’t any too bothered if some tourist or house hunter motors by without giving us the courtesy of waving back.  We understand.  He or she just doesn’t know any better yet.

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Intro: When we first met Kiva, “Poet” was one of the roles or identities that she identified with most.  She wrote for herself first, as every poet must, but the revealing honesty and excruciating intensity burned, blew, rooted and grew with a message for everyone.  That poetry is generally such an under-appreciated form of literature anymore, is a sad statement on our kind… for the poem is beauteous, heartful, dancing truth stripped of all else.  And of all the poets and poems written, I know of none better than those of our own scribe, Kiva.   -Wolf

Morning River

(Within Walking Distance)

by Kiva Rose Hardin

(www.animacenter.org)

With the ground warm
and wet underfoot
I unfurl myself
into the morning -
a fern frond unwinding
from the earth,
hair loose and
catching in the junipers
as I stretch my face
out towards
sky and the sweet
blossom smell
of seven o’clock
in the mountains

everything worth having
is within walking distance -
dirt under my toes,
leaves and bark
brushing my face,
and my love’s fingers
reaching out in sleep to
curl against my calf

and always -
always the song
of the rushing river
rising from below

everything I love
I hold close to me -
my daughter dancing
wild and sleepy-eyed
at first light,
forest creatures
walking past my bed
late at night,
the taste of berries
sweet and tart
and jewel red,
blooming reckless
against my tongue

I hold it close -
I press it against my lips,
and in the morning
I walk to the river,
step into the current
with a rustling of leaves
-breath, birdsong-
and close the distance
between myself
and everything
I have ever loved

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With the thunder rolling through the mountains and the raindrops splashing against the dusty ground, there’s no doubt it feels more like the middle of July than the middle of May. We have our fingers crossed that the last few days unseasonal storms will provide some much needed moisture rather than triggering lightning set forest fires during what is normally our driest season. The nearly black clouds roll across the Gila, even as sunlight spills through and around them, creating a fascinating display of light and darkness upon the green and gold curves of the land. This natural chiaroscuro plays over New Mexico’s water and earth in an annual demonstration of wholeness, not of contesting opposites but the complementary parts coming together to create a greater beauty than either alone could engender.

As odd as the weather may be, the plants still seem to know what month it is and are coming out in their own steady schedule. Down by the river, the wild roses are beginning to bloom — their vividly pink petals unfurling slowly, a few more each day, and  their scent wafting up and down the river on the breeze. Gold and orange faced Monkeyflowers, lavender petaled Veronica and white sprays of Watercress grow from the riverbanks while the creamy lily-shaped blossoms of the Yucca adorn the stark cliff-faces and rocky mesas. Come evening, the rich, nearly overpowering scent of Wild Honeysuckle and Canyon Grape flowers drifts on the cooling air, drawing us all outside to breathe deeply of the sweet, almost intoxicating aroma.

Everywhere I step, I’m greeted by the colors and smells of Spring. The great sheltering canopies of  Gambel Oak and Canyon Walnut rear up from the hillsides, providing a shady haven even in the hottest of weather. At their feet, Pink Penstemon, Purple Vetch and Wild Skullcap proliferate and spread among last year’s slowly composting leaf litter.

On my frequent walks I almost always carry my large gathering basket, its strongly woven interior easily holding the many bundles of herbs I often harvest when out. I also wear my curved gathering knife (a sweet gift from Wolf) with its intricate damascus blade that’s perfect for cleanly cutting through even a thick section of plants. Rhiannon often accompanies me and together we hunt for the sweetest greens and newest flowers, crawling under fallen trees and climbing up lichen-kissed rocks.

No matter how many times I explore the same area, I’m bound to find something new — a clump of red earth, a rust colored crystal, just opened blossom or a small splinter of bone. Even the shades of earth and dirt change with season and weather, in the same way that the other colors and textures of every bit of the natural world are constantly adapting and shifting in relation to the rest of the whole. We as humans often want to hold onto what we love, whether child or place or era — to keep it safe, pure and unchanged. And yet, through the complex evolution and interplay of life in the myriad forms of soil, rocks, rabbits, butterflies, anemones, salmon and eagles we can see that vitality and loveliness are rooted in dynamics and relationship. Always moving, always adapting, always becoming.

In truth, beauty is not ephemeral, it doesn’t mysteriously disappear from humans at age forty or fade with the plant’s shift from flower to fruit to seed. It is constantly growing, changing, shifting. We are born, we age and die and become the soil, only to begin again. Every part of that process is beautiful and filled with the potential for grace and growth. In the light and the dark, in the blooming and the seeding, in storm and stillness, the land remakes and rebirths itself, and we along with it. In the chiaroscuro is the dance of life

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 Marriage to the Land

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

Part 3 of 3: The Active Art of Love

I likely say both “I love you” to both wife and land a dozen times a day.  My eyes play over every change of clothes or leaves, river swell or new dress, and I comment again and again on the smile that delights me, the smells of river and woman that arouse.  I draw pictures and write essays full of praise to acknowledge and even immortalize.  Drawings of blue eyes and flowing hair, of canyon bobcats and coursing river.  Stories written of feminine wildness and this special wild place.  Promises and endearments carved or painted and then left somewhere for a certain someone to find.

Marriage, after all, is not only a commitment to another’s well being but to romance as well.  It is incumbent on the spouse to tend not only the body of the beloved but the heart, honoring the other’s unique qualities and complimenting their beauty.  “Settling down” with someone is about settling into patterns of attentiveness and care, affirmation and celebration…. not settling for less.  Similarly we husband the land not so much by tilling as by extolling.  A paramour might leave flowers in the path of the returning beloved, faithfully kiss her mate’s eyes open each morning, or sing his praises with a mad passion.  The lover of a place bows to every new bloom, presses lips to tree bark, honors the setting of sun with a whirling dance, honors root and flight with bared toes on bare ground and the borrowed melodies of the meadow lark.  Such careful attention and creative expression is nothing less than art…. and this constant blooming, the art of marriage.  The goal is not only to make the relationship work, but to make it beautiful as well.  Not only meeting the needs of the other, but delighting them with our means of doing so.  In our marriage to the land, the care we gift it includes our attentiveness, passion, protection, and the artful celebration of what is surely our shared being.

In relationships as in paintings, the art is in the acknowledgment and glorification of the other’s inner essence.  The artist or mate draws out not only the actual appearance of the  beloved but also their feel, their spirit, their beauty that preceded the maturing of the features and will long outlive the perfect skin of youth, shining through a road map of facial wrinkles or mountain erosion to come.  Not only the lines and color of a landscape but the character that breeds and defines its landed features, with the spirits of place honored in deft strokes by those loving the hush of compost and gray of winter as much as the brilliant greens and bursting songs of Spring growth.  And it is just as true for our poetry, correspondence and diary entries, for craft and song and dance dedicated to the revealing of that inner power connecting us to the all.  Take the ancient dances to the hunted animals for example, the chants to the rain gods, magical paintings on mats of bark and myths telling and retelling tribal truths over a council fire, the ways in which we court our chosen man or maiden — all are stories, and it is story that centers us in our beliefs, in our world, in the progression of past, present and future.  They are the threads that stitch us back into our contract and our place, a portion of life’s crucial lessons handed down through the inheritance of craft more than genes.  Since the very beginnings of what it means to be human we have venerated and exalted Spirit, the living land and our conjugal loves through that confluence of feeling and demonstration called art.

The ancient ones they call the Mimbres peoples created a black on white pottery style that is still held in high esteem by modern art experts and connoisseurs.  Featuring fantastic images of wild animals and mythical entities, they inevitably evoke the Great Mystery.  The fired clay fragments scattered throughout our refuge tell of a life of honoring, each one a picture-puzzle piece still vibrating with the intention of its designer and the accumulative energy of years of reverent touch.  The first inhabitants of this canyon spoke their fealty for the land in rock art carved out of their collective and individual souls, lightning bolts and the seed-carrier Kokopelli painted on the insides of caves.  Here too are the forms of the artists’ fingers and palm, their signatures, the marks of their  selves, in graphic hands reaching out to their descendants across the chasm of time.  They left enduring images of their priorities and loves, deities and dreams.  They left their holiest expressions of wonder and communion, the evidence of a marriage with place consecrated in timeless artistic expression.

And of course there was beauty before there was ever an informed audience, in the way the setting sun sparkles on the cottonwood leaves, in the explosive and the sublime, the sensuous inner curves of the datura blossom and the upthrusting lava that first helped form these canyon cliffs.  In a wooden cholla cactus skeleton seemingly braced against both wind and sky.  In the way the morning mist clings to the mountains, and how the willows sway back and forth in the wind.  In the purslane stems forming a crimson star burst on the ground, and the juxtaposition of branches on ponderosa pines stout and tall.  In the orange feathers of clown flickers, and the purple undersides of lamb’s quarters after they go to seed in the Fall.  It is little different today save for our rapt attention and silent applause.  Resident and guest alike are touched to the degree that they are open and aware…. with each glinting rock, each flex of river muscle food for the observant eye, inspiration to the feeling heart, and food for the hungry soul.

Art is a matter not only of form but of deliberate expression.  Even a child’s crayon scribbles are art when they contribute to her sense of self, satisfy her inner muse, or are made to express an idea or feeling to her mama or papa.  This canyon’s river ripples and Zen-like displays of white fuzzy seeds are beautiful even without an audience, and have no need for our appreciation or approval.  But with no conscious intention of their own to impart, it is only as photographs in this book that they truly become art.

Art is conscious expression.  Therefore there is art in the sensuous ways a wife might move when in the presence of her lover.  Art in a mother’s calligraphy, in the extra swirls and embellishments that make her cards and envelopes stand out.  Art in carefully arranged wildflowers, in the way a little girl mixes, matches and layers her clothing.  In the balanced way we lay out the colorful foods on our plate, and on the walls that we decorate.  Art can be not only what we witness or create, but the very how and why of our lives.  How we dress or carry ourselves.  How we eat and think, and move when there’s no one around to watch us.  How meaningfully and expressively we speak to each other, and how well we listen.  The music we like, and the rhythms of our own day to day existence.  In the vernacular of the artist, attention to the forms our being and doing take is called “style,” though its not nearly so proscribed or restrained as that makes it sound.  Another way to look at an artful life and marriage is as a condition and practice of “grace,” sometimes defined as “seemingly effortless beauty or charm of movement,” “an excellence bestowed” or “a prayer of thanksgiving.”  It is to walk, as the Hopi say, “in beauty”… and to walk in gratitude, forever, together.

My decades in this canyon have taught me that whole relationship – whether with a spouse or our mated place – is founded on trust, deepened by respect, furthered by communication, bound fast through commitment and loyalty, blessed with surrender and sacrifice, lived and expressed in the most wonderful and artful ways.  It is love both given and received, and not only beautiful but seen.  In this marriage to the land I say, “let nothing come between.”

(photos (c)2009 by Jesse Wolf Hardin)

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 Marriage to the Land

by Jesse Wolf Hardin

Part 2 of 3:
Re-envisioning Sacrifice & Surrender

“Marriage is a relationship.  When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you’re sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship.”           
-Joseph Campbell

It’s possible to go from girlfriend to girlfriend or place to place with neither commitment, sacrifice nor surrender, but a healthy marriage to anyone or anything depends on elements of all three.  We commit to be with someone or some place not just when its most convenient, profitable or enjoyable but “for better or for worse, in sickness as in health.”  When our beloved suffers illness and debility, rages with frustration or quakes from some old and unhealed wound, we hold him or her all the closer.  We meet those needs that we’re able, help heal what we can, abide that which we cannot help, and love the whole .  When our home is hurt we rise to stem the damage, and hold it all the closer as it trembles at the approach of bulldozers, concrete mixers and those furtive men with their seemingly limited feelings and limitless ideas.  The committed hold tight even when faced with an invasion by the most inglorious industries.  I know that a wildfire could blow through our precious canyon home, level our houses and destroy the forest I helped plant a quarter century before and still we would not leave.  We’d stay to bathe its burns with our tears, replant its soil with seed and hope and come nightfall, make our bed on its blanket of ash.

Commitment inevitably requires sacrifice.  If nothing else we sacrifice what we once planned or wanted to do in order to give our time, energy and focus to something that matters even more to us.  To “sacrifice” means literally “to make sacred,” through a deliberate, ritual and voluntary gifting.  As a teenager I hated the term, partly from hearing mothers say in barely disguised disgust how they had “sacrificed” their dreams for their children, and husbands who claimed to have “sacrificed” their lives for the sake of their wives…. using others as an excuse for not having taken the risk to go for what they claim to desire most.  Sacrificing isn’t “giving up” something as if under pressure or obligation, but “giving” it as a gift from our heart…. a meaning-filled offering to others, to Spirit, to home and to purpose.

It’s also true that there’s no sacrifice in inadvertently gifting, or in gifting that which we have no real desire to keep.  To sacrifice is to consciously give of those things we might otherwise rather hold on to, for the sake of our intention, priorities and promise.  Young and relatively clueless as I once was, I nonetheless knew that moving here onto this isolated piece of land would mean sacrificing my gallery and art career, income and social life, and access to cultural activities as well as medical facilities.  Thus instead of feeling victimized or penalized by unseen consequences, I felt empowered by the ritual of choice.  I could value my time and my role in the canyon in even deeper ways, knowing what I consciously gave, and continue to give, in order to be here.

There are no empty holes in life, and as the saying goes, “nature abhors a vacuum.”  If a species disappears, its niche is quickly filled by other life forms.  A basin is sure to eventually fill with rain.  Canyons summon rivers as soil beckons seed.  Thus it is impossible for anybody to give something over, without getting something in return, and with each thing sacrificed we’d do well to look for what might have been gained.   To sacrifice a prerogative, is often to garner respect.  With the sacrifice of one’s plans come the gifts of adventure and spontaneity, serendipity and surprise.  Sacrificing the boost in salary that a move to another region might bring, we gain a renewed awareness of and appreciation for where we already live.  It was through sacrificing my habitual urge to roam that I finally came upon the true meaning of home.

I had just as hard of a time with that other prerequisite of deep matrimony, “surrender”– which I confused with defeat, subjugation and shame.  I would never give up on any task no matter how painful or difficult, and when grabbed in a headlock by school bullies I’d have rather died on the spot than ever “say uncle.”  My images of surrender included cowardly troops on a field of battle, throwing their guns on the ground and marching off with the enemy in hopes of lenient treatment and a hot meal.  In reality surrender is hardly for the beaten or resigned, ambivalent or tentative…. and the stronger willed one is, the more fierce our intention needs to be.  It’s more akin to sacrifice, its roots found in the Old French surrendere, meaning “to deliver.”  Matrimony and allegiance to place have nothing to do with defeat and everything to do with giving.      While submission leads to subordination, surrender is a sharing of gifts that results in recombination.  We invariably become a component of that which we surrender to, and likewise what we surrender to becomes a defining part of who we are.  Therefore one must take care always to surrender to truth and service, but never to illusion or greed.  Surrender not to property but to land.  Not to force, but mission and purpose.  And not to separation, distraction or bitterness…. but to connection and placement, contentment and love.

(to be continued)

(photos (c)2009 by Jesse Wolf Hardin)

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