Taos: Acequias & Agriculture - An Evening Lecture at the TCA

A couple of weeks back, after a full day of work at La Dona Luz, I awoke from a much needed nap. I grabbed a snack, set the house up for a night time return, and walked down the street. The warm light of sunset shone on the mountain peaks behind me and created a golden glow on the adobe architecture lining Paseo (del Pueblo Norte).

Along the way, towards the heart of town, I passed a patch of colorful zinnias and large-bodied marigolds, Ouray’s Spirit Runner Gallery of oil landscapes, a large twirling wind sculpture dangling from the branch of a chestnut tree, and a labyrinth circling in front of a Presbyterian Church. I turned off of the sidewalk and mozied across the green, spongy lawn of Kit Carson Park and to the TCA, the local community arts center.

The TCA was in its third evening of a lecture series provided by the Taos branches of UNM & SMU. That’s a lot of acronyms for one sentence. The evening’s speaker, Miguel Santistevan, shared, with an occasional dry humor, an intelligent look at the deeply historic regional subject of water usage and conservation through the acequia system, as well as traditional agriculture. Here’s a brief bio & summary: http://www.taoslecture.com/?page_id=38

Here’s a recording of the lecture:

http://www.4shared.com/audio/jXgPIKx8/Lecture_Series_3__2_.html

Some important points I took from the lecture:

1. The acequia system has deep, cultural history that was adopted by this region and is a water source that is truly communal, creating its own system of trust and balance within the community.

2. The digging of the acequia and helping to open up the spring water flow is an opportunity for a Rite of Passage experience for local youth and their bond with the community.

3. There are many time tested methods, as well as current experimental methods, for conserving moisture for agricultural uses. Lowered, gridded “waffle” gardens with shade fences, rock piles to collect moisture and regulate heat, and even giant snowballs harvested in the spring and placed in the shade are some methods used.

4. As a reminder of the wild plants that have edible and medicinal use, many exist in this region right under our very feet, from watercress and lemon balm to a whole host of others. 

5. Sustainable placement of features for land use is absolutely vital in order to make the entire regional system of acequias and agriculture to work.

6. Indigenous and historic seeds are able to adapt and flourish on their own, without much need for coaxing, and they offer a healthy diet. Genetically modified seeds are doomed to potentially fail on a mass level and offer poor dietary benefits.

I first came to Taos nearly 14 years ago and have come and gone four separate times, with numerous visits in between. After a full year spent in Oregon, I’m just now completing my first consecutive year-long stay in this unique community. Through that transient relationship, Taos has slowly become my adopted home.

It was once suggested through a mentor that, wherever one may travel, it is best and most efficient to learn from the natives. In the spirit of that idea, evenings such as this are about opening myself up to the greater local community and to learn from centuries of tradition, conservation, and survival. It feels of the greatest importance to connect with educators such as Miguel. Being native to the northeast, this is a landscape that will take years for me to truly come to understand and gain intimate familiarity with.

For a small town of perhaps 6,000 people (similar in size to the Pennsylvania town I grew up near), I’m always amazed at the colorful diversity, depth of cultural experiences, and mix of progressive attitude and tradition that exists here. And this on nothing more than a mundane Wednesday evening. It rivals any city that I would care to inhabit, yet with the quiet, steady pace of the Southwestern, small-town countryside.

After a brief chat with Miguel and others following the lecture, I left the TCA and retraced my footsteps home, gazing up at the stars along the way. Ten minutes later, I was lounging on the couch and eating dinner to the steady sounds of crickets and a myriad of other insects buzzing and chirping in a comfortable September night. 

Seasonal Transitions: Connecting Nature & Culture

The High Holy Days and Reflections of Spiritual Experience

Among cultural events of this time of season that inspire the idea of fall reflection come the high holidays of the Jewish tradition. The shift of seasons traditionally brings Rosh Hashana, with its renewal of the New Year, and Yom Kippur, with its solemn day of prayer, fasting, and atonement. With my mixed ancestral Jewish and Protestant backgrounds, I’ve become increasingly focused on acknowledging the significance of such sacred holidays in my life throughout my adult years.

The significance of the New Year occurring at this time of year is not lost on me. The symbolic and literal shedding that occurs during the fall months marks this as a season of renewal and rebirth. We reflect on our lives as they are, as they have been, and the direction we intend to travel in the coming year. We remember our family and community, the roads they have traveled before us, and the roads they help guide us through now. We atone for our misgivings and come back to center, at-one-ness, with God in our lives. Yesterday was Yom Kippur and as we awoke to the first significant snowfall of the season, I took it as a positive sign of weather to come in the white season ahead.

Among those experiences, personally I am coming upon the 15 year anniversary of significant entheogenic journeys in my early college years that helped set the course for my life as it is now. It is from these psychedelic experiences that I began a deep pursuit of spiritual understanding and recognition in my life and what has brought me into communion with my family traditions. And it’s upon these experiences that I reflect most deeply now. As the weeks roll along, I plan to return alone to a wilderness location to sit in contemplation in recognition of those journeys.

Philosophically speaking, from those early college years to now, I would say that I’ve been most profoundly influenced by the ideas of Zen Buddhism and intrigued by a variety of indigenous views. Their fluid and sustainable natures simply make sense to me. And it’s through this philosophy that I’ve come to connect with my Judeo-Christian roots. Some might question how an individual can connect such contrasting beliefs to one another, yet I’ve always found connection.

In the fall of ’99, while traveling through Thailand, I first came to recognize a connection between Jewish and Buddhist traditions. At the time of the November full moon, I visited the city of Sukhothai and the Loi Krathong festival. Loi Krathong is the Buddhist festival of lights, just as Chanukah is considered the festival of lights in Judaism.

During the experience of Loi Krathong, I had befriended a group of young wanderers from Bangkok who let me tag along. They explained the significance of various ceremonies and let me participate with them. By a lakeside, we held krathongs, small disc-like objects made of banana tree cross-sections wrapped with banana leaves and decorated with flowers, a stick of incense, and a candle. The Bangkok kids guided me through, suggesting I place a strand of hair and a coin on the krathong, light the candle and incense stick, sit it in the water, and offer a prayer to the water spirits for cleansing and replenishment for the year to come. Simultaneously, we all floated our krathongs out into the lake water as they symbolically carried our prayers with them. The direction they traveled on the water and the connection they held to the other krathongs would represent the course our lives were to take over the next year. With a magnetic-like draw, mine floated into the path of one of the gals of their group who reminded me of a close friend in Pennsylvania.

The following week, in the southwestern coastal village of Rai Ley, I befriended a Jewish traveler from Seattle. We sat on the beach under the stars. As I described my experiences form Loi Krathong, he immediately recognized the similarities to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Just as in the Buddhist tradition, the High Holy Days are a time for cleansing and replenishment (in repentance of one’s misgivings), for reflecting on the past year and looking at the year ahead. And just as the krathongs take our prayers onto the water, Judaism has a tradition with rocks. While it is customary to lay rocks on the graves of the deceased, it’s also a custom to some to place rocks into running stream waters to help wash away the sins of the past year. In reflection of these experiences, Yom Kippur will always serve as a sacred experience in my life and it highlights the extraordinary experiences I explored at Loi Krathong during my visit to Thailand years ago.

With the year ahead, I find it important to honor both tradition and past experiences that have guided me through my personal spiritual journey. In doing so, it helps me to recognize the spiritual direction I’m intended to follow through the future.

What spiritual traditions are important to you that encourage reflection in the direction of your life?

Find Your Voice & Trust It

Welcome. Glad to have you join in.

This blog is intended to be a journey of expression. For a number of years now, I've been seeking the courage and discipline to share a variety of thoughts, ideas, and experiences through creative writing. Sharing one’s voice and vision is a powerful experience. It holds the potential to impact others in positive and negative ways. It’s been intimidating for me to open up this avenue within. It feels like an exposure of my soul that holds the possibility of rejection and criticism. The thoughts that pour through my head make me wonder if the ideas I’m attempting to convey are intelligent and not convoluted, thoughtful and not hurtful, and honest, not veiled. I wonder if the writing itself will be technically sound, as well as intriguing, not boring. I can be rather critical of myself, yet I also believe in the process. Sharing one’s voice also holds the possibility of freedom, enlightenment, and learning. 

I genuinely believe that to awaken, one must find their voice and trust it. That voice can be any manner of expression, whether it’s through the written word, a piece of music, a painting, or simply in leading by example through the lifestyle choice one makes. While these are personal forms of expression, you in fact become selfless by sharing these ideas with others. Perhaps someone will hear just what they need to at that moment in time in their lives to inspire them to change and grow. With this in mind, I’m going to let go of those fears as best I can and trust you, the readers, to share with me as this blog rolls on.

Through these writings, I intend to explore a variety of subjects ranging from nature, sustainability, educational philosophy, athletics, and traveling, to relationships, communication, community, health, and much more. I also intend to offer some reflection on life through current & past experiences (both shared and solo), thoughts on future dreams, critical analysis of a variety of stories, excerpts from a collection of evolving novel writings, photographs, links to a host of interesting pieces, and hopefully a little bit of fun.

Given the nature of my life, the posts will likely be sporadic, but I hope you enjoy it, and I encourage you to share your thoughts along the way. Perhaps we'll learn a bit from each other as we go. Our perspectives might vary. Perhaps they will even change. I ask only that you be respectful if you do choose to share your thoughts.

With that, let’s go exploring!

Seasonal Transitions: Connecting Nature & Culture

The Return of Fall and the Winter Stars

In recent weeks, I’ve become particularly fascinated in recognizing an assortment of connections occurring among natural and cultural events. A few weekends ago, the autumnal equinox came, bringing with it a distinct clarity of changes within the seasons. With day and night balanced, it brought a clear shift of perspective in my personal experience. It’s been a fascinating experience to recognize this shift not only in the alpine vegetation and cooled feel of the air, but in the night time sky, the Jewish high holidays, and first snows that bring anticipation of another winter of skiing. It’s a time of year for deep personal reflection.

In the latter weeks of September, on a Monday, I had hiked into the Latir Wilderness (east of Questa, northeast of Taos) with Kristel and her Roots & Wings Community School group of trekking 5^th & 6^th grade kids. The late summer sun hung in the sky, bringing with it warm breezes through the lakeside valley. Aspen leaves remained a fading lime rind-green. The following Friday, the day of the equinox, as the trekkers returned from their journey, I met up with them at the trailhead. Throughout the northern region of the state, the sun remained warm and shining bright, but the aspen leaves had begun their transition towards bright dandelion-yellow and burnt citrus-orange, contrasting against the dark green backdrop of spruce and fir. The return of the trekking crew had ushered in the new season, each child changed by the challenging experience of backpacking.

That night, as Kristel and I laid in bed, I tossed and turned with an extra sense of energy, thoughts buzzing through my head. Midnight passed and I couldn’t sleep. By 2am, I got up and walked into the bathroom to gaze out of the window and sniff the fresh, cool night air. Looking into the east-northeastern sky, there they hung – the triplet stars of Orion’s belt, the cluster of the Pleiades, and the sideways V of Taurus’ horns. A shiver went through my body, recognizing that the winter stars had returned to the night sky from a summer spent in the daytime sky, to make their journeys through the colder seasons. It was as if the night sky was calling to show its own changes in the season, connecting the return of the winter constellations with the equinox. It’s fascinating to me to realize that, just as the leaves of the deciduous trees change, waterfowl migrate, and the air begins to cool, the stars themselves shift in their positions in the sky, connecting the seasons together. The winter stars also bring with them memories of wondrous experiences from earlier years and a sacred mindset every time I see them. In another blog post, I’ll reflect on personal connections to the stars and the cosmos.

Fall can sometimes be given a bad rap. While spring is most often seen as the season of renewed life, fall seems most often to be seen as a dreary reminder of cold months ahead. Yet, this season offers its own sense of renewal and change. Fall is a time for reflection and continued activity and with the change from the summer months comes a new awakening. Local schools are deeper into their sessions, offering new opportunities for thoughtful learning (in the alternative programs anyway), trees offer assorted colors pleasing to the eye, the cool air makes rigorous activity such as hiking more comfortable, the crops of the local gardens are harvested and bring an abundance of fresh produce, and occasional snows offer excited anticipation of another ski season around the corner. 

Yes, the warm, comfortable days of summer will be missed. But, as the weeks have rolled on, each day of fall has brought a new and unique experience. One day, the leaves of the aspens here in northern New Mexico shine with ever more brilliant shades of dayglow-green & yellow, illumined in the sun. The next, gorgeous sunny days shift to billowing winds, grayed skies, damp rains, and snow dustings on the mountain peaks. As the skies have cleared in the night, the waxing moonlight shines out over the high desert, the summer constellations begin their westward retreat for the white months, and Orion’s belt dangles earlier and earlier above the eastern horizon. 

Fall has returned. Let’s embrace the experience and the lessons the season has to share.

What are some of your favorite memories of fall? What inspires you this time of year? Please feel free to share your thoughts.