You can’t stand up unless you’re on solid ground.
That’s one of the first lessons life teaches you, in profoundly literal ways. Growing up as I did in a place where snow and ice are the norm for near half a year, I learned very early on the perils of slick surfaces.
I also learned how to compensate.
We inhabit treacherous worlds of other sorts now, too: the way is not merely slippery in winter weather; it’s a geopolitical and sociocultural ice rink, with us shod in the flimsiest of shoes. And it’s way past time for us to garb ourselves appropriately for conditions and get out into the elements to do the work.
The image above has always reminded me of the importance of firm footing. The horse knows; it’s why, when he chooses to rise, he plants both hind feet squarely on the ground. Our horses do it mostly for joy — in competition or at play. But it’s the mark of a warrior, too: knowing when and where and how to position oneself to defend that which needs defending.
This horse is one of a group up near Peñasco, ancient tribal lands belonging to Picuris Pueblo now held by colonial occupants. They were once traversed regular by the people of Taos Pueblo, too; the two nations are cousins, or perhaps better described as siblings, holding in common language, ethnicity, identity, and spiritual traditions, albeit each with its own independent variants. Wings took me up there some dozen years ago specifically to see the horses in winter: giant oxidized steel sculptures with a remarkable sense of motion about their cold metal frames. They are beautiful year-round, but there’s something about the cold spare edges of winter that bring them truly into their own.
For years, we have felt the world slipping beneath our feet. Part of it is political, as the dominant culture continues to react to notions of human equality and civil rights by throwing an extended tantrum. If only it were so childish in scale, we could perhaps mostly ignore it, but it is not; the rising tide of pure fascism accompanying it is already bent on throwing the world of so-called realpolitik off its axis. Meanwhile, marginalized communities and cultures such as our own are increasingly targeted, and increasingly directly, for annihilation.
We have survived such before, more than half a millennium of it, in fact, and we will again, although “we” is purely a collective term. Too many will not make it, and that is the tragedy, the obscenity and crime of it all.
But there is another danger lurking, one that threatens, perhaps more than metaphorically, to throw the physical world off its axis. Unlike our political agents and overseers, this one does not discriminate in intentional terms, but in effect? Climate change will, unchecked, eventually kill us all, but it will begin with those of us of the most vulnerable populations and circumstances.
Has already begun, in point of fact.
Here, we are in for a hard winter. That’s a good thing, even if it makes my own life far more difficult; thanks to last year’s damage to my cardioresepiratory system, to say nothing of my autoimmune issues, this sort of bitter cold risks shutting down my system if I spend too much time out in it. Breathing is a chore; balance is difficult. And we’re not even into the real cold yet; it will get much worse for much longer.
And yet, the land thrives.
There are ways for me to navigate the winter weather, if I am careful about it — if, when venturing out, I go to some lengths to establish a firm footing and make the effort to protect my lungs. But the snow and ice now will go far to ensure runoff in the spring and water in the summer. After more than a year of record drought, the prospect of being able to grow crops once again is a welcome one indeed.
But it requires work. It requires all of us to be warriors, willing to rise and defend the earth.
It requires us to follow the lead of the horses: to find a firm footing, plant our feet wide and strong, and stand up.
~ Aji
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