It is that threshold between the extremes of the seasonal poles, that time of year when the weather can change from glowing heat to bitter snow and back again in the beat of a bird’s wing.
It is today’s weather, in fact: cloudy at dawn but warming fast, the temperature reaching its peak at mid-morning under bright yellow sun; by mid-afternoon, the winds have risen and threaten to blow the snow from where it falls visibly on the peaks down the valleys to dust the land here below.
The weather is of many minds, and the elements with it, by turns quiet and blustering, calm and then suddenly frenetically awhirl.
The skies this time of year run the entire gamut of available blues, from an icy shade that accompanies the sunrise in the east to late-morning turquoise, from the cobalt blues of a bright afternoon to the indigo that heralds a gathering storm.
It’s the perfect counterpoint to the warm earthy shades of the Pueblo itself, red clay mixed with golden straw glinting metallic in the sunlight, a joining of stories at rooflines of varying heights backlit by cool ethereal blue.
This year, we’ve been awarded a more frequent display of early-morning thunderheads than is our norm at this time — multi-story architecture in the sky, a Pueblo village for the spirits. The clouds are whiter than white, a pure brilliance unreplicated elsewhere by Nature, much less by humankind, yet they are constantly changing, shifting shape and shade alike, now entirely the color of snow, now gray at bottom, now roiling in shades from pewter to purple. Some days, they bring the rain, whether in water form or yet crystallized into powdery flakes. Others, they put on a show, stepping and turning to a drum only they can hear that calls the beat of their own celestial dance; they bend occasionally to touch the peaks, but decline to release the rain from their feathers and fans spread out over the village below. Still, the latillas and arbor poles stretch skyward as if in supplication, the weathered wood itself praying for rain.
At several points throughout the day, the clouds will part, taking a break to regroup and reform into new shapes and arrangements. While they rest, Father Sun steps in again, casting his light upon the walls that shelter his people and warming both with his golden glow.
He paints his own pictures upon the surface of the walls, creating slightly off-center replicas of the people’s own handiwork, as if to say, “I will make what you make, in order to give you a guide.” And so the vigas find their mirror image against the wall below, shadowy support beams of the home’s spirit. The old pine ladder meets its counterpart at the top edge of the warming roofline, spirit and human alike re-enacting their emergence in dimensions dual and treble.
And all do so in the company of the Pueblo blues that protect, that repel unpleasant humors and unwanted spirits: a pale turquoise door, a window in weathered indigo, standing sure and certain in any weather beneath Spring’s cobalt sky.
~ Aji
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