In this place, winter is not all white, with earth and sky the same shade of snow.
Here, it is as vibrant a land as it is the rest of the year: colder, barer, yet still awash in color. Even on those days when the flakes fall insistently and a white blanket covers the land, there are the earth tones visible beneath the veil that connects heaven to earth. But on days like this one, when the sun’s glowing gaze dominates, the intensity of hue comes clear.
The blue of a winter sky in this place can be much like that of my own home: So clear and sharp and brilliant that it seems almost brittle, as though, too good to be true, it might shatter at any moment. It’s largely a phenomenon of the hours between sunrise and midday, before the clouds have had a chance to accumulate overmuch and alter its flamboyant indigo to something grayer and more modest. By evening, however, if Father Sun has managed to hold sway before the storm, his light turns the eastern sky into a rolling spectrum of blues and violets.
But it’s not merely the color of the turquoise sky, although it’s the hue that gives this place its identity, its sense of security, and the name of the prized jewel in its earthy crown. It’s the contrast with the snow’s shade of blinding purity, the sort of white, like that of the sun’s gaze, at which one dare not stare too long for fear of giving up one’s sight. Our origin stories include accounts of beings with such faces: the white fire of pure light, the sight of whom could take not only one’s sight but one’s life, as well.
The dichotomy between sky and snow, indigo and white, would be more than enough beauty for one place, and, indeed, in much of this part of the world, it’s sufficient. But here, in this particular place, there is another color that is integral to place and people alike.
The world is accustomed to winter whites, a sartorial choice for those willing to brave splashes of slush and mud. It’s likewise attuned to winter blues, now no longer merely an expression but a formal diagnosis, albeit under the acronym SAD, for seasonal affective disorder.
But what of winter reds?
It’s not a color generally associated with this time of year. Christmas, yes, to the limited extent that it’s the shade of Santa’s suit and Rudolph’s nose, and therefore of ornaments and stockings lights, wrapping and ribbons and bows. But unlike the green of the evergreen trees and the white of the snow, it’s not a color generally found in the natural world of this season . . . except here.
Here, red is the color of the plant for which this place is named: Red willow. It is the people’s own name for themselves, and for their land. It fits; stands of red willow dot the landscape and line the local watersheds. It’s a hardy creature, one that survives extremes of temperature and weather and manages on minimal direct water. It’s also uniquely beautiful, not a tree, and not precisely a bush, somewhere between the two, perhaps — supplemented by the slender willowy-ness of a long-stalked flower, and the medicinal qualities of an herb.
Red willow is actually a bit of a chameleon, as are most plants; in the summer, what one notices first and foremost is the soft bright green of its long, slender leaves. Once shed in the fall, the brown-red stalks beneath begin to turn blue and violet, developing a rime that gives them a lightly-frosted look, much like a fresh but unwashed blueberry. Beneath the surface shades, though, the red remains, and by the deep cold of midwinter, it rises from the earth like dancing tongues of flame.
It’s fitting that it should be the image and identity of the people of this place: From the earliest colonial days, our peoples have been denominated “Red,” a misnomer often turned into a vile and violent slur, but also a color and identifier that we have claimed and reclaimed as our own. It’s also the color of this place and its people in other ways, too — of the dusty red earth of the old village plaza, of the local clay that forms the pottery for which Taos Pueblo’s artisans are known the world over.
Combined with the rest of winter’s palette, it magnifies the sense of place here, expanding it beyond the village walls into the world that encompasses all of the lands that were given to the people in the time before time.
Despite the presence of a ski resort on nearby peaks (that once were the people’s, whole and entire), this is not the season for which this land is known. That is summer, when the air is hot and largely dry, and it is those colors, indigo sky and red-brown earth glimmering with light, that outsiders most associate with this place. For now, the winter ceremonial season approaches, the one that is for no one except blood. In the coming weeks, the Pueblo will close its collective doors, those trimmed in the the turquoise of the sky, to the outside world, and the visitors to this place will dwindle yet more.
But for those of us who live here, this is the season in which the the land dons its most inspirited dress: the colors of winter, of people and place.
~ Aji
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