In this place, what constitutes Indigenous (and indigenous) land stretches far beyond what the dominant culture envisions when it considers the phrase.
That’s not the phrase, of course: Outsiders think of “the reservation,” occasionally “the rez”; less often, “the Pueblo,” and on occasions rarer still, the more basic but more inclusive “tribal lands.” That’s when they think of it at all. And that’s not even taken into account the simple fact that they are all Indigenous lands.
But the broader environs of this region, although now colonized by settlements and highways, by networks of wires and nests of pipeline, all hold a place in the history and lifeways of the people of this place. It’s no less true of the Gorge than any other; Wings traveled through it as a child with his relatives on various occasions and for specific purposes, and he knows the stories of his ancestors’ sojourns through the deep canyons along the river.
It’s a journey that is never the same twice, not even if you were to replicate both time and day and day of year. The natural world here changes too rapidly, and too subtly, too, either to reproduce the landscape or, most often, to make the alterations clearly visible to mortal eyes. All most people know is that it’s different every time, the light falling now upon an outcropping here, again upon a slope over there; the river is by turns roiling and still as glass, high or low, forest green on a cloudy day or sapphire in the sunlight.
We have perforce made three trips to Santa Fe so far in this new calendar year, meaning a total of six sojourns through the Gorge itself, three down and three back. On each of the six, the Gorge has presented new sides to itself as always, but on these occasions, it has also shown us its geographic in a new elemental light, as well. I mean that in the most literal of terms, too: We have made these trips during and after unusual weather, one in which the snow came, in a first for our experience in this context, from the north, blanketing the north sides of the peaks and slopes and leaving the south sides bare; the other two, before and after a blizzard of short but fierce duration, limning all standing surfaces with stark stripes of hard-blown snow.
And those last two trips showed us something else, as well — the near-instant changeability of its particular landscape in winter.
Wings captured this image on the morning of February 7th, on our way down the Gorge. It was a stunning shot, all indigo skies reflected in fast-running waters, turning their depths shades of sapphire studded with diamonds. Mornings are spectacular along that road even at the worst of times; in the morning light of a winter’s sun, in the brilliantly intense aftermath of a snowstorm a day prior?
It’s nearly indescribable.
It’s a fitting look, too, for the single greatest watershed in the region. Water is life, and breath, the first medicine and perhaps the first expression of the spirits’ love, but it is also a jewel of singular beauty, an unfurling, cascading ribbon of gems in the colors of earth and sky. That beauty is inherent, of course, but it is also a collaborative effort with the sun. The light loves the water, and the water loves the light.
They love us, too; their very existence is proof enough of that. We humans don’t return the favor nearly enough, taking both for granted daily, failing to conserve and then cursing them for falling into short supply.
Such journeys are more difficult in winter: high cld winds and capricious weather, roads slick with ice and treacherous slush pack hard by to many tires traveling too fast for conditions. It induces us to focus purely on what lies directly before us, a gray ribbon of road made duller by the weather; to hurry, lest the weather turn bad again before we are safely home.
But the water is there, and so is the light, and they remind us of the importance of appreciation — of honor and respect. The water loves the light, but it needs our love, too . . . not merely to survive, but to ensure that we survive, as well.
Protecting our medicines requires us first to notice, then to appreciate. Above all, it requires us to love.
~ Aji
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