Two days of heavy snow, and two days later, the slopes are largely bare again, a rocky mix of tundra and evergreen. This is autumn here, with weather that clears as fast as it comes and temperature inversions that will give you whiplash. It’s a place of abundance, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy.
Outsiders tend to find it out very fast, even as they still fail to learn the fundamental lessons of what “abundance” actually requires.
When you hear the colonial recountings of how people found this place, it’s remarkably bare of indigeneity save in a commodified sense. White supremacy views the Pueblo’s presence here, to the extent that it regards it at all, as something to be owned (by them), something put here for their convenience, entertainment, and salvation. In town, not only do events an reporting fail to begin with something so basic as a land acknowledgment, they often dismiss the very reason for the place entirely, relegating the Pueblo and its people to a third-paragraph mention, if indeed they are mentioned at all.
To be, to use the word of the moment, abundantly clear: No town of Taos, no county, no ski resort, no “art colony,” no tourism and cultural destination, no colonial population would exist here were it not for the Pueblo and its people.
That is, of course, the way of it all over this land mass. We whose ancestors are indigenous to it are most conveniently erased by those who have, in more recent times, arrogated to themselves authority over it. And current events prove what a spectacularly bad job they have made of it, from start to finish. It is indeed possible that what European political thinkers once called “the American experiment” is already dead.
Its half-life, unfortunately, will poison the waters, and the earth, for far longer.
This month, as well as an individual day later this week, are set aside by colonial forces allegedly to “honor “us. In practice, it too often becomes merely another form of erasure. And we grow weary of the disrespect.
A real “honoring” would look far different — but then, a culture that could conceive and create such an honor would also look far different. It would be one committed to the work, of decolonizing, yes, but also of the more deeply rooted obligations of stewardship and harmony. It would be committed to the work of abundance.
This is the work we, as Indigenous peoples, do as a matter of course in our daily lives. It’s work that privileges the well-being of our world over individual enrichment; one that understands that inconveniences of temperature and weather and season hold their own power and beauty and are meant for our well-being; one that seeks to adapt to the gifts of Mother Earth and the spirits, rather than to destroy what does not suit our most immediate wants and easiest path.
It’s the work of the bald eagle so many of our peoples hold sacred: bravery, a willingness to chance the winds and soar when required; industry, and the dedication to the work, from the hunt to migration; independence, and an ability to sit solitary with what is right or good or just.
In relative terms, we do a lot of sitting solitary.
But here’s the thing about solitude and sitting quietly with discomfort and unease and fear and the wisdom that eventually ensues: You see much more beauty, above and below and around you. And you come to know why you are here.
And yes, we are here. Not still; not despite; simply here, on these lands, the lands to whom we belong, who are our relatives, kin and clan itself.
The eagle knows; he has had his own brushes with extermination, and he takes his life in his wings every time he flies near human habitation. And still, he knows abundance and how to find it, time and place and season. And he does the work required.
So do we.
And tonight? There is more snow on the way. It will be a gift, abundance of the most essential, elemental sort. We will do the work, and be grateful for it.
~ Aji
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