Sunny skies, clear air, water in the pond, and flowers everywhere. Spring finally feels real, and summer more than mere distant hope.
Our highs are back well into the seventies, as of yesterday, and here at Red Willow, the earth is loving the warmth and light. It’s a chance to flower anew, one that we all — humans, wild creatures, plants, even the Earth herself — had allowed ourselves to be lulled into taking for granted.
Until last year.
Altitude and seasonal change notwithstanding, this is, of course, still desert: high desert, elevations even alpine, yes, but desert nonetheless. Drought is no stranger here; it returns at irregular intervals as it has always done — always, at least, since the waters receded during the dawn of creation, when the earth’s skin was finally able to know the feeling of dry air upon it. There have been many passing droughts since the First People emerged to grow with and within these lands, some abbreviated to scant months, others of far longer duration.
But we have been in a full-scale drought for two decades now and more, a quarter of a century, one that, twenty years ago, colonial scientists were calling a “500-year drought.” A few odd years of heavy rains and snows are insufficient to alter that kind of trajectory, and so as shocking as last year’s pure aridity seemed, it was also inevitable, if perhaps a bit early in the arc.
There is plenty of blame to go around for these newly accelerated changes, but most of them can be laid squarely at the feet of colonialism and white supremacy. It’s not just industrialization; it’s an entire worldview and way of being that privileges human convenience over a habitable planet. It’s also a worldview and way of being that worships the notion that [some] people hold control of and authority over all things, including the natural world, and that abuse of it is a admirable sign of strength, an indicator of “power.”
Our peoples understand power very differently.
As one of the elders we both most admire, now walked on these four and a half years past, used to say, the colonial world mistakes authority for power. It confuses the notion of controlling people and things with an immanent force. It’s why, in the dominant culture, “power” is so often portrayed as a negative, even as its members continue to seek [their misunderstanding of] it with abandon.
Our peoples, on the other hand, understand that power simply is. It is force and spirit, immanent and animating; it can be harnessed for great good or used for great evil. It is something to be honored and respected, never to be approached casually or treated cavalierly. We know that power resides in what the outside world regards as the most humble, the smallest or weakest of things, and that that which that same culture privileges as strong is often the weakest link in what binds our world together.
Our way is perhaps best exemplified locally by the many forms of cacti that thrive in this environment of harsh extremes. At this season, some are just beginning to blossom, delivering splashes of soft and brilliant color to the landscape. And nowhere is our understanding of power more vindicated in tangible, literal terms than in their humble selves, often harsh and covered in dangerous spikes and spines, yet abloom with delicate petals.
The cacti here can survive under extreme drought conditions, and do so in harmony with the whole habitat. To illustrate, at a very local level, the colonial dynamic of control I outlined above, we need only look back not quite a century to an event that changed the entire landscape of this land, in more ways than one. A Russian colonizer moved to Taos in the mid- to late 1920s, where he invaded the Indigenous artscape. He also bought and significantly expanded a mansion (relative, certainly, to the Indigenous and even existing colonial architecture of the day, but large even now). And, homesick for his Russian landscapes, he imported an untold number of those promiscuously-pollinating water hogs knows as Russian olives, a tree that now pollutes our entire ecosystem here.
“Pollutes” is actual a mild term for it. The Russian olive procreates endlessly, possessed of long, fern-like fronds for branches and an abundant supply of pollen that the spring winds here send in all directions with astonishing profligacy. That alone is bad enough, introducing an invasive tree that takes over all of the groundspace. Worse is the fact that the Russian olive relies heavily upon massive amounts of water to survive and spread; it sucks up all the available groundwater, diverts it from the acequias and streams, and pushes out the Indigenous plant life by force.
It is, in other words, the perfect exemplar of a colonizer.
Wings’s family never had anything to do with the invader tree, but they are now scattered all over Indigenous lands here. In the years that this parcel of land upon which we now live lay dormant, between the years of Wings’s childhood when it was ploughed and planted and harvested yearly and the point, two decades ago, when he returned to live on it and resume its stewardship, Russian olives had invaded in force. He ripped them all out, every one, by the roots, and replanted with indigenous aspens and evergreens.
And like the wildflowers, the cacti returned.
The ones above are peyote, a sacrament in the Native American Church (the actual, Indigenous, real version; not the frauds that crop up out of nowhere now daily, run by non-Native thieves and flogging psychedelic drugs and experiences). Wings’s father was a Road Man, as was his uncle, and he grew up immersed in the Peyote Way as part of, and adjunct to, his traditional kiva ways. The ones shown were those he cultivated himself, and they are the perfect exemplar of cacti’s essential force and power, full and green with delicate pink petals above a body studded with white tips that release a strychnine-like substance. Peyote (the very name is a colonial Spanish corruption of an Indigenous Nahua word) is Medicine — capable of producing visions and dreams (and thus much sought-after by white colonial appropriators for mind-altering experiences), but also able to heal more quotidian ailments. It has anti-inflammatory properties, among others, and has been used for pain as long as our peoples have inhabited this corner of Turtle Island. Its medicinal and visionary powers, hidden within a mix of substances that, used incorrectly, can also do great harm, is itself the perfect exemplar of how we understand power: fragile flowers as signs of strength; a force to be reckoned with that requires honor and respect in its use.
Of course, peyote is perhaps the rarest cactus here, one brought, most typically, from the northern reaches of what is now called Mexico. There are others that, although perhaps possessed of lesser vision-bestowing powers, are also healers in their way.
They are also examples of delicate beauty amid pain-inflicting spines. Immediately above is a species of prickly pear common to this area. The outside world has, for whatever reason, labeled it “claret cup,” but none of the Native people we know ever uses that name. There are so many more apt and indigenous local referents for such intense scarlet beauty than the differently-hued dry red wine from France.
Not all of the prickly pear species flower in such brilliant pure reds, either. Some are magenta, some a rather lilac color, some various shades of lighter pink. The petals vary somewhat in shape and size, as do the pads from which they sprout. Here, on our bit of land, the lilac-colored ones seem to thrive best, but we occasionally get the magenta ones, as well.
The pads, of course, are where the strength and power of these plant spirits lies. Covered in sharp spines, they can provoke quite an inflammatory reaction in human skin pierced by their needle-like tips. But beneath the spiky exterior is a smooth skin with a fleshy interior, one used for both sustenance and healing. The inner fruit retains water, and provided a good source of hydration for desert-dwelling peoples and creatures when surface water was scarce. It can also be mashed into a pulp and turned into jam, jelly, candy, or condiments such as salsas and chutneys.
But the lesser-known power of the prickly pear lies in its healing properties. the outside world regards this small, low-lying plant as a source of pain, and indeed, it is perfectly capable of inflicting it on the careless. Outdoors yesterday afternoon in the garden area outside the kitchen window, I stumbled, the side of my foot falling against one that had recently revived itself from its hiding place in a small hollow. Had I been wearing thong sandals instead of the boots I had on, today would be very much less pleasant indeed.
But once defanged, the pulp inside the prickly pear can be turned to medicinal use. The peoples of this broader region used to use it routinely as a mild topical pain reliever; it has the ability to numb lacerations and inflammation slightly, and carries light analgesic properties, too. Wings’s own mother used to make such poultices and use them on his childhood injuries.
In our way, of course, words such as “medicine” and “healing” often hold very different meanings from those of the dominant culture — layered, complex, applicable to many different contexts and to realms both physical and spiritual. For us, an essential part of healing involves cleansing, whether by the purifying smoke of fire, or the more literal ministrations of water.
In this place there is one cactus whose defense mechanisms are less sharp-edged, whose healing powers tend toward the soft and gentle touch of cleansing.
It’s yucca, and its flowers begin as a wrapped and layered center that eventually blossoms into a profusion of delicate petals. Its colors vary; there are now hybridized versions in a short spectrum of near-neon shades. But the natural indigenous form of the plant found here tends toward the dark reds shown at the center that will eventually grow and flower into pale off-whites. The root of the plant has healing properties, whether taken internally or used topically. And many indigenous peoples all across the regions where this plant is found have always known of its purifying properties: Yucca produces a gentle, mild soap. For many indigenous peoples, it’s used still used today for practical purposes, but is also used for ceremonial cleansing. We have three — two near the house and one out near the road, and in a few more years, they will be tall and lush and capable of lending their powers to us.
And now, as I write, the monsoonal clouds are moving in: a large distant bank to the west, a much closer one boiling over the eastern peaks. The air is dry today, yet humid, at least as this arid land calculates such measures. Meanwhile, the water flows steadily down the ditch; the pond is filled to overflowing, small spirits dancing around its surface.
These, like the cacti, are the true spirits of spring in this place, the true keepers of power as animating force: fragile flowers as signs of strength. It bodes well for a good summer.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
