The snow is gone; the sun has returned in full force. The air clear and sharp, the light a shimmering gold in the mid-October chill. The only traces of yesterday’s storm are the wet grass, earth turned muddy here and there, and wispy veils of fog still wrapped around the necks of the peaks.
In other words, these images from a fall morning more than a decade past could have been caught only moments ago.
And this is one of the season’s great gifts here, this seesaw between storm and sun, between Indian summer and the little winter. It’s a gift not found most places, true; it requires a certain altitude, a certain clarity of air, a certain susceptibility to weather and seasonal changes. Most of this land now called New Mexico doesn’t have the right environment to welcome, much less sustain them.
Red Willow is different.
Here, we sit at the foot of the mountains, the old village itself at an elevation of some 7,500 feet, our own a bit higher yet. It seems to be a dividing line of sorts, this number: the boundary between the place where certain elemental phenomena are possible, and the other place, where they are not. We have, of course, a great many snowlines here anyway, one just around the curve southward from our land, perhaps no more than a tenth of a mile, marking where our own snows often end — and the great many stair-stepped snowlines above us to the north, where we are able to see the storm descend even as we remain entirely free of weather.
It means, too, that we live in a place that, especially in this season, sits at the very center of the light.
Even at dawn and in the moments thereafter, when fog and clouds have not yet cleared, the light turns the land into a hauntingly beautiful scape. Strands of fog trailing through valleys and between peaks shift and turn, as though these ancient mountains have borrowed from a tradition in a land equally old on the other side of the globe, choosing, like an earthen Salome, to reveal themselves in a dawn Dance of the Seven Veils.
In such moments, the light declines to, or perhaps simply cannot, reveal itself wholly. It remains, paradoxically, a shadow, an echo of itself, allowing illumination without fire. At this season, the trees shoulder the latter task, setting the land aflame in shades of gold and amber, copper and crimson, bronze and burnt umber, all glowing against the darkening blue of evergreen-clad slopes.
Traces of cloud and fog still trail around the horizon now. In the full light of day, they seem to hold the shade and shape of steam more than of clouds — dense, yet weightless, afloat effortlessly upon the sharp edge of the wind. The land is a little less green today, gold and brown now overtaking the defiant blades of grass that remain. And the seasonal spirits begin to show themselves, a few trees already skeletonized, dark bony branches reaching outward toward the sun as though seeking such warmth as it may still offer.
It is a scape of pure beauty, this land at this time. The days in which we are granted its gift are fleeting: a week, perhaps two; no more than that now. But that is the way of magic, here and gone in the blink of an eye or the beat of a bird’s wing, never long enough for mere mortal eyes to see how it happens, only that it does.
The experts predict more heavy weather over the days and weeks to come, interspersed with days of brilliant sunshine, the kind that will steal your sight if you dare to stare too long at it. And that is the way with magic, too; there are things in this world not given to us to know, or to possess, and to tread upon the realm of the spirits courts disaster.
These are days of medicine, though, and mystery, days of the magic of storm and light. Acknowledged, appreciated, approached with respect, honored for their brief existence, they, too, are healing, a way of restoring life to balance in the same way as they keep the seasons in harmony.
They will gone soon enough, replaced with the deep cold and long dark of winter. For this week, at least, part of our task is to enjoy them while we can.
~ Aji
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