What the rest of the world knows as Taos Pueblo its own call, in their own still-unpublished tongue, the Place of the Red Willow. Visitors tend to expect that to mean trees, as that word is more usually understood: tall single trunks rising upward to extend outward in leaf-bearing branches. When they learn the name of the place, they often ask where the “willows” are.
They’re thinking, of course, of weeping willows, perhaps envisioning them with reddish leaves.
Red willow, though, is better characterized as a shrub of sorts, long and thin, occupying a space somewhere between a stalk and a trunk, that rise up in stands from a single base, blowing outward slightly to create full, rounded groupings. They are prolific, at least in those areas hospitable to their kind, and this is, for all practical purposes, their home base, so to speak. At this time of year, they are fast shedding their leaves, so that their red trunks show through to the world for a few weeks yet. That will change with the seasons, but for now, the reason for their name comes clear.
There are stands of red willow all over tribal lands, edging the village and extending outward. Numerous stands occupy our own bit of land here: along the northern boundary of the road; on the east side along the ditch; a large, bouffant stand to the southwest, near the pond; and a full and lively bunch just outside the kitchen door on the west side of the house. Once they have gained a foothold, they spread rapidly and joyously, sprouting small new stands from shallow yet substantial roots that extend in all directions.
The red willows’ spirit are as strong as the place and people to whom they have lent their name.
And yet, for all the significance of their undeniably significant presence here, Wings has oddly taken relatively few photos of them over the years, save those that appear as background in images focused around other elements. For an image representative of this season, one of autumn now racing headlong into winter, I had to turn to the image above, captured south of here in an area near the village of Dixon, in ancient lands that run alongside the Rio Grande.
Those, too, are tribal lands, and no mistake: Before they were invaded and colonized, settled, to use that deceptively gentle-sounding term, the lands along the great river belonged to the people of this place. When I say “belonged,” I mean that in the most literal of senses: not proprietary, not a relationship of ownership and exploitation, but one in which people and place are bound inextricably together in a connection of mutuality that transcends colonial notions of “property.”
That relationship is visible in the image above, one of an undeniably ancient set of structures constructed in the way of the still-more ancient inhabitants of this land: of earth near as red as the willows, of water and straw and the light that the native mica catches and sends back out into the world to shine. The fencing, too, is of a piece with the old ways, small shafts of piñon and other indigenous woods, staked at intervals and strung together just enough to show lines of demarcation, just enough to keep all but the most determined despoilers at bay.
And the fence runs through the copper fire of the red willows.
That is the way of the plant, after all: a spirit as indomitable as people and place, one whose will is unstopped and unstilled by outside obstacles.
In this time of near-fantastical upheaval, climatic and political alike, humanity could learn well from the humble red willow.
For this is the gift and the reward of a solid base upon the earth: to be able to stand and grow strong and true, to last and outlast, in the face of any obstacle or circumstance. The red willow knows its connection to the earth upon which it sits. It respects neither borders nor boundaries placed by human hands. Erect a wall, and the roots will tunnel beneath it only to spring up on the other side; string a fence, and the stalks will find their way around posts and wires alike to meet up again with their own and grow into solid trunks. Red willow conceals and reveals, a screen to veil the peaks from invasive eyes, a curtain to part for those this land granted access a millennium and more ago.
Perhaps its color should come as no surprise. It’s not merely that red is the color that has been used to characterize our peoples these last five hundred years and more, a label whose use we deny to the oppressor populations even as we reclaim it for ourselves to deprive it of its sting. No, I refer to something deeper, despite its very presence on the surface of everything here.
For in this place, the very earth is red. Oh, it’s brown, too, and gold, but its color is undeniably infused with shades of red, of copper and brick, the colors of autumn present underfoot year-round.
Today, the promised storm is already bent on arrival, its leading edge having moved in hours ago, showering the land occasionally with small amounts of rain. The skies range from pewter to lead to iron, a heavy gray expanse hanging low over the land. The air is cold now, colder than at dawn, with a mercury inversion that will turn the rain to snow long before the larger system passes. The aspens outside the window are pure golden flame, the winds conspiring with gravity to subtract their leaves one and two at a time.
And in the distance, the red willows are finally red, more bare than not, what few leaves remain having turned shades of gold and brown. After winter arrives, the red will slowly frost, turning shades of purple and blue, before greening up again in spring. But for now, they live up to their name, and to the archetypal soul of the plant.
The red willows’ spirits are communal and firmly rooted, their survival all but guaranteed for future generations . . . and for this moment, they set the earth here afire with an indigenous beauty.
~ Aji
All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.
