country of ciphers and codex

one thing about this country, is it takes a strong, strong... it breaks a strong, strong mind.

 -bill callahan, "drover," apocalypse 

emory pass, black range (new mexico)

the southwest is a land without explanations... a land of illusions, of dreamers, and eroding realities. 

new mexico, known colloquially as "the land of enchantement" has another nickname to those who spend their time toiling in her badlands and deserts, "the land of entrapment." 

mountain blessings (silverton, colorado)

 what little there is here, it is stunning that somehow life survives... despite little rain, bad politics, roughneck roads, exploited resources, and isolated and indemnified populations, people make a living here.

i have come to understand that the people of the southwest make a living fighting. 

fighting for their native rights; fighting for their land and water; fighting for their cattle; fighting for their wolves and spotted owls; fighting for their forests; fighting for their jobs; fighting for their food; fighting for their children... fighting for generations to come.

pueblo bonito (chaco canyon, new mexico)

what will they win? there are little, but highly valued resources at stake. for a land that has held the oldest civilizations in north america--the chaco, the mimbres, the aztecs, and the bands of tribes relating to today's apache, navajo, and ute native americans--this place has a deep and profound history of life.

what meaning people can carve out of this hard land here in the southwest is a spiritual connection to the earth. 

there is no one here (ok, with the exception of pheonix, the land of great waste and the keystone of destruction for the desert) that doesn't get that any day now there could be an apocalypse of resources. there is less and less to go around here, and so the fighting gets louder and louder... the battles are deeper and deeper entrenched. 

a rare cloud (new mexico)

hardrock mines have more water rights than cities... they flood their waste rock piles so that they will use-up their water rights "efficiently"... so not to loose them under new mexico's "use it, or lose it" water policy. cattle ranchers graze on national forest land, yet the land that they do hold privately they similarly flood for the same reason as the mines. yet arizona would like to see the country's last free-flowing river, the gila river, diverted, so that desert diamonds like pheonix can continue to water their lawns daily, have swimming pools in their backyards, and fountains in their mall parking lots.

san juans (silverton, colorado) 

it is a sad state that keeps us alive: but it is the fight that keeps new mexico beautiful. there is a reason that the tribes of humans that lived here before our own version of civilization were warriors and nomads. this land is of ciphers and codex: the translation, the meaning, the explanation of life is age-old, misunderstood, and eroding quickly. to be on the lookout for threats to the unstable life led here is habitual, generational, and will always be the way of life here. 

to protect what is left, to argue about what was, and to dream that tomorrow the rain will come.

this is the only explanation i can give to what life in the southwest is all about... it is imperfect, and sure to be mistaken. like a mirage on a hazy red horizon, i realize that anything i think i know is surely to be wrong, and the closer i get to understanding why i am here, the further from the truth i will be.