Kachinas words by Ralph Melcher art by Peter Taylor   It's been said that spirits tend to follow the courses of water. This past weekend was my birthday and I intended to take a trip to the north or the south, to break routine, to explore another corner of New Mexico or maybe just to get together with familiar friends in Denver. Instead I went east into Texas. It was the day after my birthday, which this year was on Good Friday, and every year is on Thomas Jefferson's birthday. The last several years I've been inspired to brush up on my revolutionary history, curious in an astrological sort of way whether there was anything particularly familiar in the Jeffersonian biography. Sure enough, among the four principal leaders of the revolution, which included Washington, Franklin and Adams, Jefferson was an embodiment of fire and the unsettled energy of Aries. He thought about and wrote about every conceivable subject, from numerous points of view. The reason Jefferson is quoted so often as a favorite founding father by both liberals and conservatives is that he was full of so many contradictions. He was a conservative elitist landowner who transformed the emotional yearnings of common people into eloquence. He was a slave owner who saw slavery as the most evil and corrupting of all institutions. He was obsessed with exactitude and measurements but could not see that he was running himself into debt. He could inflame the masses with words but was soft spoken in person. His nature was that of springtime, when the cold of winter struggles with summer's breath of new life. In his own struggles to identify his own nature he managed to outline the identity of an entire nation. I can certainly relate to this mixture of a sense of conflict with a sense of destiny. We are born into a time when all things are changing, and many of us live on the borders between what we see and what is commonly accepted as possible. We seek for truth across these borders and then we look for a way to bring back the gift of what we see. So many of us live on the edges of success and failure, wondering what we have to give to the world that the world will accept. I had to hit the road this weekend to salvage a little optimism in the face of what seems like a constant bombardment of mediocrity identifying America with its lowest common denominators. It seems that during every Republican administration the nation seems intent on drowning itself in mediocrity, retreating at all costs from any hint of "that vision thing.". During these times I find that I have to find relief somewhere or my disappointment transforms itself into useless and destructive rage. This is a good time, I suppose, for spiritual quests. I can perhaps take as my examples the voyages of the Argonauts or of Ulysses. They must sail far away from home to defeat the monsters of their own nature before they can return and bring transformation back to the land of their birth. As the destination for a voyage of self discovery my choice of Texas could have been a disaster. Maybe the best way to see it is that a voyage into Texas is like a journey into the lair of the Cyclops and the Lotus Eaters, and therefore necessary for a well-rounded journey. My intentions were certainly high minded. I thought as I crossed the border and climbed the Caprock onto the high plains of the Ilanno Escantado that perhaps by going into the land of my enemies, in this case the corporate oilmen who at this time run the country, I would better understand where they were coming from. Perhaps I would actually be able to connect with something in their origins or inner nature that would allow me to feel a little more compassion and maybe loosen things up a bit. As I said, I began by driving north toward Las Vegas, New Mexico. At the point where one approaches that town and can see Hermit Peak, where the Penitentes carry their crosses, looming off to the west, there is a choice of going north toward Colorado or south toward Apache Springs and Vaughn. Instead, something pulled me to the east. So I drove to the farthest reaches of the Colorado Plateau where the road descends sharply down Corazon Hill toward the Conchas River. Arriving at Conchas Lake, I walked out to a spit of land that poked into the choppy windblown waters from the rocky beach and stood listening to the roar of the blowing waves, imagining I was at the ocean. I picked up a New Mexico seashell on the shoreline, headed back to my car and continued on, still east, heading toward Texas. Looking at the map I tried to fathom what sort of destination might be pulling me into Texas. The lines on the roadmap criss crossed across a maze of farms and ranchlands stretching between western New Mexico and the city of Amarillo. To the southeast of that municipality an area marked in green seemed to hold potential. It had a name that rang familiar from old westerns; Palo Duro Canyon. I thought that maybe I could make it there tomorrow and camp. It being late in the day I decided to stop in Tucumcari for the evening, getting a room in the cheapest motel I could find, and setting up my old Macintosh computer on the corner of a dresser to clatter away at whatever words where trying to get out of me. The next morning, after a conversation with the odd character who ran the motel, I proceeded to cross the border from New Mexico to Texas. Immediately, as I'd experienced on this corssing before, the whole feel of things strangely changed. Although on both sides there is ranching and farming and the rivers coming out of the Rockies continue to flow between the caprock escarpments bordering the Texas grasslands, there is a marked change in style. The roads get straighter, the fields get neater, the houses and barns look more prosperous, the cars are bigger and newer and an air of self-righteous morality permeates everything. While driving the back roads I plunged across vast fields of alfalfa and legumes and sugar beets, with occasional village markers or an occasional cemetery. The feeling is distinctly of having left the high desert and a land that is comparatively semi-wild and of having entered fully into the civilized heartland of the American breadbasket. The place reminds me of the endlessly flat farmland of Saskatchewan, but with occasional reminders of the souhwestern deserts. Yucca plants, from which the 'staked plains' get their name, speckle the landscape. Occasional fields have been overgrazed and taken over by the spiny limbs of cholla cactus, but the biggest spreads are green and healthy with little herds of cattle here and there, munching on the alfalfa and gathering in contented groups to fan away the flies. Soon, however, another reality begins to dawn. As I got closer to the larger municipalities the houses are larger and more numerous and an occasional subdivision separates the rolling fields. Here I have my first sighting of feedlots. I remember my first stark impression of the feedlots, a couple of years ago when I made a pilgrimage to the east coast by way of Route 40, across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and the heart of the old south. I crossed Texas late at night where a glaring concentration of floodlights and an almost overwhelming ammonia odor of cowpiss and manure occasionally interrupted the relentless and featureless dark of the flatlands. Passing by one of these facilities at night gave me an almost supernatural feeling of unease. Even in full daylight on an Easter drive these places are not more comforting. Feedlots are essentially concentration camps for cows. This is the last position in a vast funnel that begins with the alfalfa and grasses and sorghum growing in the fields and then moves into the stomachs of the contented cows munching in their pasture. The end of the funnel is in train cars moving stock to the slaughterhouses of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. The feedlots are completely devoid of living vegetation and go on for acres. They are filled with thousands of animals, crowded together and standing or lying on mountains of what looks and smells like their own manure. Gates and troughs separate the sections and huge rolls of hay are positioned in rows where the cattle can get to them. The main concentration for all of this industry of slaughter are the railroad municipalities like Hereford and Amarillo, where finally the fields and the subdivisions completely vanish to be replaced by what seems to be endless acres covered in cows and shit and fences as far as the eye can see. I'm only an off and on vegetarian, so I'm not going to get self-righteous or indignant about the injustices committed on animals, but I've got to say that the feedlots of Texas are the nearest thing to hell I've seen since growing up in Cleveland next to the Cuyahoga River. When I was in college we used to get high and then go down to the flats by the river, into a place we called 'Mordor' after the land of darkness in the Tolkien novels. Down in the dark corridors between the clashing metal machinery of the steelyards amid the blast furnaces and rolling plants, flames shot up out of the ground and into the air. Soot covered architecture belched noxious fumes high into the air. The river was so toxic that it was long abandoned by the fish, the hellish illumination of flames and foundry lights reflected off of the chemical slicks that covered the water. There was absolutely no sign of a living plant or creature in a valley that had once been beautiful and filled with trees, given the gentle name Cuyahoga, "crooked river" by the Indians. It occurred to me that the memory evoked of that eastern industrial wasteland where I grew up and this experience of farm county in the middle of the Texas panhandle wasn't so much of a stretch. The feeling that descended upon me as I drove through these squares of industry and agriculture was of being in an enormous factory. There are two industries that have made Texas what it is. The first is cattle and the second is oil. As one goes further south the pumping insect shapes of oil wells are spread across the pastures. The state was settled and fought for during two major wars, the first with the Indians and the second with the Spanish. The early prosperity of the cattle industry created vast properties and amassed enormous fortunes for a few, and millions came to mine the rich topsoil under the buffalo grass through years of dryland farming. Then came drought and dustbowl and as the unprotected topsoil blew away millions were driven into poverty. I pulled off at a sign pointing down a dirt road to the "Annister Cemetery." It was a tiny plot of ground in a corner between two pastures, with maybe 50 grave markers. Many were so simple and primitive that they held only a name scratched roughly into a square of sandstone or what looked like concrete. Others, a few, were more elaborately endowed with mottoes and engraved flowers. There were many graves for infants and very young children. Very few marked life spans exceeded 30 years. The largest marble stone was to "Mother" and carried the motto: "A lifetime of thorns for an eternity in glory." Then in the early forties oil was discovered, and a new set of fortunes and a new prosperity exploded across this severe landscape. Soon after, the innovation of center pivot irrigation brought the water up from deep under the caprock, and the land blossomed green once again. Today the land is populated by people who've endured wars and droughts and poverty and the hard life of generations, and whose present and future depends on the technology that pulled their lives out of destitution. Those who survived did so with a sense that it was largely moral righteousness and spiritual strength that allowed their communities to endure through almost unimaginable hardship. Unlike New Mexico and the desert states, the landscape of Texas has the appearance of a conquered country. The straight lines go along with the narrow sense of morality to speak of people who have suppressed the powers of nature and desire and emerged victorious over all. This is the state that produced our president. A state where justice is swift and certain, and if it is wrong it is quick to move on. I think this must be the way many Texans see the world, where the weak are plowed under and the morally and physically strong survive. Death is never so far away in Texas. Not only does the state execute a record number of human prisoners (none innocent, we are assured), the entire countryside is given over to the wholesale slaughter of large ruminants. As a motto for its license plates one might suggest for West Texas, "The Charnel House State." The flaw in all of this, of course, is that unlike the spirit, the elements that have produced this victory over nature itself are not limitless. The aquifer is being depleted and the oil fields are slowly running dry. What will happen when these things are no more? Maybe this is the reason why so many Christians are anxiously awaiting the 'Rapture,' when they'll be lifted to someplace completely other than here. Until then, many are willing to do anything to preserve their advantage over the elements. They will gut the earth, rape it, ruin it, pump it, mine it, cut it and drill it, even when they don't need to, just because it challenges them to do it, and reminds everyone who is boss. Behind this there is more than a bit of self-centered desperation, as if a race was being run between the rapture and reality. As I drive across the landscape toward the canyon that's become my destination a voice seemed to come at me out of the landscape. I recalled the words, once again, of the Hopi Prophecy, a vision of those who have remained humble on the earth for so many years and through so many conquests: If we dig precious things from the land we will invite disaster. At a congested intersection in Amarillo, where the street signs are so dense it's almost impossible to distinguish foreground from background, I glanced up above the signs to see the contrails of jets buzzing across the sky of this land of industry. Again the voice came: Near the time of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky. On my radio I listened to another story about jets and spy planes and thought of those who seem to be leading us back to a time when nations were always poised at the edge of Armageddon with missiles pointing at each others in all directions. I thought again of the falling Russian space station with the name that means 'Peace.' Again, the words came: A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans. I found my way out of the city and got on the final highway stretch toward my destination. Daydreaming and anxious to arrive at Palo Duro Canyon I saw the lights of a cop car flashing as I drove pass. I glanced down at my speedometer and realized that it's me they are after, so I pulled off the road and slowed to a stop. Glancing back, I was relieved that I'd remembered to take the poster of George Dubya as Alfred E. Neuman (wearing a button that says, "Worry") out of the back window. Still, the Gore/Lieberman sticker and the Rock and Roll decals on my dash spoke volumes about my liberal leanings. I started nervously digging for my car papers, nervous because in the rare instances when I'm stopped I'm always anxious that I'll find everything where it needs to be. I was also nervous because these guys were scary. They weren't casual like most New Mexico cops. They approached the car like out of some live television reality show, as if they were expecting trouble. One walked over to the driver's side, and the other got out to stand over in my blind spot at the rear where I never could see his face. During the whole conversation I had the weird feeling of him there, silent, armed and ready for action. As I fumbled with the mass of papers in my wallet and under my seat the cop on my side went through the usual, "Were you in a hurry to get somewhere" bullshit, and I answered as politely as I could. At the same time I couldn't help but sense some kind of underlying tension in his voice, as if he saw me as some kind of threat to the civil order, and I'd better have the right answers and make the right moves or else I'd be in deep trouble. The scenario that ran through my imagination was of course out of a hundred movies about mean Southern cops. Still, even as I realized I was probably being irrationally paranoid, I couldn't kick the feeling. At one point the cop looked down at my ashtray, which was full of writing implements and a tin of Indian herbal breath mints and he asked me, "What are those?" I told him they're breath mints. He then asked me if I'm into 'herbs.' I felt like suddenly we were both speaking in some dangerous language of code. I felt like I was back as a teenager being interrogated for pot on some highway between Cleveland and Woodstock. I offered him a mint. He refused but then launched into an anecdote about his 'Native American wife' who is into herbs and spirituality and wants to move with him up to Colorado and the Chama valley. I thought to myself, is this guy for real just trying to break the ice with me, or is he trying to trick me into confessing something? My suspicions were perhaps unreasonable, and maybe he was just trying to be friendly and show me he's a regular guy, but the cop I couldn't quite see hovering behind my car, covering this guy's back, made everything seem a little bit strange. I played along, making small talk about the beautiful Chama valley and the hot springs and the fishing, but felt sort of like I was talking to a rattlesnake or a cobra that I'd be a fool to trust. Finally the cop was through with me and gave me a ticket and wished me a good time in the Canyon. I drove on feeling as if I'd been somehow humiliated by being treated like a criminal. From that moment my only thought was to get out of Texas as quickly as I could. Every moment I spent in the state after that encounter, I felt an undercurrent of irrational terror that I was going to get stopped and arrested and thrown in jail. Palo Duro Canyon was full of about a million people and cars and I felt so off-balance that I couldn't appreciate any of it. I cruised through at exactly the speed limit, navigating crowds of holiday hikers, campers, picnickers and bicyclers. I almost felt I was in one of those feedlots. I could think of little but getting back on the road and on my way out of that alien country. That evening, on my way back over the back roads of Northern New Mexico once again, I passed herds of antelope roving on hillsides next to herds of cattle, and just before it got dark the road plunged down into a deep and quiet canyon that resembled the Palo Duro. At the bottom was the Canadian River, and there was absolutely no one around. Later, after I'd gotten home, I looked at a map and realized that my whole journey had followed the Canadian River watershed. It was as if I was pulled along the river's course, through a maze of roads and landforms bordering on two states, learning lessons about the people and the deep feelings of the landscape and then bringing the lessons back. The adventures I had and the messages I received are from the border between the world of common agreement and the unfathomable world of the spirits who follow the courses of the waters. The Kachinas come down from the San Francisco Peaks in the cold of winter to tell us that the spring is coming. They pick their way across the village plazas, bringing signs of the thunder that hides up in the mountains through the dark of the year. They are cloaked in the costumes that exhibit our relationship to things that are deeper than the soil. These are the forces that come to us from other worlds. These are the messages that can teach us who we really are. words by Ralph Melcher art by Peter Taylor Subscribe to the Arclist