Peak Oil

We didn't attend the second Peak Oil forum looking for information to convince us of the urgency of the problem. Last year's flooding here, Hurricane Katrina and unknown and unnamed future events have tipped the balance in favor of self reliance and away from goverment intervention. The greater motivation is the desire to know what can be done now by us as individuals and how can we share that in ways that lead to connection with others to form an active community regardless of physical location.

Establishing a place in a community is important whether you live in town or further out and I heard some voices at the forum underscore that. The impending oil crisis (no matter when it comes to pass or if there is no magic bullet to kill the wolf should it come to the door) serves as a focal point for empowering people as individuals and bringing us together to form a larger community with shared objectives. It's a process of engaging and interacting with others to find levels of community involvement and interpersonal interaction in which we're comfortable; to find what works best for ourselves. So much of life seems to be a balancing and rebalancing of the need for autonomy and the need to belong either to something greater than ourselves or at least some form of community that fulfills our need to be with our own species in some way that's of mutual benefit.

It was the little useful things I heard that appealed to me because it's too easy to be overwhelmed by something of great magnitude and then go into paralysis and not know what to do about it or where to start. Something as simple as having a workshop on building and using a solar oven would be a great way for people like me to learn something that could be used here and now and meet other people. It seems that one little thing like that can start to empower a person and as a result benefit many. It's a step toward breaking the spell that fear has over us.

One of the hardest things to live with is uncertainty because within it's space fear resides--real fears, nameless fears, and the sense of powerlessness that goes along with things we feel we can't control. I don't know much about community except in the conventional ways presented in our society. I'm a product of my culture and when one starts to question that culture and what's done in it's name a good place to start is with oneselves and our families. In youth, a time when we rebel against these things, it's easy and tempting to go from one form of knee jerk belief system to another in an attempt to shake off familiar bonds and become our own person. Most of us do that in some form of community. We start to question ourselves and what we've chosen more carefully when we're older because we've gained a little history over time. We may begin to see ourselves and where we've come from differently, we have some experience of what works and what doesn't and a little knowledge, if we're lucky, of where to look for different answers. Or we stagnate in denial in it's various guises, stumbling onward to whatever the consequences of inaction are. Sometimes we embrace both numbed inaction and sincere searching within the course of one lifetime. I'm not a religious person, meaning I don't go to church, but I think I understand a little the need people have for being members of a church. There is the need to believe is something greater than ourselves, the comfort of communion with others, the sharing of common values and the certainty of dogma. It's harder to live in a question than it is to live in an answer. Questions are annoying things, flitting about like gnats or droning dangerously like wasps. We sell ourselves short if we settle for answers out of fear, driven by the need for expediency. And yet the discomfort of uncertainty is a powerful driver. There's much talk about finding and sharing vision, the need to replace what we've come to consider a dangerous and worn out one. We may feel imprisoned within the cultural manifestations of that vision. We became it's prisoners by consensus, because elements of that vision sustained us and still do. In an essay written by John Michael Greer, who is a practicing mage, he refers to the Zapatista movement and one of it's tenets of revolution, the need for a world of many visions. There is no one vision, no template for living, or single "right" answer. The world is made up of many hoops. It seems so simple to say that balance and harmony within such diversity comes about through respect and understanding, but it is one of the most difficult things to live by. And there's no one path that gets us there, but there are opportunities that arise in perilous times, when we can come together and share what each of us knows no matter what path we've followed to get there.

A Slice of Heaven

I get up when Fontaine crows, or at least when I first hear him. He's generous with his voice. Today we're going to Silver City to attend a forum on Peak Oil. We went to the first one that was held during the summer in a small church hall. This time the event will be held at the Besse Global Resource Center at Southwestern University, with childcare provided. The topic has gathered some momentum in this area, becoming a rallying point for people concerned about sustainability. From it some interesting community based projects have started. Even though we're not part of the community in town we're interested in the topic and the chance to see what's going on. We're part of the Virtual community through an email list which helps connect this wide spread region. But nothing works better than Actual to fulfill the need for human contact. There's a lot of talking at these events; it's kind of serious fun. This will be the post Katrina forum and that may explain some of the expected increase in attendance. Many of the people who are active in Silver are of the '60's generation and probably are originally from some state other than New Mexico. I think Silver City is unique in that it's at a point where it could become a communityactually working toward sustainability in the same way that Ukiah in California is, for many of the same reasons. Living out here in Mimbres where it's beautiful has it's downside as far as a feeling of community goes. We've seen enough people come and go and now our good neighbors from Santa Cruz, CA are looking for a place in town because of the price of gas and cost in time commuting to jobs in town. Last February when the second flood wiped out the crossing, downing huge trees, the commute included a sprint across a fallen cottonwood that spanned both banks and allowed crossing over high, hard running water. That was the only way for days to get to the road unless you wanted to hike 4 miles across wet country. Our "little slices of heaven" are adjacent and they don't want to give up their land. They haven't been able to build their house yet and rent a casa on someone else's property "next door". Community on el otro lado seems to be nebulous and ever changing. If you work in town and make friends in Silver there's the dilemma of the drive for a visit in either direction. It's a matter of time and money. I love it out here but you come to appreciate the many compelling reasons for community and the pull that a small place like Silver creates. There's plenty to think about in this time of "dire beauty".

Errant nights

Through a change of plans, I left for CA 4 days ahead of schedule. Shoving off at noon on Oct. 16 I got to my mother's doorstep at 8am Monday, 10/17. I don't mind driving straight through with the usual pitstops when I'm alone. This time I wanted a more scenic route and decided take 180 getting off at the Mule Creek cutoff and head for Safford in AZ. From there it's on to Globe, through Devil's Canyon and then downhill past the exits for Apache Junction, Mesa, Tempe etc. to pick up I-10 in Phoenix. It was a long, twisty drive on mostly two lane roads with a lot of weekend cars and the sun setting in my eyes. Even so, I'm always glad to see the Superstition Mountains in the descent into the Valley of the Sun. There's a print on a wall in our house of that view a hundred years ago. It depicts a stage coach roaring past those mountains in a desert empty of everything but sagebrush, barrel, prickly pear and huge, old saguaro cacti. Monsoon clouds heaped above and behind the cliffs. The mountains looks pretty much the same and there still are cactus and sagebrush here and there amid the housing boom that seems to go up the slopes toward Thunder Mountain. I first saw these mountains 2 years ago. I'd talked to a helpful person in the BLM about directions to a wild horse and burro auction at the rodeo grouds in Apache Junction. On that drive it was pouring rain but the landscape we passed through and sight of the mysterious Superstition Mountains was worth it. Albeit, amid the onslaught of subdivisions creeping closer to the feet of the mountain spirits. It's preparation for what life will be like when I get to California. And it also means there's a long stretch of driving to do: I-10 to Quartzsite, then to Parker, Lake Havasu City, Needles, the Mojave Desert, Barstow, Bakersfield and finaly cutting over toward Buttonwillow and I-5. From there it's a straight shot and you just count the miles to another version of home. Late one night last January, I was driving back to NM along the two lane truck route from Parker to Quartzsite to hook up with I-10 S. I was keeping a wary eye on the big trucks coming toward me from the Interstate. Truckers show a lot of creativity in how they deck out their rigs in night running lights. There's usually a profusion of brightness to hold the eye. At this late hour, I was the only car for miles in my lane. Only trucks were coming toward me in the opposite direction. I could see the glow of their lights fade in and out amid the low, rolling desert hills. During every trip I muse over the long haul trucks/truckers, sometimes going over the obvious metaphor used to describe them, "knights of the road". That particular thought was flickering about when the most amazingly decked out big rig crested the hill coming toward me. It had a full warbonnet of running lights but the centerpiece was the big, rectangular expanse of that front grill which was lit up as an ornate Christian Cross. For a moment I experienced the shock and awe one might have felt during one of the Crusades when caught in a situation in which an armed knight on a huge war horse thunders over a hill toward you. Of course he's brandishing a shield with such a cross on it. It gave me quite a shiver. The metaphor had morphed into reality while the cd player was cranking out Natalie Merchant's "This House is on Fire". Things like that stay with you longer than numb fingers as you find yourself unwinding along the double yellow line.

Where's the rub?

It's ten to seven and just starting to get light. Fontaine's letting off another volley of crows. It looks like it's going to be clear. In less than a week I head west for a visit to my homeotwn,Stockton, CA. It's a good time of year to travel there because it's not too hot. Usually I do a marathon driving stint and get there in eighteen hours. I'd like to take it easy this time and do a more scenic route to Arizona before cutting over to California. That's the plan, which will remain fluid until the last possible moment. I'm anxious to get going and look at things not New Mexican. I love the beauty of where we live and feel as though we're finally finding a level of community involvement we can live with for the time being. It's a pretty low level for me since I've more of an introverted nature. By nature more of a watcher than doer within organized groups of people. A lot of what I do that's non-ranch or house work I do alone and isolation works okay for me. Sure, I talk to the chickens and have long conversations with the burro, but I've jabbered with enough people for a living to fill my lifetime. And eccentricity is a hallmark of age. It's starting to feel very comfortable. However, I feel restless in a way that means I need to get away to friends and kinfolk in that California buzz. I'm curious to see with those eyes for a bit. It's so easy out here in this splendid isolation, to believe the world one creates is real across the board. I've filled in gaps with media choices: radio, tv, the internet for how I structure information in my reality. It's a replacement for human contact and interaction but it's not real in the way that ants will rub up against each other to exchange information is real. No matter how you structure it when you do that you still get someone else's reality, so the world you create is a mosaic of all these different sensibilities and pov's that you may or may not agree with, buy into or react to rather then respond to, etc. In any case, if this is all you're rubbing up to, you need to take a break and find some real ants.

Loose Feet

The Indian summer turned cold and we got battered by a storm system bringing some snow to the northern part of the state. Plenty of thunder and lightning. Enough rain to stay on the ground for a while and make for some morning mist. Took a walk with a neighbor and our dogs and crawled through the locked gate at the end of the lane. I'm weary of fences and gates. We are locking our gate to the access road because of a spate of burglaries on our side of the river. There's rumors of known theives and meth labs. None of which surprises me, since you.probably can't go anywhere in rural American without finding the same thing. Where there's a need...fill it. It's business in depressed rural economies and here it gets the southwestern tang of the nearby Mexican border and the confluence of so many "agencies" and coyotes.

My beef comes on the hoof. Ranchers don't care for people to come wandering along their property uninvited. Which is understandable since trespassers aren't always benign in their wanderings and cattle have been known to disappear. It's something of an irony to live in a place so rich in the possibilities for exploration and have those opportunities denied behind the ubiquitous lines of "bob wahr". Barb wire is fine for cattle, bad for horses. It's probably a necessity, but I can't help but think that the person who came up with the idea wasn't just a little mean spirited. I'll need to get permission to hike up to some caliche outcroppings or else face a shotgun. Or so the stories go. An outing on horseback means hitching up the trailer and heading north for half hour or 45 minutes or riding a few short local roads. I have a hankering to go south, up toward San Lorenzo in the foothills that back up into the Black Range. I've looked at these hills through four seasons over three years. I've photographed and painted them and I've not yet been able to look west to where we live from them. They've become something of a yearning.

More Water

The following month the new association met to go over and vote on the by-laws we'd received previously. There were a few points that needed clarification on ditch #3, the ditch we're on. The association is an umbrella organization composed of four ditches. Each ditch has it's user/members one of whom is elected major domo, or troubleshooter and interface with the water regulators etc. Pronounced mayor domo, it's usage goes back to the Spanish Colonial period. However, two men with the state water regulators joined us, apparently as off- the- record good will ambassadors. Our meeting jefe wanted to get the by- laws agreed upon so changes could be made and the state could get our paper work and recognize us. Our jefe is a terrier when it comes to keeping things moving, which in this group is a wise thing. The state presence was not altogether amiably received by Contentious, who was in attendance and ready to carry arguments forward from the last meeting. El Jefe had his work cut out squeezing in the by-laws business between the state make nice and the low growl Contentious was starting to emit. But already it was too late because one of Contentious's barbs struck a state nerve on it's right to trespass during the performance of duties. One of the state guys took the bait and an increasingly heated series of challenges were issued. The other state guy jumped in at the mention of the legal use of watch dogs, presesnce of firearms, state police. I was expecting to hear FEMA tossed in the mix. Everyone else stopped talking about by laws and focused on the main event. I'd been following it wondering how far it was going to go? How loose a canon was Contentious? These boys looked like they'd played football, wrestled steers or could easily find work in crowd control. No match for Contentious, who is shaky, at best. Even El Jefe was caught between barks. All eyes were on the showdown. Was it was going to be one of those old west moments straight from of the reptilian brain, before lawyers were plentiful? After a few moments into this, the angriest of the state guys realized he'd been skunked by someone best described as eccentric, in the truly New Mexican sense of the word. As his head cleared you could see him try to figure out the the most graceful way to back down and return to a more diplomatic form of behavior. There was a brief and awkward silence during which people assumed blank stares. In half a beat El Jefe got us back on task. Soon after Contentious lurched off into the night. The meeting aujourned with much show of civility. Water is serious business.

Water

Sometime in the dead of night I was awakened by the wind howling, the curtains were flapping wildly. One of those squalls that sometimes comes up fast and blows over as quickly. It reminded me of a time when I lived in an apartment on the Oakland/Berkeley line. I had a fine view of San Francisco Bay and a window seat from which I could look west to sunset bridges. One of the things I enjoyed most was watching the weather on the bay. It sometimes got intense with isolated little squalls coming up and the light getting dramatic on the water. Out here the mountains make the weather and you'd better learn to read it or you'll find yourself bucking hay in a thunder storm. Sooner or later, you'll end up having to do that anyway.
Our neighborhood meeting with Game and Fish is in the works. They sound fairly agreeable about working with us to protect this stretch of river and our access road during high water. Last week was the second meeting of the group trying to start an acequia association. Briefly, acequia is a Spanish word referring to water ways such as irrigation ditches feeding off of rivers. New Mexico water rights and the system of governance of them goes back to shortly after the Civil War. It's obscure, arcane, riddled with dirty politics and greed and is an ongoing controversy that will only get worse as water gets scarcer. These old ranchers talk about global climate change. The gummit wants to start metering water and the only way to have any clout with it is through forming an association. We're out of our league here but we would like to use our water rights. At the moment, our ditch isn't running because of the flood damage and we need to get it fixed, which will require a backhoe or diggers, both of which are costly. A water association is the insurance paid to the water authority to get heard. Meters are coming, they're expensive and get wiped out every time there's significant flooding. It's not the ideal system and has enough critics. These meetings have been interesting so far. At the first meeting a small dark guy with a pointy pencil moustache, wearing a black hat--feline nervous--went on about the need to create a larger association to protect us from the downstream muscle. He was pretty agitated and adamant about his message. Then another guy with sort of a contentious nature was filibustering the vote to form and name the association, which was already in motion, seconded and acted upon as he spoke. A slightly slap stick performance. A couple of old timers were there, ranchers whose families settled here long ago. These fellows have a kind of rural dignity and solidity in their clean and pressed Wranglers. Going to the government went against the grain, but there wasn't much choice with the changes coming. As far as the majority were concerned, it was a done deal and would have wrapped up quickly but for the contentious fellow. It looked like that was his MO, so more of the same could probably be expected at future meetings. This is manana land, and the next meeting was set to discuss and vote on the by-laws. The organizer of the meeting was keeping things moving in a rather un-New Mexican like clip.