Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Encampment of Enchantment






Last week I pointed the front bumper of my truck south from Steamboat Springs and by sunset, as the full moon rose, I was parked safely outside of Taos, New Mexico. Two days later, Cass and I moved into a little adobe house in San Cristobal. New Mexico is known as the “Land of Enchantment,” and there is a sign at the end of our road that reads, “Enchanted Circle.” There is magic here, and somehow, it seems we landed in the midst of it.

It goes against my better judgment to take the first place I look at, but as the landlord showed us the little cabin and told us about the property, virtually all of the things on our mental checklists got checked off. He told us we could grow our own food, keep bees and even livestock. These aren’t on the immediate horizon, but with really cheap rent, if we did grow our own food we could live for almost nothing. I must admit, the fact that D.H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley used to live on this property didn’t hurt either.

It is well known that this region attracts artist. I’m starting to think that Taos makes artists. The land here feels like a well stocked pantry of creativity. Often I feel that I have to bring my own ingredients for creativity, but here there are so many around I just reach out my hands and toss whatever I can grab into the creative cauldron. It smells good as it simmers. I don’t know what it will taste like. It may be just be a soup stock for a future creation.

The shadows are lengthening and the coffee shop will soon close. Perhaps I’ll stop at the little hot spring bubbling out of the rocks along the Rio Grande seven miles from our house. Maybe I’ll just go home and try to decipher the Raven’s language as they shout at each other from the trees around the house. Either way, I intend to make sure that New Mexico is living up to its motto.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Cultivating Visions from the Warming Hut





Ah, the first week of a new year… I consider this the lowest pressure week of the year. Whatever last year had to offer has already been received, and due to those new last two digits at the end of the date, there is nothing but a clean slate to work with. It feels much like it did in school when the teacher would give the assignment for a research paper or project. Though bound to be a lot of work, the assignment would set the wheels of creativity in motion unencumbered by a nearing deadline. This is much different than the feeling one gets on deadline week when those wheels are often forced to spin faster without the luxury and lubrication of time. This same feeling is experienced when the post office tells you that you only have one more day to post packages if you want them to arrive by Christmas.

I’m experiencing this low pressure week from Steamboat Springs Colorado. From my comfortable seat in the new wing of the Bud Werner Memorial Library, the snow is gently falling, covering up all traces of last week and last year. When I was young I thought that the if you mixed all of the colors together it would be black. After all, that’s what it looked like when I colored in a space with all the crayons in the box. Later, in photography class they told us that the color white had all of the colors in the spectrum. I have seen proof of this when the sun hit’s the snow and the individual snowflakes reflect all the colors in the rainbow. When I first moved to Steamboat 12 years ago one of my major complaints was the lack of color here during the winter. The sky was blue, the trees brown and green and sometimes when the sun would raise or set, there were some reds and oranges but in the winter the primary color was white. Today the sky is just a few shades darker than the snow and the other colors look more gray than anything. Fortunately, I can use what I learned in photography to see the snow for what it is. All of the colors in the spectrum: Pure potential.

This is a very trying time for many of us. This time of the year the weather is colder and the days are shorter. This leaves us with less energy and usually limits our daily journeys to paths that took valuable energy to clear for ourselves. At least it is this way in snowy communities. This year it feels even more oppressive due to a failing economy and increasing war around the globe. Cabin fever with messages of doom and gloom pumped over the airwaves are only making things worse for the individual and collective psyche. Seeing this makes this time of limbo feel extra important.

I’m sitting here in limbo waiting for my taxes to get finished and my damaged passport to get renewed. In the meantime I have been using the internet and magazines to see visions of beauty and hope. Darkness and light are always present and they are both contagious. I was taught in the past that it was really important to watch the news to see what was going on in the world. I rarely did. The longer I went without news the more I realized why I never wanted to watch it. Dwelling on the one percent of what was actually happening took away from experiencing the 99 percent that felt applicable to me. It made me feel powerless. Conversely, the program I was in at school aimed to empower me to empower others. Ironically this was the impetus for us to start a newspaper in Steamboat Springs. The Local empowered people to tell their own story about their perception of the world. Each of us has the potential to have a 16 hour newscast that is our own life (the other eight would be spent sleeping). That is, unless we devote our lives to the way someone else chooses to view the world.

That being said, I have been following the news and the life I am living at this moment would not be a newscast worthy of watching. I am, however, greatly enjoying this time of freedom and using it to embark on imaginary journeys, some of which will be real journeys in the near future. My practice right now is to briefly acknowledge the problems and injustices happening, but then immediately turn to a plan to create something positive. Nothing gets in the way of progress like negativity. I find it much more powerful to use what I call the law of enticement. If you don’t like the way things are, create something more enticing. Just like water always flows to a lower point, people usually flow effortlessly towards things that feel good or things that they want.

The snow is still falling. Each layer erases images from the mind’s canvas presenting a space for new creation. What entices you? I’d love to hear.