water

I know that water is running out. living in new mexico and being someone that is mostly conscious of and connected to my environment its hard not to know this. but even so, i found this story on Democracy Now very sobering. and informative as far as how it is that the corporate push to control what little water the planet has left is just exasperating the problem. apparently water is something like a 400 billion dollar global industry, 3rd only to electricity and ye ol' oil.
i recommend this story to everyone...unless you are some magic unearthly being that doesn't need water.

heres a segment from a new documentary called "F.L.O.W., For The love Of Water"

...PETER H. GLEICK: "For the longest time, people have taken water for granted. Most people don’t think about where their water comes from. They just turn on the tap, and they expect it to be there. Those days are ending.

MAUDE BARLOW: This notion that we’ll have water forever is wrong. California is running out. It’s got twenty-some years of water. New Mexico has got ten, although they’re building golf courses as fast as they can, so maybe they can whittle that down to five. Arizona, Florida, even the Great Lakes now, there’s huge new demand.

PETER H. GLEICK: The Nile River doesn’t reach its end. The Colorado River, the Yellow River in China, they, for the most part, don’t flow anymore to the sea.

MAUDE BARLOW: So this notion that somehow these problems are far away, get rid of that. You know, take it out of your head. You know, delete that. "


...on the positive side, if you can call it that, is what is coming to be known as the global water justice movement, the fight to control our local water sources and to restore the natural hydro-cycles and get water out of the hands of industry.

spring

and yesterday i saw a couple of blue heron fly over.

its time to grow food!

going back like a ghost

today i went back to chacon. i'm still getting my crap outta there if you can believe it. i hadn't been up there in month since last time i went i collided with another truck on the icy road to my house (crumpled and tore the front corner of my poor old truck) and when i got to the property the snow was so bad i couldn't even pull in the driveway or get the damn gate open.
so today, after a spell of warm weather, i went back.
i fight back emotion of any kind while i'm there. the chill in the air frightens me. feels like not enough and brittle viligance. I stumble through the mud and snow gathering things up as fast as i can.
i don't stop to look around.
see...here at my new home i sometimes am overcome with body memories of pulling open the back door, heading outside, the sounds, the view, how my body knew the pathways of routine there, the horizons curving mountains. how i made that backdoor with my own hands. and its hard, these memories are hard. memories like that of a lost lover, how they smelled ...how they moved...what they needed.
so i passed through today just a ghost swirling around like the dust on the old wooden floor. i didn't connect.
i kept a lid on grief.
a lid on lost.
the whole valley struck me sad poor and sleeping. its a hard time of year for rural mountain folk.
always the obligatory walmart bags caught flapping on barbed wire fences.
always dead animals in the road.

but i'm back on the farm now with a truck load of crap. I brought down my solar power which i've really missed. and all my books of poetry...so many poets. and my paintings from a decade ago....an old trunk full of old stuff....and a tin bucket full of my funny mismatched old dishes, which i've also really missed
and my hoe
and rake
and pitchfork.
tools for new pathways.

farm visuals

Its snowed! what a treat for down here. a good 8 inches i'd say. heavy and wet wet, its not very cold out considering. in fact, i'm surprised it didn't rain instead.here i'm standing in the dry acequia.and here i'm on the upper part of the farm, on the bank of the acequia looking down over the fields that lead to the pecos river.

and the goat project has slowed a bit. we're gonna shop around a bit more and in the meantime work on the goat pen and housing so that we're all ready to go!

sunrise and an earth rug

this was this mornings sunrise on the farm.

and heres the first rug off of my new loom! I told myself it was a potentially sacrificial rug since theres so much to learn about a new and different loom and i tried to keep it simple in design so that i could concentrate more on the mechanics and less on some complicated pattern. in the end it turned out to be not too bad! its 30"x51" and made of karakul yarn hand dyed with various plant dyes like cota and cochineal and walnut hulls.
and heres a detail of the center and its for sale...if anyones interested just drop me line!

a few important things...

since i'm always for looking for a way to harass Whole Foods i was thrilled to see this petition to sign concerning whole foods lack of interest in supporting the workers of "country natural beef" in their desire to unionize. whole foods sells some 60% of all country natural beef.
No surprise they aren't very motivated...whole foods is notoriously anti-union. They are basically the walmart of natural foods eh? be sure to venture to the united farm workers homepage as well...

AND for those of you who are in new mexico why don't you get yr butt to this protest and i'll meet you there. I always bring my tamborine and make sure to get close to that awesome marching band that always seems to be at these things....

interlude

weeping feels good when it comes.
because i'm actually feeling something.
i keep writing posts and then deleting them the next day. if it was a journal i'd be ripping out the page and tossing it into the fire.
words fall short seem all wrong and too small or not the point or who cares or just not enough.

nothing is enough. nothing meets the need. nameless endless numbing. a hardening of the flesh.

had a lover used to play guitar and its was like summer pools of sunshine and it melted me everytime. young hope with all my defenses down.
i felt everything.

i have this fear that i'll be just another story of just another person with environmental illness that everyone forgot about til one day i begin to die of this or that...then the murmurs...ooooo did you hear? how sad.
this is what happens. i've known of several e.i.s' this has happened to. and this happens to disabled folks all the time.
where did they put the need? did anyone play them guitar? did pools of sunshine touch them like ghosts of real flesh? did they converse with birdsong, argue with the wind?
i keep making the best of it. i've learned this from my mother. perpetually redefining the idea of a good life to in some way encompass the one you have. but the injustice of no access and the systemic toxicity and scraping edge of nameless is inescapable. hounds me. drains me. i worry the bitterness will break me. that the sclerosis is moving to my heart and how i wish that was just a poetic metaphor.

so its good to weep. because i'm feeling something.
like singing strings it brings
my defenses down.

early morning sheep go bowling

in the mornings i take the sheep with me to the lower part of the farm while i feed the llamas, goats and horses.
the sheep are always extra frisky in the morning. lots of sproinging and butting heads and running sideways.
heading back towards the sunrise i was walking in front of them, enjoying the warm morning when i heard them stampeding up behind me.
diosa ran past me, then godiva then BAM lupe ran head first right into my knees . i landed ass first on the ground and laughed harder than i've laughed in a while as i watched them continue their joyous popcorn procession down the path.. including lupe. i really don't think she even noticed that she'd hit me.
seriously.