reason

right now my hands are indiscernable from the canyon walls that loom by my house: they are colored in tumeric, paprika, and dark roasted red chile powder from my day of cooking indian food at work. it seems fitting that my hands should melt into this landscape--i'm beginning to feel more and more at one with it all.

two nights ago, derrick jensen, the author of A Language Older Than Words, came to speak in Durango. he spoke as eloquently, powerfully, and insanely as he writes, and the audience was both engaged and inspired...as was i. like i did when i read his book, i found myself thinking thoughts I had never thought before, and found myself both appreciating him immensely and disagreeing with him, too. what i discovered at the end of the evening was a deep remembering, and a deeper clarity about why i am here.

of all the places i've visited in the world, i have been most in love with this land. this place is the junction of mountains and desert, relentless rivers and stubborn stone, high elevation and turbulent sky. the rocks tell stories, the sands hold buried treasure, and the peaks share vision...one cannot live here and ignore these relationships. and they are what we need now more than anything. in little time, our conversations with trees and rivers, our recognition and respect for wild plants and animals and the reintegration of our innate sense of an interspecies community within the places we live will provide for us much more certainly than any capitalist trade and distribution system will.

this place called me home so that i can take care of it, and it can take care of me. it's not just geography. it's life-sustaining integration.