Grazes from a trip to Boulder, Utah some months ago and all the sensitive and unwordly wonders of that remarkable place. Upsetting current events around the Bears Ears & Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument getting gutted 90% for exploitation and the garbage legislation surrounding the aggressive ‘study’ / the extermination campaign / targetting mountain lions got me recalling this trip and the lingering impressions it still holds on me. I was invited there to offer ceremony tattoo, and I did, but the overwhelming presence of that land guided me into a different sort of rhythm that I wasn’t expecting. My hosts were deeply engaged in their own boots on the ground activism in service of protecting the lions of the area that involved collective dream tracking and some of the wildest conversations I think I have ever had around these related topics. We crossed streams of the Escalante River and met snakes in the sands and their ancestors painted on the canyon walls. Echoes of past and present and future still uncoiling. I was invited to participate in an herbalist class, Medicine at our Feet, with a great group of women for two days; sitting with Comfrey and Motherwort in a desert garden and harvesting Nettle in an Oak grove that had originally been stewarded by the Anasazi and kept thriving by a devoted few. I camped above a slope of White Sand Verbena and her intoxicating nocturnal perfume is a smell I will never forget. It was all a strong example of intentionality and relationship with place that is rare to experience; the sort of unifying transmission that happens across the energy of a vast land and how it speaks through its people and the many varieties of residents who tend to its living pulses. The very real and tangible magic that gets lost with such horrific proposals like these degrees of gargantuan, irresponsible, and painful cuts are instigating. When it gets too heavy I remember the people I met who are doing all that they can and in their own hands. They’re not in the news. But we out here. And whatever you are summoned to do to help, do it.
