Is this our future....
“The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature.” “Like billowing clouds, Like the incessant gurgle of the brook, The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.”
The medieval mystic Hildegarde de Bingen equated moisture with human kindness. She equated spirituality with the verdancy of the earth. But what happens when the land doesn’t turn green? What happens if you’re in a drought? I’ve been thinking of that recently as I survey my homeland in northern New Mexico. Some people equate New Mexico with southern Arizona – they think desert and cacti. They don’t visualize mountains, forests, green valleys, flowing streams and our beautiful acequias or irrigation ditches.
For the past twenty years or so we have teetered on the verge of drought. Though some years have been far more troubling than others. Last year, for example, the winter snows weren’t plentiful but rainfall was. As a result, the whole area embraced greenness. Along the highway, median strips were lush with tall grasses. Flying into the state and gazing down – the landscape looked like a brown canvas lightly brushed with green paint. But that was last year….
This winter it didn't snow. The temperature dipped a few weeks into the 20’s and 30’s but the skies remained clear – day after day, week after week. The Sangre des Cristos mountain peaks -- normally white right up to Mother’s Day, were never fully coated with snow and have been bare for weeks.
Normally at this time of year the New Mexico rivers are filled by spring run-off -- raging torrents of water which, I always think, must have inspired the folk tale La Llorona which portrays a ghostly mother wandering along the river crying for her lost children. What an excellent way to scare children away from dangerous river currents.
But no warning is necessary this year. A few weeks ago, I saw a goose walking up the Pecos. The level of water in the river has dropped and dropped and dropped so more. I’m seeing things in the banks that I didn’t know existed – muskrat holes and beaver dens.
And indicators are – this is no aberration – this may be our future. As author William DeBuys predicts in his book “The Great Aridity” we may be doomed to perpetual and increasing dryness. According to experts, it’s a condition that has occurred periodically through the centuries but now is being acerbated by climate change. So far we’ve dodged the devastating hurricanes, floods, and mudslides that others throughout the world have suffered. Drought, however, is our Achilles heel – it makes us more vulnerable to fires – the fire squads are already gearing up for a bad year. And that’s not the only damage. For I believe, the drought doesn’t just impact the landscape. As Hildegard de Bingen says, it also impacts our souls. The touch of moisture, the sight and sound of flowing water soothes us. Greeness feeds our souls.
People here do seem affected by the level of moisture. There’s a sort of ease that exists among folks when there’s rain or snow. People are friendlier, less anxious, less easily angered. The converse is also true. When we’ve experienced extended droughts, tension grows throughout the city. You can feel everywhere in the city. “It will rain,” people say to one another – a prayer, I’m thinking, more than a premonition.
As I sit writing this, however, I look out on a large meadow that is being watered from the local acequia. I see trees already wreathed in that exquisitely pale spring green that signals hope and new possibilities.....
And at nearby Indian pueblos, I’m sure they’re dancing, asking the gods to deliver rain…The local Natives have endured far more seasons, dry and wet, than any of us. So maybe what people are fervently hoping...will happen -- maybe it will rain.