THE BEGINNING - THE GARDEN
For many of us there are special beginnings
Beginnings that change our life.
I was three and a half years old when I moved to New Mexico. My parents rented a small adobe house in the Rio Grande valley. That summer mother and Harcova created a garden. Harcova was the hired hand of the woman that owned our house. His native tongue was Spanish. He couldn’t speak English and was almost deaf. But somehow mom and he communicated. It was a peculiar sight – waving arms, loud voices in different languages, points and gestures. What bonded them together was their love of growing food, every aspect; procuring seeds, preparing the soil, designing the garden layout, planting at just the right time of year and day, and the daily tending. The excitement and anticipation grew as each plant matured. Every day I walked the garden with mother and Harcova to learn how to determine if it was time to pick something. Many vegetables were plucked from their vine or pulled from the earth and immediately popped into our mouths and savored; a moment we had been looked forward to with great anticipation.
Harcova was of Spanish and indigenous blood. His family had lived in northern New Mexico for generations. The Southwest dry dessert, the land, the soil, the people were part of him. I learned by watching him. Each of his steps touched the earth as if he was on a sacred pilgrimage. His caress of a plant was with purpose and loving respect. He ate his lunch on our screened in back porch was out of the sun. Sitting on a bench he opened his lunch box and would hold out his hand offering a tortilla or piñon nuts. I sat on the floor leaning against the adobe wall of our house. I don’t think he really said anything to me, but I remember what he conveyed as if words had been spoken. A transmission is what some holy people call this kind of communication. It lives inside of you. I saw emerging from his brown sun wrinkled face, the faces of his ancestors who wore earth-caked sandals, and like the piñon trees, were rooted in this land. Harcova wore those faces. He really wasn’t supposed to be spending as much time as he did with mom and I. Harcova had been hired by Dorothy who was the wealthy mistress of this compound. I don’t think she liked that he spent most of his time in our garden. She didn’t do much about it unless she really needed him. When she found him she cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted instructions in Spanish into his ear. He acted subservient, as if he was not very smart, hanging his head his eyes looked blank, unaware, which seemed to fit Dorothy’s beliefs about him. Usually she got mad when faced with his pitiful display of a poor dumb used up man. She would walk away grumbling under her breath making sure I could understand what she was saying and also making sure I knew she was displeased. For the most part she left him alone which was what he wanted. Being in the garden with mom and I suited him. He continued to get paid a meager hourly wage since Dorothy didn’t have the heart to fire him. He needed the money to support his family. Dorothy realized Mom and I liked him, depended on him as a friend and teacher and Dorothy appreciated the new garden.
A house with a worked piece of land for planting a garden was a good thing. In this part of the country a garden was part of your home. Almost every household planted vegetables with enough extra to preserve for the winter. If space permitted they grew fruit trees. Those that did not garden were talked about. People just couldn’t imagine why they did not have a garden unless they were lazy, ill or a drunk. It was good to dig in the earth. I would cover the seeds and gently pat the dirt. This created a home for the seeds to grow roots. We tended the green shoots as they pushed through the earth, loosening the soil around them and pulling out the weeds. Our food was living and growing, attached to the earth.
Grocery stores and roadside vegetable and fruit stands had been where we purchased food before moving to the southwest. When we went to the grocery store in Espanola I would find the person who was tending the vegetable section. Where did all that food come from? Where did it grow? I learned about trucks and other parts of New Mexico as well as California, Mexico and Florida. Those places seemed to have a lot of food since that’s where most of it came from. I asked if any of it came from Missouri where my grandparents lived, but the man who stacked the vegetables into pretty pyramids didn’t know.
The irrigation ditch, acequia, was the source of water for our garden, a revered holy fluid strip running its length. I watched the earth drink and grow dark in color as the trails of water weaved around the plants. Harcova taught mother and I how to open the water lock from a larger irrigation ditch and let it flow into our ditch. We created temporary little dams that when removed with a scoop of a spade let water flow between the rows of plants. I loved watching the earth color become dark brown and the plants spread their leaves as they drank the water. Giving water to the plants, helping life, theirs and ours was happy making work. On the farthest edge of the garden was a strip of wild vegetation, with a few of the garden variety mixed in. On the other side of this wild strip was the fenced in chicken coop and a little baked piece of earth. This was home to a dozen or more red hens, three young roosters and one regal rooster. The hens continuously scratched the dry baked ground looking for something that didn’t seem to exist. Along side of the coop was a wide path that served as a driveway to another little adobe house. My new friend Karen lived there with her mom and dad. She was older than I, beautiful, tall and wore pretty dresses with ribbons in her hair that matched the color of her dresses. She wore shoes that looked like ballet slippers with tough soles. Grownups seemed to like to listen to her as if she was part of the grownup world. I wanted to be like her. I insisted on wearing only dresses. My knees bore scratches and scrapes as a result. Soon Karen would be moving away to go to school. Her parents didn’t approve of the BLM school in the nearby pueblo. When I asked mother and dad what was wrong with the BLM school they looked away and wouldn’t answer. I wondered if they would let me to go to this school where all the other children I knew went or would as soon as they were old enough. They were my friends and their families always greeted me with smiles and a touch on my head or shoulder. Dorothy owned ten acres and four houses surrounded by a latilla fence. We lived in one of her houses built with adobe bricks made on the site. Beyond the fence stretched open range belonging to the people of the nearby pueblo where cactus mingled with sage. At this time of year, the only respite from the hot sun was under the cottonwoods growing by the river.
Dorothy had moved to northern New Mexico in the 1920‘s after visiting and falling in love with a cowboy. The romance ended but she stayed leaving behind the blue-blood life of a well educated New England family heiress. She gave up being a concert violinist but she still played. Sometimes she would let me sit with her while she made her violin sing. I’d never heard anything that beautiful. She continued to paint and occasionally her paintings were in art galleries. When she painted she would go outside of the fence, carrying her easel, a fold-up chair, paints and brushes. After sunset when she walked back to her house I would greet her excited to see the next part of the story. Her painting changed from day to day as her brush strokes created a picture filled with life. The river she painted didn’t look like the same calm river I saw, and the blooming prickly pear appeared much softer than the ones I stubbed my toes on. Dorothy brought to life what she felt about this part of this country, her home of the heart. By looking at her paintings I could tell how much she loved everything about this land.
It was a hot summer day. Heat waves shimmered, blending sun, air, blue sky and baked earth into one. There was no movement as far as sky and earth stretched. Harcova had not come to work today. I had lingered in the cool house until midmorning. I closed the screen door softly and walked out into the quiet world. The only sounds I heard were the air I breathed in and out and my hair brushing against my ears as I turned my head. The summer sun and hearty appetites had left the lettuce rows depleted with the exception of a few determined weeds. Harcova had predicted that the second planting of lettuce wouldn’t produce. He had recommended a shady untilled spot by the house. Mom had wanted to labor less and plant where the soil had been prepared with rake and hoe. Her plan was to hook up the hose and water more often than the twice daily irrigation. She showed Harcova how she would put her thumb on the end of the hose and spray water the length of the lettuce row. He firmly discouraged her. The time to water was early morning and when the sun was setting, letting the water flow from the irrigation ditch between the rows and saturate the earth. Watering with a hose was bad luck. It was disrespectful of water and the ancient system of acequias brought to this land by Harcova’s Spanish ancestors and adopted by his native american ancestors. The irrigation ditches, acequias, were a symbol of mutual cooperation between the colonizer and the colonized. The small stream of water that flowed into our garden was part of generations of customs and politics. The enforced control of water changed the nature of the land and relationships between people. There was power in this system. Many fought over the use of acequias and who had the political authority to govern their use. But custom and ancient reference for water in this arid land influenced the maintenance and support of the intricate system of large and small ditches. They carried water to the people. Water was a source of so much more than sustenance for thirsty plants. Water was life, precious and not to be wasted by spraying it into the air from a hose.
Mother was on her knees leaning over, tugging at a stubborn green stem that hung tightly to the earth. Memories of childhood hunger were held in the movement of her jaws – she chewed and swallowed the invisible. She was frustrated and determined to remove every weed hoping lettuce would choose to grow. Hers, the only movement in a stilled world, captured my attention. She wore shorts and a halter top when Harcova was not tending the garden with her. He considered such attire immodest. The only time she had worn them in his presence he would not look her in the eye, turning his head and pretending to look at the horizon for signs of rain. Her thighs unaccustomed to sun were white against the brown earth. The tops of her bare feet brushed lightly against the freshly raked soil. She teetered on her knees in search of another weed. Two bone white strips recently covered by halter straps were framed by sunburned skin. I watched her as one watches the unexpected movement of a wild animal whose only purpose is to feed itself, to stay alive for one more day. The primal memories locked in her body summoned me. My shadow moved across the garden until it stopped in front of her. She looked up, becoming aware of my presence, not bothering to return from her communion with the world of earth, soil, water, plants, sun; the elemental dance. A world that exists without humans but which humans cannot exist without. Her garden was this world and she surrendered her roles of wife, mother, lover. She abandoned her ability to have an identity separate from animals, plants, the elements. Her eyes met mine. Behind them she continued to commune with the living world that exists along side of people. She was in the terrain where life has no need to define moral codes, or philosophical concepts. Responses were formed by the senses, following a passionate need to live. Creativity served the will to survive, to continue. I was not her daughter but another being that had entered into that reality, the one she was part of when alone in her garden. Today she did leave the world she found in her garden when she saw me. The young girl in a hand-me-down dress with eyes peering through untrimmed bangs became a distant memory to both of us. Kneeling beside her I felt my noise twitching, my sense of smell heightened. Scent filled my body with its intelligence transmitting information accessed with the senses. Dormant stored memories were aroused revealing ancient soul furrows filled with ancestral knowledge. There was no separation from our ancestors who first witnessed seeds drop to the ground, take root and emerge from the earth as young offspring. I was experiencing an ancient lineage. Mother was of this lineage, not a hunter, but of the ones who began to collect the seeds, plant them, talk to their spirits. These spirits talked to the people and told them how to plant the seeds, take care of their offspring and honor the gift of the original green elders. They gave their life so the people could live. Archaeologists who dig up the earth looking for clues say the planting of seeds was 10,000 years ago some say as long as 23,000. For Mother it was not that long ago. The past, present and future had no boundaries. They existed together in the now.
With one hand she scooped up some dirt. Her tongue parted her lips and dipped into the earth in her hand. She tasted, swallowed and funneled more into her mouth. She reached toward me took my hand and touched it to the earth. My knees and toes pressed into earth warmth. I steadied myself and filled my cupped hand with earth, feeling the texture, smelling it, tasting it as it dissolved in my mouth, swallowing its goodness. I savored this mouth full. The earth that I felt move through my body held the beginning, the creation of matter and this planet. On my hands and knees wild like the untamed ones that move across the earth on four legs, I arched my back, raised my head, feeling the earth travel through me. My body trembled, vibrated. I was panting. My rib cage expanded, breathing in and out with long deep bursts. I felt the unfathomable boundlessness of the universe, the interrelatedness of all existence. My body was everything and expanded into everywhere – I was earth, my body was earth. Ecstatic, my laughter erupted, spilling into the air, the sound becoming part of the sky, the clouds. I breathed in the magic of rainbow colors that are in everything. My eyes feasted on the movement of air filled with life, floating, traveling and now visible to me.
Abruptly timelessness ended, my mother, the wife, the lover returned. With controlled ferociousness she reached for another weed. The transmission ended, the bond with my teacher was severed. Startled I quieted my breath. It was difficult to breathe I stood up and walked from the garden quickly, not looking back.
I wanted to go back, be in that world all the time.
I wanted someone to tell me what had happened. I had been changed, ensouled by the livingness of the universe and then the cord of awareness had been severed. I felt as if a very sharp sword had cut me in half. There were two of me now. The one that swam in the universe and the one who was child, daughter. They both waited and watched, gathering and taking in information. Now I could perceive, sense the nature and composition of an emotion. I sensed the responses, actions, behaviors being considered by others of my kind as well as non-human species. With people I could not always tell when the response had been outwardly expressed, what was said, felt and what was not said. I was surprised that many people were not aware of the unspoken communication or feeling. On many occasions I would respond as if thoughts and emotions had been voiced out loud. This was very troublesome to my family. I was corrected and punished. They seemed to believe I knew the difference between a spoken and silent communication. My mother had the same split but she carefully monitored it. Sometimes she would look at me, into me, from the place of the starving being that had been hungry as a child. I sensed her active, primal response that would kill for food, kill to stay alive. This was the same part of her that could be in relationship with the plants, the garden, the soil, the water. She did her best to hide this from others, but now she knew, we both knew that I could sense the primitive ingrained human nature that would do whatever it took to survive. I learned to look back and hold her gaze so I wouldn’t die or so I believed.
As time passed I grew less talkative in general and particularly around my family. I was hiding. From what? Why? My fear grew and I remained silent. I watched my mother and learned to monitor what I said. This helped me feel more accepted, but my loneliness was deep and constant. I went a little insane. In my thirties I met a man who told me about different realities, alternate universes, the world of spirit and the invisible cord that is always connecting past, present, future, seen and unseen. It was the first time I talked about my experience in the garden.
