Multicultural ecology in Taos
Iappreciate my friend Ariana Kramer’s Sept. 12 Taos News My Turn essay expanding the controversy over identities in Taos from “blood” to “ecology and culture.” I’d like to advance the discussion further, sharing my experience of greater diversity in the cultures we share here. I intend not to demean the older, generational traditions, but add awareness of valuable community practices and values newcomers may bring. And yes, I will begin with people I consider cultural elders here, Estella and Aldo Leopold. Bill deBuys, an East Coast student and Anglo newcomer, said in his 1990 book, “River of Traps,” about life in Los Trampas, “There were people in the landscape whom I could not ignore. They had used the land and culturally altered it. Even more interesting was the question of how the land had altered them, how natural history had shaped the history of cultures.”
With my apologies if seeming to ride my Leopoldian hobby horse too much, Aldo came here with the new, dominant U.S. Forest Service in 1909 and had transformative experiences. In addition to the famous “fierce green fire” epiphany on killing a wolf, I count two others. One was enchantment with and successful courting of Maria Alvira Estella Bergere of Luna and Otero family generational heritage. The second was their move to Albuquerque after only seven months in Tres Piedras and his recovery from near-fatal kidney failure during harsh weather exposure on Carson Forest range patrol. In those 10 years, from 1914 to 1924, Leopold’s thinking evolved from the individualistic newcomer attitudes Ariana describes to recognizing our communal relationship necessity with the land, later defined as his “Land Ethic.”
Yes, evolved. And that is my theme in this essay. He defined ecological evolution as humankind changing from conquerors to plain members of the land community with the soil, water, plants and animals. Some observers wonder if he was influenced by Estella’s traditional New Mexico values. Understanding her choice to marry and have five children with an Anglo from Iowa is beyond this brief essay. She was born into Rico land grant owners who became significant leaders in early New Mexico government. Aldo brought his combination of classic education, love of outdoor life as a fisherman and hunter, keen scientific observation, and literary genius. I have learned that during the Albuquerque years, he studied the writings of Russian philosopher Piotr Ouspensky, who tried to reconcile Western science with Eastern mysticism. According to Aldo’s biographer, Curt Meine, Ouspensky professed that “all matter was alive with consciousness, and only ‘our limited power of communion’ makes it appear lifeless.”
Following the traditions of my own family, Annette and I have cultivated Victory Gardens wherever we lived. My father continued his garden at our old New Jersey home into my 1950s childhood. Annette and I greatly enjoyed recreating one in our northwest Bernalillo County home in the 1970s during my UNM medical and her public-school teaching work. Settling into our Arroyo Seco vacation house full time on retirement, this Victory Garden practice has become important to our identity here. Yet it was imported from elsewhere, not Indigenous.
George Washington Carver is credited with creating Victory Gardens in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia during World Wars I and II. Originally from Missouri, he became one of the most prominent agricultural scientists of the early 20th century and a leader in promoting environmentalism. I tell this story now as an example of the cultural diversity many people have brought to Taos, whatever we call ourselves. I like the identity of being a local. In a hardware store line a while ago, in conversation with an old Norteño guy about my origins and activities here, he asked “But where do you vote?” I see this as characteristic of being a citizen sharing responsibility for our community.
I conclude this essay with emphasis on Leopold’s concept that “the land ethic is a product of social evolution because nothing so important as an ethic is ever ‘written’… it evolves in the minds of a thinking community.” To honor his profound book, “A Sand County Almanac,” 75 years after publication, Leeanna Torres, Andrew Gulliford and I have written “A New Mexico Land Ethic Handbook” about our multicultural experiences living these principles now, here. There will be a launch reading at SOMOS on Oct. 25. Biographer Curt Meine will be speaking at the Harwood Museum on Oct. 26, sponsored by the Friends of Mi Casita, the Leopolds’ historic home in Tres Piedras.