Photo Friday - PhotoTrice

Bold

Pueblo Bonito Before Sunset - Chaco Canyon — Pueblo Bonito Before Sunset – Chaco Canyon

We say we are bold and go where none have gone before. Our achievements stand on foundations built by our forbearers. How bold would we be if we built a civilization having magnificent structures without the benefit of the wheel or beasts of burden? We would be very bold indeed. The native peoples of the Americas did just that.

Whenever I visit the ruins in Chaco Canyon I am struck by the sophistication of a culture that could build such structures. They built not only in this place but many places across vast areas of desert and mountains. They knew and traded with the cultures of Central America and to the Pacific coast. Then they disappeared.

At night the star filled New Mexico sky and silence in the canyon can be unnerving for a city dweller.

Pueblo Bonito Detail - Chaco Canyon — Pueblo Bonito Detail – Chaco Canyon

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Dia de los Muertos celebrations in San Antonio are full of tradition. On this night near the Instituto Cultural de Mexico, a drum and dance procession from the arts group Urban 15 began performing. After a few minutes they made their way inside the building, snaking around the altars into a gallery room. The room quickly became a swirl of sound and motion. The performance in this small space was so intense that it became a visceral physical experience. It was quite extraordinary.

Rough

The patterns of everyday life have changed utterly in the last few years for those of us in the so-called developed world. We are managed now. Inconveniences are removed to smooth out rough dangerous potential in our lives. Our world is a safe clean bright colorful place. Information is available at our whim any time anywhere. Youth knowledge and power are transformed into wonderful technologies. We are so lucky.

A mid twentieth century person will have memories of a different world altogether. A browner place with more textures, filled with rusty tools passed through many hands. Substance and weight measured the worth of a thing then. You could rely on advice of older wiser people to guide your way of living. They passed skills to young hands with a certainty of past generations.

We should appreciate our new world.