Still In The Garden

The monsoons seem to be affecting other parts of NM much more than they are us here in Albuquerque.  Other parts of the state have actually had flooding, whereas I am happy if my rain barrels fill up at least halfway.  Things have perked up, though, and I recently read the reason that our rains make the plants so much happier than water out of the hose, even when mixed with fertilizer.  The rains are nitrogen-rich, especially when they fall during a thunder storm, and nitrogen helps plants grow, develop and reproduce.  So, whether it's from the rains or the fish emulsion, or what, everything in the yard is looking healthy and happy.  Even, or maybe especially?, the weeds. Tomatoes and cucumbers are coming on strong, arugula has recovered from the snail attacks, and all the herbs are gigantic. I was sad when the vitex blooms were over, as I'd waited for them all spring, but my sadness quickly dissipated when early one morning I saw a flock of goldfinches chowing on the seeds of the spent blooms, just the way they do on the sunflower heads full of seeds.

We are so fortunate not to be suffering the heat wave that other parts of the country have.  I read the weather forecast for anyplace I have loved ones, and reading the Dallas weather is beginning to scare me.  I called a friend there this morning, just to be sure her AC was working, and she was okay.  My sister (also in Dallas)  got what she calls a tacky, redneck, aboveground pool in June, when temps in that city first went to, and stayed 100 degrees or more.  I think the whole family is staying in the pool around the clock, with heat indices of 110 and over currently.  Most of the country, except the West, is going through this heat horror, but I'm still waiting to hear Jim Inhofe and others like him get behind calling this global climate change.  They were plenty quick to scoff at what they still call "global warming" when the country was drowning in blizzards and freak winter storms - sure, easy to mock "warming" when it's pouring snow and you're wearing every warm garment you own.  But, why are they so quiet about this freaky deathly heat?  I suggest that everyone in the country needs to read Bill McKibben's latest TomDispatch post, and Tom's intro to it: A Wilted Senate on a Heating Planet.

Let Us OUT Of Here

A blogging friend posted a comment at my last post, to the effect that she had put her patio plants out on the patio, and they were looking great and happy out there. She is in Dallas, TX and I am in Albuquerque, NM. What a difference 640 miles make. As I type, it is snowing like mad here, has evidently been snowing for quite a while, and shows no signs of stopping. My outdoor plants, which are, as you can see, mostly succulents and cactii, have been screaming at me lately to LET THEM OUT of this house RIGHT NOW. They are in sunny south and west windows, the cats can't get to them, they are watered as needed, one of the crowns of thorns is blooming, the other is just about to, you'd think they would be happy as pigs in mud. They spend the summer on a rocky ledge in the back yard, among pots of perennials of a nontender sort, in morning summer sun, where they double in size every year; and their impatience to get back out there is palpable, emanating from them in waves.

Or is this what the therapists call projection? The snow is beautiful, but quite unexpected. I was planning to spend the morning weeding in the perennial beds. Like my jades, aloes, crowns of thorns, sedum, rosemary, and geraniums, I am desperate to GET OUT. It's supposed to be almost fifty degrees today, so this snow will be gone before dark.  But this strange stormy weather, say the necromancers, is supposed to go on through at least the rest of the month.

La Curandera, Part One

In my post yesterday about my afternoon at the Biopark, I mentioned the Curandera's Garden. This bas relief is the centerpiece of that garden, and one of my favorite elements in the Biopark landscape. It shows the Doña arriving at a household laid low by illness, being welcomed by the very worried Señora of the house, showing her where the patient waits. The Curandera is laden with bundles and bags containing the healing items, plants, and herbs of her trade.

So then, who is she, this woman laden also, as her face tells us, with the burden of her years, the sorrows and ills she has seen and cured, or not, during her life?  She is the the Hispanic American version of what in medieval Europe or Colonial New England would have been called a witch, has been and is still, in other societies, known as a shaman. She is a traditional healer, of both bodies and souls, called upon to treat both physical and spiritual maladies. She uses medicinal plants, herbs, and flowers, which she grows herself in rural areas, or anywhere she can have a plot of land.  In cities or towns she may purchase her materials at a botánica,  stores that sell medicinal herbs and items used in folk traditions like curanderismo, santería, macumba, still alive and well in contemporary North American areas with Latino and/or Caribbean populations. The curandera of early New Mexican tradition in the Biopark sculpture would have had an extensive garden containing such plants as the wild datura, maguey, prickly pear, various sages, apache plume, ocotillo, agaves, mints, uña de gato, buffalo gourd, mallows, indian tobacco, and many more. She would have grown, harvested, dried and prepared them herself or with her daughters.  Her patients would have suffered from bodily ailments, such as heart disease, gout, diabetes, menstrual pain, pregnancy complications, or from diseases of the spirit, such as depression, mal de ojo (the evil eye), susto (fright or most likely, panic attacks). or grief. For these spiritual maladies she might perform a limpia, a ritual cleansing of the soul to rid it of "lingering clouds" and "festering wounds" from the many slings and arrows of human life experience.

One of New Mexico's most popular native writers is Rudolfo Anaya, and his most popular book is his first, a novel called Bless Me, Ultima. It is the story of a young boy, Antonio, whose 1940's childhood and spiritual development is greatly influenced by a curandera known as Ultima who comes to live with his family in rural New Mexico. The link I've given here has an extensive summary of the book, but if you can find it outside of the Southwest, I advise that you simply read the book itself. Curanderísmo has never gone underground in Latin America, and in these days of expensive medical insurance/ care and waves of immigration from the south is thriving all over the USA. This article by Patricia Rivera from the Wilmington News Journal, Curanderas Offer Traditional Help, gives an interesting glimpse into how the ever-growing Latino population of Delaware is using Curandísmo instead of, or as a supplement to, modern Western medicine.

Although I have a wealth of further information and thoughts about this subject, instead of letting this turn into another of those lengthy posts that no one reads, I'm going to close out this first chapter, and return to Las Curanderas tomorrow. In the meantime, benditos sean. 

Post Script, March 1. 2010 - I really am going to continue writing about curanderísmo.  My research has gotten out of control, and I'm well on my way to a fullblown article,  maybe a Master's thesis. Gotta decide what I'm doing here.