Santa Fe is behind us and we’re making tracks toward Taos, but Santa Fe needs more than a mention. They gave us a wonderful rally at the Farmers market Saturday. Many speakers brought attention to local affects of climate change and concerns for a sustainable energy program in New Mexico. I was particularly impressed with the words of Craig Barnes, a talk show host here in New Mexico. He has graciously allowed marchers to share these with readers of their blog sites.

The Land Does Not Lie
Craig Barnes
Santa Fe, NM
May 17, 2014

The grass on the hill where I live was mowed down by sheep 150 years ago and the soil is gone and the grass has no black richness in which to grow today. Not all my wishing can make good soil be there today. The land does not pretend to grow grass. It grows grass or does not. The land does not pretend to erode. It erodes. The land does not claim that next year will be abundant and everything will be fine. The land is neutral. The land does not pretend to be beautiful. It is what it is. The land does not lie.

In New York City, after the great Sandy Hook hurricane, city officials, are today trying to raise funds to build a wall to block out the sea, standing at the waters edge like King Canute II commanding the waves to stop. In Miami Beach, Florida, they don’t have to wait for more hurricanes, the water already rises at high tides and regularly floods the streets. The state’s governor and one of its US senators are like stone statues standing while the water rises above their ankles, heading ever upward, while these two statues proclaim that climate change is a hoax. But the sea does not pretend. The sea is neutral. The sea does not lie and it is rising to their knees.

In New Mexico, we have seen forest fires rage along a 60 mile ridgeline; we see once again our piñons stressed by drought loving beetles, and we have a governor and an environmental department that fosters the development of more coal, and more oil and gas, funded during this season’s political campaign by producers from Texas who do not stand in awe of our fires or in despair because of our dying trees. But, unlike our governor, our trees do not respond to oil money from Texas and they die just the same, and the dead ghosts of piñon trees are scattered from here to the Colorado border, and they do not lie.

These years we have a political culture in which the national politicians on both sides each claim that the other side is lying, and we have a national  media that fosters accusations of lying, and we have a public bewildered by elaborately dressed up and fancified claims that the future resides with the development of the tar sands, or fracking, or international trade agreements. Political ads and oil and gas commercials will do what they can to turn fiction into truth, and exploitation into patriotism.

But fear not. The truth is here in the land we walk, and the air we breathe, and in our bated breaths while we look to the sky for rain. While the richest among us may hide their eyes or seek solace in growth, capitalism, and materialism, the land, the sea, and the forests do not lie and cannot be persuaded by Fox News to lie, and the requirements for a living breathing planet cannot be faked, and the search for beauty cannot be replaced by growth funds, derivatives, or mountains of gold. Those who march today, and assemble today, will win in the end because the land and the sea and the forests spread their messages every day, reinforce their messages season after season, march on inexorably with truths that cannot be hidden. The waters will continue to rise against the sea walls of New York City, and will rise above the knees to the shoulders and necks of the politicians in Florida, and will eventually cover the very mouths of those  who deny that they are even getting wet. Then they will be silent.

Time is on the side of the air land, sea, and water; mother Gaia does not
lie, she is our partner and we are hers. Thank you, marchers, for coming to New Mexico; thank you for standing up for all of us; march on!

Matthew Sanchez , a drummer from the Santa Anna tribe entertained us at full moon campfire. his family also fed us … Generosity without bounds

18th century church in Cochiti Pueblo just below La Bajada pass

View atop La Bajada … Below is Santa Fe River and our previous campsite at David Harrington’s farm

Fellow marchers Ed Fallon and Shira Wohlberg ham it up on the road to Taos

Sunday at Saint Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe

Sunday at Saint Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe

Preparing for Santa Fe Rally

Ed Fallon and Kim Foley take a break along old pre 1937 Route 66

Santa Fe River 15 miles downstream from the city of Santa Fe