Today a little girl carefully dressed stands beside her father, trying to understand her part in a larger group, not yet able to get the foot steps.
Leaning against ancient adobe walls at New Mexico's Acoma Pueblo, I see community reinforced in dress, dance, family, tribe, place, music, chants, drums and vessels. I note the traditions displayed in costume, with silver conchas, turquoise, shell jewelry, coyote skins, bells, feathers, moccasins and rattles.
The annual fest day of San Estevan at Acoma Pueblo has been going on hundreds of years. I go with new friends and think about new and old and our cultural traditions: of what we climb, what we value, what we choose to teach our children, as a community. Shadows of culture from thousands of years ago pulsate.
Running water and electricity are non existent on the Acoma plateau.
Somehow, watching the Republican Convention staged as I post this seems so culturally distant from the dances I observed today. One reflects how our power is arbitrated and selected today; the other celebrates how community comes together for the traditional cycles of season, of life, of spirituality, of family.
I've not talked about the Palin pregnancies with my girls, but the conversations we've had with these elections... have we covered everything now? What an interesting political season. My favorite quote of the day: "We are going to flush the toilet," new McCain-Palin aide Tucker Eskew. Well, not at Acoma, at least not up on the plateau. Nothing gets flushed, there.
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