safe haven

as i headed from california into arizona i passed mile upon empty mile of empty desert. i knew that people used to live in the area, people being indigenous people. i knew that the emptiness, the burned out barren landscape didnt have to be so.

in my head i started plotting, i had mirage images floating in my head of tents and adobe structures, of wells and green fields full of crops. of a small community of like minded people, working together to work the land and a living. see, not only is all this emptiness there, it is also all for sale. for the most part. what i saw were 160 acre lots priced to sell. i didnt actually see prices, but thats what the signs said.

while not very original, i started seeing handmade highway signs pointing in my direction. they were painted the familiar green of highway signs stating the distance to destinations, instead of plain white lettering the words "safe haven" were written as if by children with paintbrushes and paint of many different colors.

i imagined this being a sort of underground railroad for migrants coming from mexico, a safe place to hide out from the border patrol. a sort of halfway point, for being on this side of the line.

along a stretch of whatever highway i was on, a railroad paralleled it for many miles, i imagined having signs along the rail way, and the conductors slowing just enough between the signs for any travelers to disembark and make there way to the desert haven that stretched out in front of them. people streamed into this community from all sides.

i imagine this in pre-apocalyptic times, i imagine something like this now. as i moved on eventually i came to the ruins of casa grande. here was a community of a couple hundred people that had built homes and gathering centers in the middle of the desert, a community that had existed for thousands of years. around 1300 c.e. they built the ruins that we see today, by 1450 c.e. they had abandoned the site.

and today, while i was leaving the grand canyon, another ruins had been unearthed and put on display. this was a much smaller community of about 30 people, there were two gathering huts and 6 unearthed dwellings. they had also found a field where the community had grown crops like corn and beans and squash. and another open area where the community engaged in recreational activities.

and as i read more about surviving in this desert climate, with conditions as they are today, it is bleak. the water table, once a mere 12 feet below the surface is now over 100 feet below the surface. the rivers that once streamed through these lands have been dammed further upstream, and the water is diverted for irrigation and running into city taps. the animal populations have slowly moved away or died off due to the changes in the environment.

little exists in these wastelands because little can exist. they are wastelands by design. they are wastelands due to the interference of human beings, and these 10's of 1000's of acres exist as a testament to the future we are driving toward.

at some point, somewhere, i would like to have a piece of land where a community can exist. i have lived in community for a number of years and i believe that it is possible to live completely off the land in community, now. with that, i am making my way to this years rainbow gathering, i have never attended one mostly because i dont think i am dippy enough for the hippy dippy crowd. but i could be happily mistaken.

this journey i am on is about taking the chances and oppurtunities that are afforded to me. this is one of them.