Black ororboros 2017 | gouache on Giclée Photo print | 14" x 11"

April 11, 2017

There are places that call to us. At least, I assume that others experience this same kind of beckoning. My own insatiable wanderlust must be whetted periodically, and it's become almost ritual for me to climb into my car and make the long drive across Texas to the Big Bend area. For fun, for escape, for solace, for beauty, for a small reminder of my place in this universe as I stand among some of the oldest rocks on the Earth and look up into a night sky where layers upon layers of stars, planets, and other celestial bodies are still visible to the naked eye, free to enchant and stir awe and wonder.

I'm a native Texan. My direct ancestry goes back pretty far, before statehood. I live all the stereotype and bluster of mythical proportions that is applied to Texans by outsiders and both loved and hated by insiders. I can travel almost anywhere in this world and people will have heard of where I live, and rest assured they have an opinion about the place and likely of me as well. It's part of the deal.

I am of this place, and that is something that can not be taken from me, nor do I want it to be. We have our share of bullshit here. Look around with objectivity and you'll see that bullshit is not unique to this place (in fact, it's running wild through the streets of America these days). But we also have our points of pride. Big Bend is one of them. We are geographically diverse, with flatland prairies, swamps, forests, canyons, rolling hills, beaches, and desert. In all of that Big Bend is the most stunning spot in our state, and in true Texan bravado form, I will arm wrestle anyone who wants to challenge me on that. I don't promise I'll win, but I will put up a God damn good fight, which is also true to Texan form.

I take Big Bend seriously, as do a lot of my fellow Texans. Sometimes my trips there are limited to once per year. Sometimes they are more frequent. I know the area pretty well by now. Last Fall as I made my way through that familiar landscape I rounded a curve and was met with a gigantic scar across that land. Across our land. Our point of pride. I followed that scar for hours—because travel is measured in hours down there—my usual joyful lightness giving way to a knotted throat. At the point where the scar turned and crossed the road, making a straight line for Chinati Peak, I stopped and took a photo. It felt dirty, exploitative. I felt dirty, having driven for hours and hours and refilling my tank of gas over and again to get there. The peak is a scenic point along a scenic road. Beyond that it's considered a spiritual place by many. Beyond that, there are antiquities scattered in its shadow, remnants of those who came before us in that hard, beautiful land. The first Americans. The first Texans, if Texas is defined by its sense of place and people and not by dates on a time line. The lands leading up the peak are home to people who embody so many of the hero myths we celebrate about ourselves of a hard-working people carving out a life through blood, sweat, and tears (with love and laughter mixed in to boot).

I took that photo, and I finished my trip. Later I painted an ouroboros on top of the photo. The imagery is a nod of support to all those who stood up at and for Standing Rock and the prophecy of the black snake that would destroy the land as it slithered across it. But the ouroboros (not related at all to that prophecy) has been slithering more and more deeply into my personal symbolism lately. It recalls the alchemists, intent on finding the quintessential ingredients of the universe that would allow them to create their own gold, driven by greed and misinformation but inventing the scientific method along the way. It speaks of self-transformation through a process that is inconvenient at best and violent at worst. It's a confrontation with our internal abyss, consuming it, digesting it, and ultimately coming out changed for better or worse before the endless cycle begins all over. It's what we are doing to our land, to ourselves, to our home. We scar it and we make it potentially unlivable for greed and through our indifference, inaction, and ignorance.

Self-transformation, even when it's cultural and communal, allows us some measure of control though. The trick is recognizing which parts you can control and then doing those things. And there are some easy levers to grab hold of here by simply becoming informed, identifying who benefits and who doesn't, and then harnessing that Texan fortitude we cling to as a part of our state identity and using it. Embodying it.

I willing to tussle for it. Are you?

.  .  .

The original, unpainted, photo can be viewed on my Instagram account, here.

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