CULTURAL (R)EVOLUTION

Thoughts On Sipapu: Where Will We Emerge?

By Tonya Poole, 2-17-06

I sat at my desk and watched a dust storm form on the western horizon yesterday morning, collecting itself over the San Juans and tumbling down into the valley. At first we thought fire, or fog, but then the warm wind flickered on and we were pretty quickly surrounded by it and the coarse, blinding dust it brought with it. And so the day went, draped in dust and unable to make out anything beyond the herd of elk perched at the end of the road – in a view that might normally extend for fifty miles or more.

This morning, we woke up to four inches of snow.

And so it goes in the high desert alpine confluence of the San Luis Valley: a reliable even if shape-shifting dance between extremes.


Our place in the pattern
Hundreds of years ago the Ute and other southwestern tribes considered this region to be the area of “sipapu�, or “emergence� – the place through which it’s said that their people re-emerged, after a great cleansing of the earth, from its navel in the transition from one world to the next.

Legend or not, the metaphor is one that’s played out throughout time in a variety of cultures, biblical stories and – recently – even in political circles. Harvesting and re-seeding. Loss and learning. Tragedy and rebirth. And it happens to us as individuals on a smaller scale, daily. As a culture, it seems, every few decades. As a race, every several hundred years. And as a planet, every several million.

But where do we emerge now, and into what?

Politically, we seem to be listing back to port. A nation of centrists being slowly born in the wake of party upheaval and embarrassment on one side and an inability to gather political muscle on the other - and the growing intolerance of the resulting nonsense over both. How will that change the landscape of politics as people continue to migrate away from extremes and squeeze together in the middle?

Environmentally, green thinking, building and living is migrating from its status as a boutique industry into mainstream consumer culture. And in the process - becoming less of a tree-hugger luxury and more of a practical necessity as rising oil prices and waning energy sources drive even the McMansioneers to toss a few solar panels on the roof. How will that affect an economy built around waste and consumption, and the millions of people it employs and supports?

Culturally, if the 90s were the new 60s then we’re starting all over again with the post-war cultural revolution, only with bigger houses, faster cars and better technology. Vigilant peace-lovers have traded benign peace pendants around their necks for indignant “Defoliate the Bushes� bumper stickers on their cars, and the microphone at the top of the capitol stairs has since moved to a chat room on AOL.

No matter, there’s movement under the surface and it seems to be following the lowly but steadily bulging light of self-preservation as we all try and figure ourselves and our neighbors out and where we fit into our own futures – individually and collectively.

Tonight I realized that I, in two weeks here, have gotten to know more of, and more about, my neighbors than I ever knew of the ones I lived years next to. And I don’t know whether or not that’s attributable to people everywhere lowering their red and blue flags just a little in recent months, or because it’s such a small town and we’re being subversively investigated by suspicious people incognito behind home baked pies. But I’ll take it.

A few days ago our design studio received a project proposal from a large construction organization – one historically dependent on buy-in from traditional construction companies - asking that we transition a set of green building specs into an online format to promote its widespread use. And I don’t know whether that’s evidence of a corporate model shifting to meet demand ideology, or demand ideology shifting to meet the corporate model. But I’ll take it.

And I’ve watched in recent weeks as gritty, sub-culture movies like “Off the Map� and “Brokeback Mountain� – leaning far more on rich and a-typical character development and a delicious simplicity of life than on standard flash and action - have generated more buzz, interest and acclaim than most of the BSO (bright-shiny-object) films out of Hollywood have been able to achieve. And I don’t know if that’s because they’re rubbernecking novelties we feel compelled to get a glimpse at as we ride by, or because we’re slowly recognizing our own cravings for a little less of everything. But I’ll take it.

Movement under the surface, but are we moving fast enough? And if we are in fact close to our own sipapu – will we know when, and where, to emerge?

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