Neither the desert nor the earth need saving. They will be fine. It is the human species that will eradicate itself. That is the trajectory. It is up to us to change this and there are solutions. Just one quick very simplified example: the rhizoshpere. The rhizopshere is the thin layer of the earth’s surface that is designated to plant root space. If we were to increase that layer by 10% we could sequester carbon out of the atmosphere, enough to return it to pre-industrialized standards. That is huge. It’s so enraging that the reasons these kinds of solutions are not being implemented on a large scale are due to corporate greed, power, short term gratification, convenience, laziness, self indulgence, denial. My anger isn’t exasperated enough and the concepts and the conflicts haven’t resonated deep enough in me for it to become compassion yet, but I have glimpses. And I want it to become that.

A desert phrase that I keep hearing float around is the claiming/exclaiming of the desert as a “blank canvas”. It’s not a blank canvas! Nothing is a blank canvas! That phrase is a colonizer’s phrase and it makes me look down when I hear it. I’ve been asking about indigenous culture here. There isn’t much of a presence in Joshua Tree. My inquiries have led me to the Morongo Reservation in nearby Riverside County. I went to visit their museum a few days ago (the Malki Museum). At the entrance I was met by a guard who asked what I would be doing on the reservation. He then gave me this pass that read:

“This pass only permits you to go to the address listed. If you are located on the reservation at a location other than that used on this permit you will be trespassing and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of California state and federal law. Firearms are not permitted on the reservation, even if you have a state license or permit to have the firearm. Possession of any firearms is strictly prohibited.”

He was nice enough, but the exchange and the tire spikes I slowly drove across made me feel tense. When visiting reservations in the past, I’ve never experienced a guard, simply signs on the roadway clearly stating that you are entering a specific territory. There are many ways I could unpack my feelings - I wrestle with my own white guilt and privilege. This isn’t due to any direct encounter in my own life or any familial heritage I know of. But working with and learning about cosmologies from the Inca, the Maya and to a much smaller extent the Apache over the last 12 years has shown me the reality of the colonial discourse that is in no way in a post era. A source of my guilt comes from the fact that I have at times chosen to ignore this reality in order to continue on, pursuing other goals in my life easily accessible to me as a white middle class female. I have reached a point where I can’t do that anymore and am beginning to see the interconnections throughout the different kinds of work that I’ve done and how the simple goal to live better can be enacted as one, incorporating them all. But that means no more denial, and the recognition of blind spots when they are revealed.

I haven’t read too much of Bruno Latour’s work, but am familiar with his ideas to the degree that he is a strong, very present voice in the philosophical debate around the climate crisis via ontology. I recently read this critique on ontology as “just another word for colonialism” written by a self proclaimed indigenous feminist academic after attending a talk by Latour in Edinburgh. I’ve looked for the talk and found 6; listed as Gifford Lectures via the University of Edinburgh, and I’m not sure which one she is specifically referencing (perhaps the one focusing on David Hume?). Her argument immediately made sense:

“I waited, through the whole talk, to hear the Great Latour credit Indigenous thinkers for their millennia of engagement with sentient environments, with cosmologies that enmesh people into complex relationships between themselves and all relations, and with climates and atmospheres as important points of organization and action. It never came. He did not mention Inuit, or Anishinaabe, or Nehiyawak, or any Indigenous thinkers at all. In fact, he spent a great deal of time interlocuting with a Scottish thinker, long dead, and with Gaia.”

So, in the spirit of the desert not being a blank slate to be claimed by American rugged individualism (though those stories and histories have their fascinating elements) - here are some brief notes I’ve gathered about how the Cahuilla Indians lived on and related to this land for thousands of years, bound to the north by the San Bernardino Mountains, to the south by Borrego Springs, and the Choloclate Mountains, to the east by the Colorado Desert, and to the west by the San Jacinto Plain and the eastern slopes of the Palomar Mountains.

From the book, Mukat’s People: The Cahuilla Indians of Southern California by Lowell John Bean:

NATURAL ELEMENTS AND EXISTENTIAL SPECULATIONS RELEVANT TO ADAPTATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT:

Wind patterns were very significant to Cahuilla existence. Seasonal variations caused dramatic fluctuations in the abundance of flora and fauna. Prevailing winds come from the west as cool ocean breezes, the hot Santa Ana winds came in summer from the southeast, and winds off of the desert floor during the day rose up mountain sides and were rapidly cooled by night and moved quickly down the mountainsides.

Snowfall provided a delayed run-off so that streams, springs and rivers could flow from high mountain melting during drier parts of the year.

Flooding was always a danger but would also enrich and expand the soil base of the alluvial fans where a diversity of edible and medicinal plants thrived.

Permanent springs were common but their distribution on the surface was irregular because of snowfall and flooding. Natural artisan wells occurred where impenetrable soil sealed certain areas, preventing subsoil infiltration. Little is known of the precise location of these bodies of water because modern water control measures have radically changed the prehistoric situation.

Desert lakes could extend up to 60 miles in length and were formed because of melting snows, torrential rains, and overflows from the Colorado River. Where water was 10-30ft below the surface, deep walk in wells were dug and small lakelets were created by banking sand around the well. The water table would rise and fall after an earthquake which caused physical disturbance in the environment, but also disturbance to the psyche:

“…one time - I was very small, I could not remember yet - there came such earthquakes as had not been known to any of the people. Whole mountains split - some rose up where there had been none before. Other peaks went down, and never came up again. It was a terrible time. The mountains that people knew well were strange places that they had never seen before.

Then it was that Tahquitz Creek went dry, and only ran water in the winter time, and other streams that ran good water all year around have only been winter streams since. And so the Indians could not raise crops on that mesquite land any more. The climate seemed to change. The Andreas Canyon Creek that only ran in the winter became an all year stream, as it has been since. Before the earthquakes, the only water to be had there in summer months was from a small spring which ran always in the creek beneath the caves. There were many springs on the mountain sides and on the level land. When the rains came less, they dried out and went away. No one knows where they used to be anymore.” - Francisco Patencio, Cahuilla

The Cahuilla universe is systemic - all phenomena are potentially unstable and unpredictable. All matter was subject to unpredictable change. Since ?iva?a is quixotic, it might leave unexpectedly, causing any number of disasters. ?iva?a is a power or energy source, the basic generative force from which all things were created. It was very intense in the beginning, but has constantly and elusively diminished through time.

-The universe is divided between phenomena containing will (?iva?a) and the potential for action, and phenomena which did not have the potential to act.

-Some groups had greater amounts of power than others. ?iva?a was greater to the west and diminished as it moved east, thus the cultural dominance of the Pacific Coast cultures of the Gabrielino and Chumash, who had greater access to ?iva?a.