Willow, Bombs, and Cliff Dwellings

Dried Willow leaves.

We are rounding out our last days in Santa Fe, however, they are still full of wonder and intrigue. Here are a few of our recent amusements and explorations.

1. Willow Plant Spiritual Communication Class. How quintessential is it to take a class on the properties and medicinal benefits of willow in Santa Fe? I am now, of course, considering how the willow could become part of a more-than-human participatory design workshop… But used as a medicine for humans, in short, willow is calming and anti-inflammatory, alleviating stress, fevers, and pain (this is where aspirin originates from). The flower essence is even known for helping people make peace with injustice, to not lose oneself in it, but to move from a sense of victimhood to a place of power. (Timely, yes?)

One of our tour guides with statues of lead scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and military leader General Leslie Groves on the site of the now not secret Los Alamos Lab where the atomic bomb was developed in 1943-45.

2. Los Alamos. We all know the stories of the Manhattan Project and likely have seen Oppenheimer, but being in this setting IRL (in real life) is something else. Let’s just say, in many ways, it’s the opposite of willow (not calming and perhaps hot-headed). I completely understand the intellectual curiosity that we have as humans–striving to know, understand, and make use of the scientific elements of our world–but both the brains and the hubris involved here are challenging to fully make sense of. Nonetheless, it was fascinating to have a walking tour of the place from this ex-electronics engineer at Los Alamos Laboratory and his wife, long-time residents of Los Alamos. The area’s prior life as a boys’ prep school was also intriguing, and the structures already built here were a big part of the reason that the lab was located here.

Steve climbing down from the large Alcove House in Bandelier National Monument.

3. Bandelier National Monument. Very close to the current day Atomic Energy Commission in Los Alamos, NM, with its mysterious “tech area” buildings, is this magical place where Ancestral Pueblo people lived from approximately 1150 CE to 1550 CE. Today, one can see petroglyphs and dwellings in the rustically beautiful, albeit steep and challenging, land of these resourceful people. In addition, for some reason, the National Park Service lets people like you and me climb into these incredible living spaces via wooden ladders, and IT IS FUN. We really needed this wholesome shift after being in the land of the bomb.