Ten Generationsof Ravens en la troca

Ten Generations en la Troca from Listening to Raven series by Beth Surdut

La troca (the truck) is as iconic in New Mexico and the Southwest as Trickster Raven-- the older rounded forms made by man mimic the languid curves and patinas of this high desert that color my soul.

In Alaska, Mark has been caring for ravens and eagles for the past 18 years. Although there are certainly professional nature photographers with admirable patience, skill, and talent, this man’s love is uniquely communicated through his actions and photographic documentation of his avian friends. His photographs and the stories he tells me gave flight to this drawing as well as  The Ravens of Truth and Memory which nods to the Norse God Odin’s ravens.

Mark writes: I must say I think your drawing of Raven is the best that I have seen yet...

 Raven flew over the office of the apartment complex where I worked. I put some meat out for him and soon he came down and got it. Next, he brought his partner and although she was much more tentative they both started stopping by each day. I started to develop a call that sounded like when the male Kushka called the female Feathers. After time, when I called, they would come down off the mountain. That summer, I noticed that they brought their fledge down to my truck and from that time on I became their babysitter.

  After 10 generations of fledges, I believe the original couple moved on and now all their children come back in the winter to live nearby cause they know I will have food for them if times get bad.

Speaking of la troca: I carried Martha Egan's collection La Ranfla (The Ride) to the mechanic's while he fixed my brakes-- I read the entire collection, nodding and grinning, wondering if I should go looking for a literate cowboy and a good cash crop, when Guapo brought me to tears right there in a chilly waiting room.

When your friends back East ask what New Mexico is about, send them this book. Then get them out here, drive them around in a troca, show them the land and sky and a good taqueria, reading them Jim Sagal's Unexpected Turn if you can find a copy. 

The raven drawing  Ten Generation en La Troca  appears in the September 2015 literary arts journal RiverSedge published by Texas Pan-American University Press. 
(Much of this post was originally published in 2013)

Drinking the Milky Way

The Milky Way pours into my mouth, sparkles in my veins.

 Silk prayer tallit "Where shall wisdom be found and where is the place of understanding" Beth Surdut

Reading about Tyler Nordgren and glorious night skies in Nautilus magazine's blog, I thought of this shawl I painted of skies over Bandelier National  Monument, and a full moon walk I was privileged to take there.

Walking with the ancients by moonlight, I joined the footfalls treading this dirt for 10,000 years. While waiting for darkness, I consulted with a resident raven who listened to my questions as the moon rose over these ancestral pueblo dwelling places. 

Raven Tell drawing by Beth Surdut  www.listeningtoraven.com

 It was a poetic night of the senses.

Of rushing water in a dry land

Of drumbeats linking the centuries

Of heartbeats calling to the dead

Of surprises. 

I will not tell you more.

Go.

Say cheese

Between Taos and Embudo, NM by Beth Surdut

My heart opens with joy every time I drive the mountainous road between Taos and Embudo. The rift gorge is still aflame with golden cottonwoods leaning over the Rio Grande, and I wonder how to paint the emotions of this day. 

Glory fades as the road eventually widens and flattens into the traffic lanes and ratty median strips of Espanola where a dead dog lies bloated in the sun. Some kind of cattle dog, the spotted fur still visible—Australian or maybe Blue Heeler. The truck in the lane next to me passes, the silver trailer hitch glinting and wobbling so much that I consider honking to tell the two guys in the truck cab that something is wrong, but this being Espanola, I better be damn sure, so I speed up for a closer  look.

It’s an aluminum scrotum sack...about the size of a bull’s, complete with bulging balls and little indentation marks like rippled skin, just swinging low to the rhythm of the road.

My potential Good Samaritan act foiled, I returned to wondering how best to describe the sound of  wind moving through the cottonwood  leaves like dry  rain, or how to paint the flash of pinon jays lofting in blue notes of  surprise.

Mining for Bats

Visual  Storyteller Beth  Surdut 2011

Two miles up straight up a rock-pile masquerading as a road in the Ortiz Mountains of New Mexico, Thompson’s Big-eared bats swirled out of the old Santo Niño mine shaft at sunset. Wings beating like tiny bellows in the deep lavender air next to my cheek, they looked like spirits, their forms dark flutters in the cradle of a full moon. 

This is the kind of thing I live for—I’ve stood in a sacred and odorous bat cave in Indonesia that looked like a view into a many-storied tenement building; held a grinning fruit bat and stroked its suede-soft wings after leaving a sacred monkey forest in Bali, and was now standing in the cool of a starry evening in a mountain preserve given over to the Santa Fe Botanical Garden by a mining company.

About a mile up the road, which looked like one of those middle-of-nowhere ads with the disclaimer that reads “Professional driver--Do not attempt at home,” I had to ask my two volunteer passengers in the back to get out and walk. I realized that this was the first time I ever had second thoughts after signing one of those “if you die, it's not our fault" waivers. 

I’m not an adrenaline junky, but there is much that I will do to get to the great view, the sacred place, the isolated island, the animal adventure. So, singing  Bob Marley songs with  a guide,  I’ve ridden a jumpy polo pony into the hills of Jamaica, kayaked alligator infested waters in Florida, flown strapped onto a bench in a skinless home-built plane to see sea turtles in the Hawaiian ocean—you get the idea.  But this time, I turned to my companion in the passenger seat and said, “This is just plain stupid and there’s more to come--we’re going to have to maneuver this in the dark. Should have brought sleeping bags.”

We gathered under the light of a mica moon and walked up a small incline with wildlife biologist Mike Roedel, who said wryly, when I asked the name of a flower, “I don’t know, it doesn’t have wings,” but was otherwise informative about his field, so much so that he encouraged questions while we waited for the bats to swirl up from the mine. We learned that the majority of the bats we would see were males and that the maternity colony, as many as 140, were literally hanging out with their pups in the much more accessible Mining Museum in Cerrillos.

They began to arrive in ones and twos, about  4 inches long with rabbit-like ears, dancing a pas de deux, sometimes announcing squeakily that they were coming up the shaft, which was lined with a large echoing metal cylinder covered by an iron cupola to keep us from jumping in, I guess. We counted the bats; numbers ranged from 25 to 42. Wings swooshed by my head as I peered and listened for the next arrivals

There is so much to know--the set of the constellations, the rounded curves of the mountains, the moods of the desert, the creatures that have been here longer than we can remember. We came down off the mountain, every one of us enhanced by the wing beat of bat under a night sky.

The Compass of My Heart by Beth  Surdut

  This trip is no longer offered. However there is guided hike information on Santa Fe Botanical Garden properties that include mountains and wetlands at  http://www.santafebotanicalgarden.org
More about my wild life @ ABOUT BETH SURDUT

Is that an egg in your pocket,or are you just happy to see me?

There's a new raven lurking in the lavender. How do I know? He's bigger and more cautious than my regulars,who swoop in to check a few times a day to see if I've put out uncooked chicken eggs.
The newbie, watching to see if the egg is really available, is stalking amidst the sweet-scented purple flowers, flying up to land on the creviced rock fountain, then back to the bushes.
Now he's on the rock, head swinging back and forth to see if he's alone. Ah ha! He's picked up the prize in his beak and taken off, his feathers gleaming blue and silver.

If you're in Santa Fe, you can see my Ravens of Truth and Memory in the Wildlife Invitational show at the Randall Davey Audubon Center until June 30th. My solo Listening To Raven exhibition opens there July 9.

Fine Feathered Raven Tales

Thanks to the Santa Fe New Mexican reporter Ana Trujillo and photographer Jane Phillips!

Fine-feathered tales Sunday, January 24
"Local artist Beth Surdut is drawn to the region's landscape and ever-present ravens. Her visual storytelling project, Listening to Ravens, includes drawing accompanied by a myth or story of the bird. She's looking for new stories from Santa Feans for a new project..." More story and photos on the newspaper's website.

The raven stories in response to this article are already coming in!

The Ravens of Truth and Memory

The Norse God Odin sent two Ravens out each day--one named Thought (Hugin), the other Memory (Munin).

Here, I've changed Thought to Truth.
Memory allows Truth to gently pick through her feathers until both birds shine.
While I was creating Truth and Memory (paper size 15" X 22") with pen and colored pencil, heart and mind, two tiny Zuni fetish ravens carved by a married couple into black marble and bound together with turquoise and coral perched on the paper's edge. I found them through the grace of the White Raven who owns Keshi in Santa Fe.
My thanks to kind-hearted Cordova Raven, who cares for ravens and eagles in Alaska.
For the beginning of the Raven story that brought this mermaid to the desert, start with Drawing Raven.

Death and Cookies

Death stands next to me in the kitchen watching me make cookies....

Find out why at author Judi Hendricks' Kitchen Table, where I'm this month's guest.
While you're there, please leave comments, then amble through http://www.judihendricks.com/
Set aside time for Judi's compelling book, The Laws of Harmony, just published by Harper Collins.

This image--Tied Up, Tied Down © Beth Surdut 2008
is not part of the print cycle.
Pay attention ot me, says Raven.
I will. Tomorrow. Right now I'm distracted.
Tied up. Tied down.
Looking at me, he swoops in to untie a knot.