Pseudo Scholarship and Welcome...

Since arriving in Deming, I have checked out several books on the bowl designs of the Mimbres people whose culture thrived in SW New Mexico from around 200 to 1100 A.D. There are murals featuring these designs on the walls of Pepper’s, a local supermarket, and under the I-10 overpass. Even trash cans around town have been painted with the images found in these bowls. Admired by artists and archaeologist, the interiors of the bowls depict, in black-and-white clay slips, the animal and plant life of the region, the everyday life of the people, and apparent mythological subjects. Named by the Spanish for the desert willow, the osier, the Mimbres were a wild-crafting and agriculturally-based society similar to the Pueblo, who may have descended from them. Those who write about the Mimbres often interpret the designs on the bowls based on the known stories and myths of the Pueblo and other latter-day post-prehistorical cultures. One such writer is Bara H. Fischer, whose _The Hole Book_ offers a thesis about the Mimbres' practice of punching a hole in a bowl when its owner dies and placing it over the head of the corpse. The consensus among scholars seems to be that this "kill hole" was there to help the soul leave the body and ascend to a higher domain. 

Fischer takes the concept a step further, linking it to the symbolism of other cultures, Taoist, Christian, Aztec, etc. They all seem to her to be One, stemming from one universal Source. She goes so far as to graphically extract from one Mimbres bowl design an element that looks like an F. This F she interprets as standing for "fuutur," which she says refers to "Seiende," the apparent name of the Mother Goddess of a worldwide paleolithic culture. Much as I strive to adhere to the principle of "judge not," I have to say this person is a...

crackpot!

So, Deming...

Not much to do in Deming but go to the public library or eat authentically Mexican food at the many such restaurants in town. As a result, I expect this blog-journal will feature a goodly number of book reports, but also maybe a few mouth-watering anecdotes about food, desert nature, archeological sites, local history, border ferment, etc. etc.

Deming, New Mexico, is a desert town of about 15,000 inhabitants, mostly Mexican-American, in the southwestern part of the state about 30 miles from the international border with Old Mexico. Affixed to Interstate 10 between Las Cruces about 60 miles to the East and Lordsburg about 60 miles to the West, it seems, at first glance, the kind of town one merely passes through. Geronimo passed through here. Billy the Kid passed through here. Pancho Villa passed through here. We too are here temporarily, 8 months at most, until we learn where fate and effort lead us.

We are situated southerly about 5-6 miles out of town in a hacienda owned by relatives who moved back to Ohio about 8 years ago. The front of the house looks out over a vast alfalfa field, which evidence shows was once an onion field and is likely to be sown with chiles next.

Through the large picture windows we can and do view the sun rise every day, 12 miles away, over the Florida Mountains. Behind the house, to the West, is a mesquite-ridden expanse of wildlife and dust, and in the distance a pyramidal pile of rock and gravel known as Red Mountain -- which to date and from our perspective has never been more than a dull gray. To the South, about 15 miles away, looms the mountain range known as Tres Hermanas (Three Sisters) and, as noted, the border is 15 miles farther, with Columbus, NM, on this side and Las Palomas on the Mexican side.

In the North, about 55 miles across the desert and up into the hills, is the funky-hippy town of Silver City, to which we will be traveling at least twice a week during spring 2014. My beloved, who will in this journal go by the name of Agapi, which in Greek means beloved, will be teaching an adjunct course in Sustainable Design at Western New Mexico University. I will major in cafe life and possibly host a program on poetry at the community radio station.

That's the state of affairs for now in the Land of Enchantment. Please tune in occasionally but please don't "follow" me. Disgusting concept.