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Alternative Opinion
by Sarah McConnell
My memory is a series of outdated calendars, dates that give order to my thoughts. In Bluff, Utah surrounded by evening's darkness, I found myself falling two years behind, standing under the July sun in northern California and surrounded by a crowd of ten thousand. Addressing the group was radical environmental activist, Julia Butterfly Hill. Having spent two years living in an endangered redwood tree, Hill had me, and the rest of the crowd, convinced that her words on conscious living deserved our undivided attention. Although I possessed some desire to absorb her every thought, I allowed most of her words to evaporate into the stifling July air. But a particular idea caught my attention that day, its significance did not escape me. Hill touched on an irony of living in modern America. She said, "Everything that is good for us as humans is now labeled the 'alternative'. What does that say about the society we live in?"
Hill's question came to mind that evening in Bluff as I considered an image of a prehistoric calendar, magnified on a white screen by way of a slide show projector. In Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, two boulders frame a red rock wall; a spiral hides between their shadows. The simplicity of the petroglyph struck me. I made no attempt to hide my surprise when the narrating voice detailed the intricacies of the spiral, and it evolved from a simple petroglyph into a quarterly calendar that tells of summer and winter solstices and their corresponding equinoxes. At this sight in Chaco Canyon, Ancestral Puebloans drew on the intrusion of sunlight into shadow, such that every three months a trace of light reaches between the boulders to pierce the spiral in a telling way.
I can recall the date of the slide show presentation- it was Thursday, October 28 and the time was just after eight in the evening. Sitting in the darkness that evening, my eyes rested on the unassuming spiral and I recognized what little I truly understand about my relationship with time. Each day I glance at a calendar, and record a number on some piece of paper, the presence of a date gives significance to the information I record. I live by my watch, but I am ignorant of its mechanics, and psychologically removed from the planetary cycle it represents. I try to imagine myself tracing the earth's orbit around the sun, consciously avoiding the assistance of a wall calendar, or my imported wrist watch, but it seems impossible. How would modern society classify a person with the available time and knowledge to create a functioning calendar in the form of a spiral carved into a rock face? I do not have the patience to find out. It is much simpler to track the days using my watch, the intricacies of which I will never have to understand.
Joe Pachack narrated the slide show that evening and interpreted our encounters with rock art in the following days. Joe is Bluff's resident renaissance man- a sculptor by training, an anthropologist by vocation. A lifetime of exposure to Ancestral Puebloan culture is evident in Joe's descriptions of rock art subtleties; the intensity of his interest in this prehistoric culture breaks open his words, revealing the significance of even the simplest scratch in sandstone. Joe's knowledge of the Puebloan people tends to lead an innocent conversation towards an animated discussion of Puebloan practices; it is difficult to disregard his words as he details his most recent encounter with any number of rock art panels.
On October 31 I visited Joe's home: an eight acre patchwork of permaculture and experimental housing projects, complemented by an outdoor Navajo sweat lodge and a partially hollowed pond. His sculptures watched over the entire place, eerily bringing to life the rock art I had seen in the last few days. Standing at Joe's home, I recalled the distant weekend in July when I had listened to Hill's words on conscious living, her authority supported by a two year stint in a redwood tree. Walking around Joe's' house, listening to him speak, I decided that Joe lives consciously on a different level. Conscious of more than his present physical impact , Joe is intimate with the prehistoric past and the complexities of what the ignorant eye classifies as a simple life.
I reconsider Hill's words on the alternative. I understand her definition of societal alternatives not as the offer or expression of choice, but as the dictionary's secondary definition: something that exists or functions outside the established cultural, social or economic situation, something different from the usual or conventional. Joe is the man who takes the time to trace the earth's orbit around the sun, to recreate the prehistoric calendar of Chaco Canyon in a circular sculpture that stands just outside his front door. His unique relationship with time reflects a deep respect of Puebloan culture, a culture removed from modern society by time and practice. The Ancestral Puebloans are Joe's mentors, their everyday knowledge and activities evident in his modern alternative.
Away from the standard classrooms and pretensions of academia, I had a fleeting encounter with a prehistoric calendar. Its complexity was brought to light by Joe, a man whose spiritual ancestors shape his everyday lifestyle in defiance of modern society's norms. A man whose understanding of the prehistoric makes him necessarily unconventional, different than his modern neighbors, and good in a way that society can only label alternative.