I am not supposing that my bird paintings will last for the next 700 years, but I feel a part of the history, the conversation, each time I paint one.
Yesterday, we visited the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It protects one of the largest petroglyph sites in North America, featuring designs and symbols carved onto volcanic rocks by Native Americans and Spanish settlers 400 to 700 years ago. These images are a valuable record of cultural expression.
We’ve been doing it since the beginning of time — recording our stories. From rocks to the sides of buildings. Paper to internet, we put out our experiences. Our feelings. Our hopes. Our lives. And maybe it’s all too impermanent now. Things are thrown out without thought. Without care. Maybe we think it will all be gone tomorrow. Throwing out insults and disparaging words. Maybe it’s all too easy. What if we really had to think? Sweat above each word? Carve them with heartfelt intent? Would we give our history it deserves?
I think about our legacy. How the future will regard what we did with our time.
Mine are not birds on rocks. But in my moment, I am nesting with the Natives, sitting beside a lamp lit Emily Dickinson, trying to find the hope on feathers. Trying to find the goodness in our stories, our time. And I am just as guilty of being impatient. I live in the “I want it right now” — the same time as you, but as I see the concerned expression on the rocks beneath my feet, beside my hands, I think, I hope, maybe we can take a little more time, a little more care in telling our stories. In listening to others. Because they are valuable — or they could be.
Maybe today, before we make the post, send the email, say the words, we give them a little more thought. Maybe we carve the stone, instead of throwing it.
