Blog Post 11
3/7/2023
27O9’31” N 78O3’14” E
Three weeks ago, I camped out in the arid Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona at a yearly event called Winter Count, which consisted of around 50 teachers holding a class for 500 students about primitive skills. The basic classes were making cordage from dogbane fibers, flint-knapping arrowheads and stone tools from chert and flint, and making fire using the hand-drill and bow-drill methods. If you wanted to go deeper, some of the more advanced classes include brain tanning a deer skin, which would take all week, or nixtamalization of corn, which also took all week because first you had to weave a willow basket to then nixtamalize the corn in. I would love to go into the details of all of these incredible processes, but then you would be reading a book, so for the time being, I recommend you research these crafts yourself or simply go to a gathering.
This oddly specific type of survivalism gathers quite the interesting mix of people. There are mostly hippies ranging from sixties-era love-bus-dwellers to the pseudo-hippies clad in equal parts tie-dye and Patagonia. But, as with all things in life, the hippies are balanced out with conservatives ranging from reasonably redneck and curious all the way to those who wear “Thin Blue Line” and “Don’t Tread on Me” shirts, with a large dollop of Mormons besides.
Now, you would think this would create division. But a surprising and beautiful unity is formed where everybody simply acknowledges that everybody else is there to build a community and have fun for a week in the desert. I saw conservative Christians listen respectfully while the hippies ceremoniously lit a fire or held a final circle about love and connection. I heard about how the conservative owner of the land was so moved by our respect for nature that he no longer allowed his friends on the land to shoot and litter. Throughout the week, I saw people from both sides of the aisle coming together at a place above politics, religion, or creed.
If you’d asked me a couple of years prior what was the most important takeaway from Winter Count, I would have told you without hesitation: the skills. But now I know it is more than that. People gather together to learn, and without knowing, the true intention is to build a community and bridge all divides. They come for the skills and leave with a family.
I have always had a love for people’s stories, and at Winter Count, my thirst is sated. I sit around the flint-knap pit, slowly hitting piece after piece off the blank, trying and failing to make an arrowhead while the old masters exchange stories of exploits from better times. And the most sacred and coveted spaces at the core of Winter Count are always places of sharing. Everybody feels, whether consciously or not, that the most valuable thing is sharing in each other’s stories. This unjudged sharing and listening is the best way for people to forget any biases they have and simply look at each other as human beings.
P.S. There are many India blog posts soon to come!
Commentaires