Reflections from the Desert

I went a traveling to see a different landscape of this Earth. The desert has no trees, so this hippy in the woods became a hippy in the desert. The starkness of parched land and raw rock just goes to show that without life, the Earth is still beautiful.

The red earth was reflected in the red people on the expansive reservations. The reservation that is almost half of Arizona had so many tribes I can’t even name them all. The Reservations were miles and miles of desert with a house here and there. Stands were set up, some occupied, to sell crafts to passersby.

The dry poverty of the reservation was in sharp contrast to the opulence of Las Vegas. But even closer to the reservation was a town called Page. With wide roads, empty sidewalks, and mini-malls, Page is a new town that sprung up when they dammed the Colorado River. According to a Navajo man I was with, the tribe gave them their consent to build the dam with the understanding that some of that water would go to the Native People.

But no.

Page sucks up the water to have golf courses and lawns. They have a thriving boat business with two-story party boats, speed boats, and sea-dos. If you walked through Page, you would never know that just over the hill is a community of native people with no water. The Navajo Nation sued Arizona for access to the water and asked for help developing a water system. But they lost. So now Page is spraying their lawns while just a mile away; the Navajo and many other tribes have no running water.

Many people of the tribes don’t have electricity either, even though there is a huge grid coming off the dam. The Navajo had a coal plant on the reservation. Many of the U.S. polluting industries are located in poor, primarily minority areas. The Navajo requested more money per watt from the power plant, and in response, the government shut the plant down.

Equality, modesty and diversity - these are hippy ideals.

Because hippies don’t really fixate on wealth but instead value inner development, we tend not to have striated communities based on income or race. I have friends in trailers and friends in hippy mansions, and we all hang out together. People of every color and sexual orientation fill my life. Friendships are based on whether you are interesting, if you play an instrument, and your values and politics. Some hippies may dress inconspicuously yet have high ideals. For example, I met a guy who looked like just a regular Joe – short hair, button-down shirt, and jeans, but his story came out as we spoke. He was a wealthy man who had bought an old church in a poor black neighborhood. He lived in the back of it while he fixed it up as a community center for the people in the area. He had a man of color as a go-between and frontman because he knew the community would not trust him as a rich white dude. He was doing this because it gave him joy. This inconspicuous man had an enlightened life of a hippy.  

On the other hand, I have known people who dress in tie-dyes, but they are racist, closed-minded, and conservative. So, it’s not what you wear, it is how you approach life.

My heart went out to the Native Dessert people and those who call the desert home. They love the area, but it is a struggle. The National Parks were mobbed with tourists from around the world, but tourists are just there to see the sights and then gone. As a hippy, I tried to notice more than the spectacles in the parks but kept my eye out for the distribution of wealth, inclusion of different people, pollution, alternative energy, house construction, and lifestyles. I’ll be expounding on some of these subjects later.

 The red people of the area are beautiful and strong, like the land. I pray for them to receive some of the bounty of tourism and water from their Colorado River.

I pray that the golf courses dry up.