Having just visited the latest turquoise exhibit at the Indian Arts and Culture Museum in Santa Fe, I am still savoring the power and beauty of the mineral and wonder at what humans have made of it.
It came to my attention that turquoise, like so many things in society, can be elusive and illusive when it comes to assigning value.
For example, not long ago wooden beads painted turquoise were discovered in a dig at an ancestral pueblo archaeological site. From this discovery and other contemporary work, we know it is the color of turquoise and not the fragile, small deposits of blended cooper, aluminum and iron that have value in the eyes and mind of indigenous people.
Further, there are no separate distinct words for green and blue in the many tribal groups that occupied and still occupy much of the US Southwest.
What? No words to distinguish blue from green? That boggles my anglo brain.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Thursday, May 1, 2014
The Grocer Ballerina
She had movement on her mind as she gracefully glided from aisle to aisle looking for partners out of step, those not knowing where to find the items on their list.
She'd greet them with a smile, lips slightly pooched out to get them to anticipate her knowing exactly where on the floor they needed to go. She led these unknowing partners in, among and through a kaleidoscopic maze of product label, shape, color and size.
Before they fully knew where they were standing, her customers felt they'd arrived as if by some miracle, right there, eye to eye with that coveted sale item on their list.
And leaving that spot she'd delivered them, she'd be away to the next partner, this time one wandering the chip section with deer in the headlights TMI overload.
She'd swoon and sweep in with a flourish, invisibly touching her hands to their shoulders, twirl them around while slightly lifting her heels. And they'd be placed within reach of the blue corn, completing the dance with their own arc of spent motion as they reached for just the right package.
Sometimes she would rhumba or tango depending on need and customer inclination. But more often she'd lithely waltz her customers to their culinary and sundry desires.
She'd greet them with a smile, lips slightly pooched out to get them to anticipate her knowing exactly where on the floor they needed to go. She led these unknowing partners in, among and through a kaleidoscopic maze of product label, shape, color and size.
Before they fully knew where they were standing, her customers felt they'd arrived as if by some miracle, right there, eye to eye with that coveted sale item on their list.
And leaving that spot she'd delivered them, she'd be away to the next partner, this time one wandering the chip section with deer in the headlights TMI overload.
She'd swoon and sweep in with a flourish, invisibly touching her hands to their shoulders, twirl them around while slightly lifting her heels. And they'd be placed within reach of the blue corn, completing the dance with their own arc of spent motion as they reached for just the right package.
Sometimes she would rhumba or tango depending on need and customer inclination. But more often she'd lithely waltz her customers to their culinary and sundry desires.
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