our work
life projects we are moving toward.
our lands
the land belongs to all of us, and us to them. we have always known this. we do not view land as property, assets, or capable of being owned. still, our families have been granted access to steward lands along our seasonal travel routes along the border regions of the rio grande delta, the big bend, and within the gila. these precious lands are all in our care for different reasons. we feel a responsibility to them not only to protect them from development and militarization , but also to steward them, form relations with the animals and waterways, and to honor our path of reindiginizing - the joy in becoming them once again. our families pour our energy and resources toward these lands with our children on our hips, understanding the importance of tending to these relations under our childrens’ watchful eyes.
south texas - the rio grande valley
This piece of land has undergone heavy disturbances, as monoculture farmland, and most heavily as an oil field, where an oil refinery company drilled for light oil. This land has been in our family for over 20 years. I have fond memories of my father collecting mesquite wood for fires as my mom picked mesquite pods for us to eat. We sat in the shade and climbed all over the mesquite trees. Their shade was invaluable in the humid summer heat that the Rio Grande Delta is notorious for. It was in these lands that I also first learned of the importance of plants for immediate survival, as we hid once from an angry rancher behind all the thornbrush. Had the land been cleared out without the trunks of the mesquite trees to find refuge in, we might have faced a different fate. It is our biggest hope to keep these lands abundant with thornbrush trees, cacti, and plenty of flowers for our insect relatives. Many animal relatives also use this land as burial grounds, with countless bones always lying peacefully under the sun. It brings us great joy knowing that our animal relatives find their last moments under the shade of a mesquite tree, cushioned by the soft undercover of native plants.
For the past decade, mesquite and palo verde were the most prominent trees, with little diversity. Through the years, different native plants have now appeared, gifted to us by the passing animals and the drifting wind spirits. Retama, Mesquite, Huisache, and a variety of ground cover plants are rewilding the land. We have slowly chipped away at this land, with a lot of our restoration methods relying on the natural process of the earth and its elements, letting our animal relatives pass through this land to drop their seeds, form their families, rest, migrate, and return whenever they feel called to. We will be integrating ourselves more in this process by removing invasive grasses and re-introducing forage foods for humans and non humans, more wildflowers for our insect relatives, and a variety of thornscrub trees using a variety of methods ranging from growing our own seedlings spreading seeds as we walk and pray through the land, to letting animal and wind relatives continue to exist and restore the land in their own ways. With every seed we spread, we hope that new life can emerge for all of us to care for and build connection with.
chihuahuan desert - the big bend
the gila
Lush ponderosa pine forests and riparian woodlands grow peacefully in these 10 acres. Animal relatives of all sorts roam through the empty spaces between trunks, walking familiar paths and teaching their young ones the way. This is the home base for our community – our place of gathering and prayer. We have hopes for many teachings to be passed on in this land through family, through animal relatives, through living with the land.
We envision a homestead with a variety of gathering grounds for workshops, animal care, the arts and music, and gardens.
This land is within Brewster County, one of the biggest mining counties in Texas. Ghost towns abound, many of the mines have been abandoned to time. The people and places abandoned once companies could no longer make exploitation quite as profitable as it had been. Then in came the hipsters and sports enthusiasts, who often can be found exploiting the land and its histories in a more romantic way, while our relatives are pushed out, demonized or criminalized for existing on and navigating these same lands. Currently, these border lands are being bulldozed to make way for a physical border wall through the big bend.
Through stewarding the land in Brewster County, we desire to compete with gentrification and further exploitation by reclaiming land and making it accessible to those gentrification pushes out—immigrants and indigenous and Mexican people who have existed here for generations. We wish to open our land to those who desire to be there, to coexist with their community and to be on the land.