Freedom in the Land
It’s an ocean out here—the wind blowing through open fields in Texas as the cicadas scratch their way through the long grasses and overgrown yellow flowers everywhere. The flowers dance in the wind, their inside brown bellies bobbing back and forth. Stillness sits below and there’s a solid truth in this land uncluttered by billboards and ornate houses.
The field around this one is barren, shaven down for a n
ew crop. A muddy stream of water runs down a dirt path with big tire tracks along it. There’s nothing here, it seems, but everything. I cringe at the idea of reaching the west coast, where billboards mark a civilized society—a place where constant sound and distraction make it hard to really listen.
Yesterday, before black filled the skies and the sun’s so-called “magic hour” arrived, I cried tears of Spain, of the mountains of Argentina (my father’s homeland), of America’s vast land. I could feel layers of my body speaking to me of its life in two lands, two places. I felt I would never belong to one place, that the land, omnipresent across borders, grasses, mountains, deserts, and continents, belongs to us all.
Like many indigenous cultures still understand, this land, wherever we are, is home (I remember the story of a native man who was asked, while in prison, what it was like to be imprisoned. He responded by saying that he was free because he belonged to the land, even in prison, and then went on to ask the white man what it was like to be imprisoned, to be so separate from the earth and life).
I can do battle. I can do so many things, but in the end I need to return home to the land, to a place where I can hear myself and the immensity of my deep connection to the earth.
What makes home on earth for you?
Michelle Adam is an experienced writer, teacher, and healer. She recently published her novel, Child of Duende, after twenty-plus years as a magazine and newspaper writer. Her articles have appeared in The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education Magazine; Hibernia Magazine, an Irish magazine; Vista Magazine, a Hispanic insert of major national newspapers; and multiple other publications.
Michelle has also been a photographer and artist; has taught middle school students Spanish for the past dozen years; and has worked as a healer and shaman. Michelle has created healing and teaching circles of song and sound, assisting others in awakening the spirit of the earth, “duende,” within them, and creating a space for the celebration of life.
