After a day of travel yesterday, we've gone from the high desert of northern Nevada to the verdant, mountainous expanses of the Sonoran region.  Starting in Tucson this morning, we drove for a few breathtaking hours through the lush desert ranges dotted with saguaro cactus and framed by beautiful mesas rising starkly from the earth.  We arrived at our destination, just a few hundred yards from the U.S./ Mexico border, to the adobe home of Ofelia Rivas, leader of the O'odham Solidarity Project.  (http://www.tiamatpublications.com/odham_solidarity_project.html)  She welcomed us with an embrace, and in that warm spirit we commenced our incredibly moving day together.

The Tohono O'odham people's traditional lands range from southern United States through northern Mexico.  Ofelia, for example, lives just on the U.S. side of the border, while her father's home is a few miles into the Mexican side.  For centuries, the O'odham have traversed their land to conduct ceremonies, offering blessings to the earth and celebrating together in community.  However, the physical boundary between these two North American political entities has become increasingly solidified over the years, especially following 9/11.  The U.S. Border Patrol maintains a hostile, militarized presence in the O'odham community, making it difficult for the members to conduct their regular ceremonial crossings.  O'odham people have to go far out of their way to cross, and while they are now permitted to cross using their tribal identification cards, they will soon be required to obtain U.S. passports in order to cross.  As Ofelia explained, this task is likely to be prohibitively difficult, since most of the people were born at home, and did not receive state-sanctioned birth certificates or other forms of identification.  The O'odham, as we learned, are in a nearly impossible position. 

And yet Ofelia is one of the strongest, most radiant women that I have ever encountered.  Quick to laugh, brilliant and wise, she brought us into her trust right away as she shared this devastating history with us.  She has long been a leader in the movement to defend the rights of the O'odham to live free of the oppressive presence of border politics, and in so doing has led that movement to many victories. (When I asked her about her personal history, and how she became involved in this work, she told us that as a child when her family would try to drag her to church on Sundays, she would pull her fancy clothes off and run to be with her father, who went around each Sunday to visit with elders.  Eventually, her mother said, "let her go -- she doesn't want to be here" -- and so began a lifetime of creative resistance!)   

Though many of these strides may seem small -- such as the fact that the border fence is not electrified in the O'odham area, nor does it have razor wire -- they are powerfully significant, as they represent the outcome of an organized struggle of the O'odham people on behalf of the sanctity of the Mother Earth and the rights of the people to move freely.  The O'odham also recently secured a temporary victory against a proposed toxic dump on the Mexico side, in Quitovac.  This work proceeds extremely slowly, but Ofelia and her colleagues are committed to restoring the health of the land and the freedom of the people to live as stewards on the land.

After sitting and sharing with her for a while, she took us on a few-minutes' drive to the border itself.  It was remarkable to arrive at the fence, which seemed like such a harshly arbitrary line in the midst of an otherwise undivided and beautiful expanse of desert.  Huge metal columns, about chest high, are sunk into the earth at three-foot intervals and are bound with thick metal wire.  Ofelia mourned these metal structures being driven into the Mother Earth, evoking for all of us the physical pain experienced by the earth as a living being when she is so wrongly intruded upon in this way.

Ofelia stood with us there and explained the history of the border fence and the brutal behavior of the Border Patrol in enforcing it.  Many of the border agents are actively involved in drug trafficking, and some members of her community believe that they intentionally ran over a young O'odham man after he witnessed this clandestine activity one night.  The border patrol is constantly harassing Ofelia, and border agents have threatened her with their firearms in the past.  Yet throughout, she showed us in her gentle way that she embodies the spirit of the Audre Lord quotation: "When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."  Ofelia told us that this work is not work; it is her whole life.  She has dedicated her existence to the protection and defense of her people's traditional lifeways and the health of the land, and in so doing she has surpassed her own fear.

We stood at the border together in a circle as she sang to us an O'odham song, an empowerment song about the eagle.  In this quiet, beautiful song, I felt the power of the earth rising -- it was as if a simple song was stronger than all of the military might and hierarchical worldview that our federal government could possibly muster.  That song rose up against the injustice of the border, and it offered a healing to the land and to all of the people who have suffered from this divisive structure.

Back at her house, Ofelia offered us freshly brewed tea from the flowers growing on her land, and a meal of squash and beans harvested the day before -- all, utterly delicious.  We sat together for a while and talked about the potential for our collaboration in the context of the Advocacy Network.  She affirmed that even our relatively small offering will be of meaningful assistance to them.

When it was time to depart, Ofelia gathered us around a small bed of hot coals, onto which she places some of the yellow flowers. She invited us to cleanse ourselves using the pungent smoke of those flowers, and we did, one by one.  And then she sent us on our way with a bundle of herbs for each car, for protection and safe passage.  She hugged each one of us tightly, and we spoke of our excitement to come together again before too long -- both virtually and in person.  And we drove off again through the beautiful desert, as the sunset cast the sky and jutting hills in brilliant hues.    

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