Border Beauty

Sitting with Martha in her outdoor sanctuary in Terlingua Texas, mid-morning: This town is directly on the border of Mexico...on a clear day you can see the mountains of Mexico looming large and beautiful. Martha grew up just north of here in a town called Marfa, a roaring metropolis compared to the tranquility of this beautiful, ancient town. Terlingua is the town that became famous for, among other reasons throughout history no doubt, the length of miles the high school kids had to go to get to school – over an hour by bus each way, each day, on winding roads through the hills all the way up to Alpine, Texas. Needless to say, the drop-out rate was enormous. That’s all been remedied now thanks to a Superintendent who was focused on the education of the children in her district. Now they stay right there in town and attend school.

As she told pieces of her own story, Martha spoke about her Woman's Voice. This is her passion. At 45 she is feeling a very different Voice alive within her - one that doesn't really worry what others think about, that is concerned first and foremost with speaking her values. She is a school teacher, a librarian, an avid gardener, an activist, a mother of two teenage boys, a wife and a woman's woman (she is aligned with the women in her community and speaks of this connection and female community as her lifeline). When I asked her what helps her stay strong in her Voice she looked around her and acknowledged the abundance of nature that thrives in this arid, hot environment; the plant life she has surrounded herself with...a patio overlooking the Chisos Mountains of Big Bend (incidentally, their outhouse shares this same sublime view, complete with a 270 degree view of Mexico and a composting toilet). Her garden 'room' (for this is truly their living room) is surrounded by a dry rock wall that curves in the most female fashion around their property perched on the hill. Plants are everywhere...really, everywhere. They’re growing out of pots, out of cracks, out of walls...out of each other’s pots, everywhere you look there are plants overflowing their containers. Martha says, “I have to have my hands in dirt, it’s the Mother, the Source. I think we all, all women, must put their hands in dirt, even if it’s just in a pot that is in our house.” Thanks to Blythe (who is constantly aware of the visual representation of the energy that is in front of her) I am looking at every woman's hands and Martha's are powerful - earth hands.

After we said goodbye to Martha and worked our way down the winding desert driveway, our ever-expanding car was newly adorned with three gorgeous plants in two big pots. She gifted us with Agave, Aloe and Blooming Onion pips from her garden. The Blooming Onion is Border tradition; when a woman has to leave the area for some tragic reason the women gift her with a Blooming Onion and it’s her responsibility to let them know when it blooms...like announcing the birth of a child, the word spreads like wildfire through the grapevine that so-and-so’s onion has had “babies!”