By Ray Powell
Albuquerque Tribune
COMMENTARY
When I was young, my parents would have to drag me inside. The ultimate punishment for ill behavior was to sit in a room with no windows.
My childhood passion was to stand in the middle of a dust storm or one of our driving five-minute monsoon rains, ride horseback across the mesa, explore our local arroyos with my best friends - my dogs - leap with abandon across the rocks that span the Jemez River, explore the ponderosa forests on Mount Taylor, look for rattlesnakes and horned toads in the Chihuahuan desert, or just run as fast and as far as I could before I would drop.
Experiencing New Mexico has shaped who I am and what I want to learn. This place is part of my bone marrow.
Marveling at the ruins at Bandelier National Monument or the stunning petroglyphs in the most unexpected places gave me an insatiable craving to understand who lived here before and how they did it successfully for so long.
Through the study of anthropology, I understood that many of my lifelong friends, playmates and mentors were descendants of these very special people and that far from being a footnote of the past, their rich culture and traditions are alive and well.
New Mexico has six of the world's seven life zones - everything but the tropics. Observing the incredible variation of insects, plants, animals and birds became an incurable addiction. As a botanist, plant ecologist, avid gardener and a practicing veterinarian with an interest in wildlife, I have fed that addiction with every step across this incredible place we call home: New Mexico.
As an assistant for natural resources to Gov. Bruce King, as New Mexico's land commissioner for a decade and now as executive director of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, I have been treated to the opportunity to learn something new every day - when I am bright enough to listen and observe.
My teachers and mentors have been as varied and diverse as our landscape. Ranchers, teachers, scientists, sportsmen, nuns, tribal elders, ditch riders, politicians and my constant companions from the animal kingdom have been extremely patient and generous in sharing their wealth of knowledge and their deep respect and passion for our land.
Getting the chance to observe elk run and roughhouse across the Valles Caldera, to catch a glimpse of mountain lion youngsters playfully swatting each other's tails along a stream in the Sandia Mountains and to watch with amazement as raccoons pelt our dogs with nuts from a safe vantage point in our backyard pecan tree have instilled in me a deep appreciation, joy and reverence for our natural world.
Every day is a chance to celebrate my great and good fortune to live in this special place. Every day gives me another reason to do my very best to remind my human friends that the chance to experience this place requires only the simple effort of getting out into it.
I am convinced that if you directly experience this special place, it will change you forever, and for the better.
Ray Powell, a veterinarian and former state land commissioner, is executive director of the Valles Caldera National Preserve in the Jemez Mountains.
January 6, 2005