You can easily tell that Pawnee Buttes is a
wonderful place, right? It's wild, spacious, beautiful, sacred - the
perfect landscape to experience the union between the Great Spirit and
Mother Earth.
However, if you turn your body just 90 degrees from the first scene, you are immediately confronted by the setting captured in the second picture, located less than a half mile away.
However, if you turn your body just 90 degrees from the first scene, you are immediately confronted by the setting captured in the second picture, located less than a half mile away.
Fifteen years ago, the silence was so intense you could almost taste it.
Now, one hears the constant hum of machinery, the beep-beep-beep of
construction equipment, and - in the evening - one can see the flames of
the natural gas stacks flaring up right near the buttes. Fracking,
natural gas and oil exploration, etc., now litter the entire area. In
addition, a long line of wind turbines extends on the ridge just behind
the buttes. In fact, because Weld County (and much of eastern Colorado)
is going through such an energy boom, it is currently seeking to secede
from the rest of the state (which the eastern counties consider too
"liberal") and form their own separate state.
I'm not against technology; after all, the camera I've used to record these images and the computer I'm currently typing at were both made in a factory. And both used plastics, which are derived in part from oil. But is there a reason why the energy boom HAS to occur right next to a sacred place such as this? And what about technology? Has it lost its soul? What values have we lost in the process? I would especially appreciate hearing what some of my Native friends have to say about this. What values have we begun to lose in our quest to live technology-rich but spirituality-poor lives?
Photo: Pawnee Buttes and Western Wallflower under a vast sky, next to a natural gas / oil site less than a half-mile away. Weld County, CO; June 16, 2014
I'm not against technology; after all, the camera I've used to record these images and the computer I'm currently typing at were both made in a factory. And both used plastics, which are derived in part from oil. But is there a reason why the energy boom HAS to occur right next to a sacred place such as this? And what about technology? Has it lost its soul? What values have we lost in the process? I would especially appreciate hearing what some of my Native friends have to say about this. What values have we begun to lose in our quest to live technology-rich but spirituality-poor lives?
Photo: Pawnee Buttes and Western Wallflower under a vast sky, next to a natural gas / oil site less than a half-mile away. Weld County, CO; June 16, 2014
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