| Dear fellow members,
My six-month sabbatical has come and gone in the blink of an eye. Many things about it were extraordinary, in particular the fantastic job done by the Board and staff. Our membership has more than doubled during the past six months; there are now more than 1100 of us. We have a new database, strengthening our ability to communicate with you. We have had successes in the legal and administrative arenas regarding Wild and Scenic River studies and reclamation of the Red River. The Board of Directors and staff have implemented a strong decision-making style that has brought Amigos Bravos to a new level of organizational strength.
Because many of you have asked for it, here is a glimpse on my sabbatical adventures. I spent four and a half months painting and exploring Spain - a dream come true. The rest of the time became a long delightful weekend at home, interrupted only by a ten-day float-trip through Desolation and Grey Canyons on the Green River in Utah, where, in the days when I was a river guide, I used to take classical musicians to play in sandstone amphitheaters.
I was surrounded by water throughout my sabbatical. Most memorable were the waters of the Guadalquivil River in Sevilla where Sawnie and I spent a month; the springs and waterfalls of Yegen -- a hamlet lost in time on the steep slopes of the Alpujara, where motorized vehicles have not replaced donkeys and mules; the Mediterranean Sea along the Costa del Sol, Mojacar, and the land and sea scape where I spent my first seventeen years -- the Costa Brava.
All of the waters I visited are polluted. Despite the pain of that knowledge, I enjoyed them as I do the Río Grande, for the many reasons I'm drawn to paint water-the way it plays with light and wind, reflects cliff and moon, cools off a hot afternoon, and entices and lulls the ear with the roar of it falling and the rhythm of its current.
In 1994, Thomas Merton wrote: "The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence." Those words, pinned next to my computer, took on a new meaning on about the third week of my sabbatical, when I started noticing that the day had many open spaces between one thought or action and the next. I realized that those spaces had been filled by the need to make a phone call or meet a deadline. I pride myself in managing stress in my life. Painting and skiing, meditation and movies, weekends and extended vacations provide a balance to my work as an activist. However, it took the sabbatical to release me from the "violence" (accumulated over ten years) of meetings, deadlines, budgets, and forgotten phone calls. I highly recommend sabbaticals to everyone!!
Now, I am energized and ready for the upcoming challenges of implementing the Amigos Bravos' Three-Year Plan. One of those challenges is the opening of an Albuquerque office which will require considerable attention to both financial and organizational details. The pay-off will be an exponential increase in our capacity to effect change. Residents of Albuquerque are very concerned about the Río Grande despite the lack of access to the river and the bureaucracies that control it, or maybe because of the lack of access. That concern has not yet been harnessed into a high-profile campaign which we hope to initiate. Another major challenge will be the development of our Somos Vecinos (We are Neighbors) project, which calls for developing an ethnically diverse policy initiative on water supply. And, as always, there will be the challenge of responding in a way that makes a difference on the many river issues that you are facing in your communities.
I am happy to be back working with you and for you. |
