Cowboy Meditation Primer

THE TRAVELING GUIDE to Mary McCray’s Cowboy Meditation Primer with history and definitions Trementina Books (2018) 1 Contents Introduction to this Guide 3 1. Starting Out: The Preface 7 2. Philadelphia to Cuervo: The Art of Preparing 12 3. Cuervo to Mosquero: The Art of Arriving 29 4. Mosquero to Capulin: The Art of Balancing 40 5. Capulin to Pueblo: The Art of Bowing 51 6. Pueblo to Trinidad: The Art of Suffering 60 7. Getting Back Home 64 Further Study 71 Origins of the Primer 74 2 Introduction to this Guide This PDF is both a reading companion and traveler’s guide to the book Cowboy Meditation Primer, poems about a late 1870s fictional character named Silas Cole, a heartbroken journalist who joins a cattle drive in order to learn how to be a real cowboy. He meets a cattle company traveling up the Goodnight-Loving Trail in New Mexico Territory; and not only do the cowboys give Silas a very real western adventure, they offer him a spiritual journey as well. Each chapter of this guide is divided into locations of the territory traversed in the book’s cattle drive which happens to loosely follow the famous Goodnight-Loving Trail. The guide offers history about the time period and definitions of words mentioned in the book. Each chapter has three sections: ● Historical definitions about cowboys and New Mexico Territory ● Zen/Buddhist concepts and definitions ● Trip information for those who want to make the trek themselves including what to see and where to stay along the way. The guide also contains maps, photos and questions to help guide you through the journey. The Goodnight-Loving Trail The poems in the book were based partly on the history of the Goodnight-Loving Trail, a cattle trail forged by Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving in the late 1860s. The fictional poems follow the trail after it has been abandoned by Charles Goodnight but before train travel took over the transportation of cattle. Many are familiar with the story of the Goodnight-Loving Trail through the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel Lonesome Dove (1985) by Larry McMurtry and the subsequent miniseries in 1989 starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones. Although McMurtry denied his novel was a retelling of the Goodnight-Loving story, the book shares many plot points and character histories. The general map of their trails is also similar and those familiar with the book will recognize the story of Oliver Loving’s death and burial. Goodnight and Loving started their cattle drives in Fort Belknap, Texas. Cattle prices after the Civil War had plummeted in Texas, but prices were better in the new mining towns out west in Colorado and Wyoming. Goodnight and Loving began their trek following the old Butterfield Overland Mail Route west toward New Mexico and the Pecos River. This stretch of the trail was 3 perilous because it passed through Comanche Indian Country and had few resources for water. Many cattle died before reaching New Mexico. Upon reaching the Pecos River, the cattle drive headed north to Fort Sumner, one of the many forts built in New Mexico during the Civil War (1861-65) and used during the American Indian Wars in the 1870s. While at Fort Sumner, Goodnight and Loving sold their cattle to both soldiers and the over eight thousand Diné (or Navajo) Indians who were forcibly interned next door (and starving to death) at Bosque Redondo. From Fort Sumner, the cattle drive went two ways. The earlier trail in 1866 followed the wet route or the Mountain Route of the Sante Fe Trail through central New Mexico traveling through Las Vegas, New Mexico, and up through what is now called the Raton Pass into Colorado and on to Pueblo. However, Charles Goodnight found the toll road through the pass, then owned and operated by Uncle Dick Wootton until the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad bought him out in 1879, too expensive per head of cattle. So Goodnight scouted another trail headed north through the high plains of eastern New Mexico. Most histories provide very little information about where in New Mexico the cattle drives traveled. The biography of Charles Goodnight, Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman by J. Evetts Haley, quotes Charles Goodnight as saying he stopped near Cuervo Peak and from there traveled north which would take him through what is now the Bell Ranch and Lake Conchas Dam (built 1936-9). Goodnight himself claims to have traveled up the mesa then called Goodnight Hill. There is a marker in the town of Mosquero, New Mexico, stating that the drive came through there. Goodnight also talks about resting his cows in the valley around Capulin Volcano and traveling near the river running through Folsom, New Mexico (there is a trail marker on the east side of town), and then through a pass into Colorado north of Folsom. Goodnight then drove cattle over to Pueblo, Colorado, and eventually through to Denver, Colorado, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving 4 The Trail Maps The Goodnight-Loving Trails The best trail map I’ve found for detail regarding the first 1866 trail (from the True West magazine article “150 Years on the Goodnight-Loving Trail”) My map of GNL Trails in New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Green marks the 1866 trail; purple marks the possible 1868 trail. 5 Driving Trip Trails Each section of the guide contains a map. You can use these maps to drive through the locations mentioned in the book. I’ve also added museum locations, places to camp or recommended towns to spend the night. There are two maps: Topographical map that you can track elevation with. Google map that you can drive along with. This map has layers you can click on and off: (1) points of Interest, (2) the Goodnight-Loving Trails and (3) the driving trail. 6 1. Starting Out: The Preface New Mexico Lessons The Landscape For tourists, New Mexico is known primarily for its tri-cultural living history (Indian, Hispanic and Anglo), its big blue skies with amazing cloud formations, some fishing lakes and rivers, and mountains for skiing and hiking. The poem “First Meditation” refers to these natural forms and how to conceptualize them which can be daunting for people who are used to flatter and more contained terrain. Taos Pueblo, Taos, NM, Marc Cooper, CC, Public Domain New Mexico is particularly good cloud country in the summer, the kind of cloud formations Charlie Brown and Linus would appreciate. You’ll see plenty of elephants and Mickey Mouse heads in various formations. To Do To make things interesting look for cowboy boots or Buddhas in the clouds. The majority of Goodnight’s later trail passes through the middle of the eastern high plains known also as The Staked Plains or the Llano Estacado. The Staked Plains is one of the largest tablelands (or mesas) on the continent at an elevation of 3,000 feet. It forms the southern tip of the Western High Plains area of the Great Plains. Large escarpments or cliffs form its eastern 7 and western borders. The landscape looks flat from the top and feels barren and dry, which made it vulnerable to dust storms in the 1930s. Local historian Marc Simmons has written a good article about the area: “Trail Dust: Llano Estacado a testing ground for grit” (Santa Fe New Mexican): Cowboys on the eastern New Mexico plains, Museum of New Mexico The Clay The poem “Vessel” references clay. Many of New Mexico’s Pueblo tribes have a long history going back to prehistoric times of making and using pottery for functional purposes and to sell as art objects. Clay deposits often having been used for many generations are found across the state. The clay is also a mythological cowboy term referencing death and the cold grave. A good example of this metaphor was popularized in the old ballad “The Cowboy’s Lament” or “Streets of Laredo,” As I walked out in the streets of Laredo, As I walked out in Laredo one day, I spied a young cowboy wrapped in white linen, Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay. Cowboy Lessons The book preface begins with a quote from Mencius about people seeking the Tao far away when it doesn’t really exist far away. 8 Question How do you think this applies to Silas Cole? Does it apply at all to you? Clay & the Empty Cup In 2006 my friend Christopher convinced me to take a ceramics class at Santa Monica Community College in Los Angeles. This was my first art class. The bowls I made there and the process of forming pottery felt very calming and spiritual, far away from the abstractions of writing and words. These experiences influenced the poem “Vessel” and my decision to give the character Coyote a fragile cup of pottery to carry around on a perilous cattle drive. The small pot to the right reminds me of the shape of cup Coyote might carry. More importantly the idea of a bowl is an ambiguity to many potters. What is a container? Is it the edges of the cup or bowl or the inside space where substances are carried? After all what is the point of an empty cup? Question What matters about a bowl? Is a bowl the hard structure and the surfaces or is it the airy emptiness inside? The fact that the poem appears in the preface of the book is important and refers to the story of the teacup and the Zen master Ryutan.

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