September 30, 2023 • 65 mins
Luis' website: https://www.are.na/luis-escalante/back-to-the-ocean
Instagram: https://instagram.com/eatenupbythesea?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Prepare to embark on a fascinating journey with our guest, Luis Escalante—a gifted artist and planner at an architect firm—as we traverse through the geological history of Texas. Luis's vivid Instagram collages, which amalgamate geological maps, images of seashells, native art, and hydrology maps, serve as our guideposts. Simultaneously, they offer us a unique opportunity to appreciate the deep connection between the land, its history, and the people who inhabit it.
We delve into the story of San Antonio, from the pulsating shoreline over the past 500 million years to the contemporary world's heavy reliance on the Edwards aquifer. Luis inspires us to ponder upon the profound link between the four springs, the native peoples, migration, and urban planning. As we explore his artwork, it leads us to realize the delicate balance between reverence for the land and the modern world's challenges such as affordable housing and gentrification.
As we draw to a close, we touch upon the concept of geotrauma and the necessity of nature restoration in San Antonio. Reflections on the importance of maps, striation, and a course correction in development give us food for thought. Tune in to the Cosmic Water Podcast as we voyage across the intricacy of water, land, and the human relationship with them!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
As the cosmos connects the universe, water
connects life.
At the Cosmic Water Podcast,we're exploring the history,
mythology and future of thesacred land known as San Antonio
.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Well, welcome to another episode of Cosmic Water
Podcast.
I'm Angela, I'm Maureen and wehave Luis Escalante with us.
So glad to have you here, thankyou.
Thank you A planner with anarchitect firm, but what I
thought was so interesting waslooking at your artwork, your
collages that you have onInstagram.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
And so I guess, go ahead if you want to talk about
the collages, because that's theinitial connection that I like.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Yeah, for sure.
The account is called Eatin' Upby the Sea on Instagram and
it's I think I had mentioned toyou and messages saying that the
collages on there are just kindof introductory thinking ways,
(01:15):
like a design thinking way forthis book project I have, and
the collages show a lot of maps,geological maps of Texas and
the fault zone, the Bacconi'sfault zone, overlaid with images
(01:35):
of like native art or images,hydrology maps too, kind of
focusing specifically along thelike aquifers and overlaying
images of like seashells thatyou'll find in Texas,
(01:58):
specifically in like the HillCountry area, and all of these
collages kind of have a hyperfocus on one specific aspect of
all these things.
So I have a collage that'sfocusing on oil and fossils on
West Texas and then I haveanother one that's got a map of
(02:20):
like Highway 35 going acrossTexas and then having it
overlaid with images ofseashells.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
All of this is showing how the ocean just like
used to go, I guess, in like itwas in West Texas the coastline,
and then it just like moved.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Yeah, yeah, so a long time ago, about 500 million
years ago, the sea was in thenorthern part of Texas northern
and western Texas and thensometime between there and 200
million years ago the Bacconi'shad an uplift or a fault and
(03:00):
there were multiple differentbreakings of the earth where you
then had a reverse.
So then West Texas, northernTexas, became higher than the
Gulf area and the sea kind ofreceded into the Gulf and then
from there you have thisoscillating shoreline that kind
(03:20):
of went back and forth across.
Yeah, the Bacconi's escarpmentis basically like this.
You can think of that as likethe shoreline oscillation.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, and so the Bacconi's escarpment?
Yeah, like what and where?
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Yeah, so it starts like, I want to say, mccallan
and it's like a wide band and itgoes all the way up through
Waco and this whole band itmight go past.
Waco is just kind of ageological like uplift or a
(04:02):
fault line, almost like anancient fault line that became
active over those hundreds ofmillions of years ago.
And yeah, and what you see nowtoday is like all of the Texas's
big cities are along thisescarpment and I always thought
that was an interesting thing,because it's like you have ocean
(04:25):
life for millions of years herein this huge band of Texas and
it dies off as the sea recedesinto the Gulf.
And then you have people,natives, coming in and settling
in the area, finding that thisarea is very holy and filled
(04:45):
with tons of water, and theSpanish come through.
They find this area to be veryresourceful.
There's some trauma with thatcoming into the new world and
then, yeah, like this thenbecomes still like a huge basis
(05:06):
for life, for organic life, yeah, yeah.
So then you just have, then youhave the modern world now so to
deal with.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I was looking at all the or several of those pictures
anyway, and your curriculumcame across right and I noticed
that, so I know exactly whatyou're talking about now.
The balconies, I guess thatit's called, and it has the four
springs.
Yeah.
And that's where like so.
(05:39):
So it seems like for a long,was it for a long time?
The ocean coast or the GulfCoast was like right there.
Yeah where those springs are.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, so those springs were, as I understand
were made as the escarpment wasuplifting and there were other
many different lifts and likethe earth was sharing across
itself.
So what you would have had waslike a solid piece of earth and
(06:14):
then, as this fault line wasbeing reawoken or something like
that, you have these pocketsthat ended up being developed
over millions of years and withholes from the crust of the
earth, the rain would fall intothose areas and like start to
fill up and those became thesprings, and that's as far as
(06:35):
like I can give like a veryrough and filling up the aquifer
.
Yeah, and that's how theaquifers are made too.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, that's what I read once about like an aquifer.
Maybe it was in Kansas actually, which is where you're from
right.
I think, what is there anaquifer there?
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I'm not really versed on Kansas geology.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
There was a.
There was an aquifer somewherein that like I don't know either
central or mid east part of thecountry, but I was reading
about how all of the water inthere and I guess this is true
for all aquifers, but it wasthis one specific I was reading
about was that all of the waterin there is from rainwater from
potentially millions of yearsago.
(07:14):
Yeah, I just thought that wasfascinating, and so the Edwards
aquifer would be the same, whichis the aquifer under us.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So when we're drinking our water from the
aquifer, because it rainwaterYeah- basically rainwater.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
But we've.
But this is the issue with likethe modern world and our whole
development across this land,because it's not just Edwards,
there's Carrizo, there's BartonSprings.
We've used up like like wedrain the Edwards aquifer pretty
heavily, like just for drinkingwater.
(07:52):
So when it does rain we'rereally like happy and that's why
you see like on the newschannel they're like reporting
it every day.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah it went up an inch or whatever.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
And so, yeah, so that's like the the beginnings
of this Instagram account is isto kind of visually have a
framework or some kind ofprecedent for the book which
kind of will go over likespecific stuff and like the
(08:27):
formation of the earth,formation of Texas.
But yeah, the collages aresuper fun to make.
I do like research while I'mmaking the collage, so it's like
a process of reading some kindof dense geological material and
then trying to translate thatinto something visual.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
And it does translate because I understood it.
You know, like I didn't, Ididn't know you or we didn't,
you know, but like I was likelooking at this and like this
guy he's, he's researching thestuff that we're talking about
you know, just by looking at theart.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So yeah, so we had an hour to guess to go In our
second episode guests who spokeabout those springs, those four
springs and their placement onrock wall, rock mural art, what
is it called?
Speaker 4 (09:20):
a white shaman.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yes, on the white shaman mural.
Is that something that you werefamiliar with?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
No, no, I met Angie earlier this week and she had
mentioned it to me and I'm goingto probably go see it later
this month or next month.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
What's it seeing it mean for you, like all the
research that you've done andthe you know coastline being on
those four springs?
What's it like when you heardthat it was like on this art
from what?
How many years?
1000 years ago, was the white?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
shaman mural.
I don't even know.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I think they're saying right now, I don't
remember, I think 2000, butthere's an argument there's an
argument about that.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
A lot older than that , yeah, and that it was an
ancient, like you said, sacredholy water place where
indigenous people from all over,yeah, yeah, and so, yeah,
that's what bringing that bringtogether some of the stuff that
you had been learning.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
It really did like because I was mentioning to
Angie like there was in thecollages you'll see kind of
glimpses of native art ordepictions of reverence, of like
like I took some, some imagesfrom an old codex that a Spanish
(10:41):
priest did that was studying, Ithink, my ends and because I
didn't know of any specifichyper local art like that or
like old art like that.
But I would overlay images ofwhat was depicted was like my
end and a spring source and Iwould like overlay that with
(11:03):
some of the collage maps to kindof indicate like there is this
presence of native people in thearea and that I was wanting to
get more into like understandingorigin stories in this area or
in this land and then being toldabout white shaman.
It like very clearly shows thatlike this is obviously like
(11:28):
there is a history of an originstory.
And that, like native people,knew of this entire escarpment
basically, and had, as far as Iunderstand, the the white shaman
murals depict like almost likea map, and then the springs, all
(11:49):
of Texas basically.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
And yeah, and for those who aren't familiar with
the springs that we're talkingabout, it's in San Antonio, with
new Bronfills, san Marcos andAustin, which you said to you
mentioned, and I never eventhought about that all along.
I 35.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And so does it keep as the escarpment.
Now that I know that that's thename for it, does that keep
going up?
I 35 past Austin.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Yeah, it goes all the way through Waco Pam, like
towards Dallas.
I don't know if 35 maps it, butit is an odd coincidence, you
know, like such a moderninvention of the highway is like
overlaying this beautiful watersource.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I guess that I've also heard that there's like a
sort of ring, that it continuesin a circle west from Waco and
then goes into West Texas wherethere's other springs, because
there's spring all over yeah.
A lot of them are dried out,though, and then it comes down
(12:58):
before you get to like the aridwest Texas, and then down and
scoops down into Del Rio, backup again.
I think maybe Gary might haveshown that or something at one
point, but I'm I really.
I also really like the how wewere talking about earlier the
(13:23):
migratory sort of connection ofhumans and following these
waters and.
So how do you see that?
I don't know, I guess, asbecause you studied urban
planning, is that correct.
How do you connect these sortsof ideas or whatever with what
you're doing now, or maybe justhow people move now?
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Yeah, I think the usage of maps is certainly
embedded within the field ofurban planning.
So that's kind of like why themaps or why the collages show a
lot of maps is because of, like,my schooling we learned how to
(14:11):
make maps.
I knew where to find publicdata and stuff like that to make
maps and stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
And do you, when you think of land, do you think like
that?
Do you in your mind?
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Yeah, you know there is like a top-down view of, like
, I think of you know, thisstretch of highway that runs
through San Antonio or aroundSan Antonio, or, yeah, like
state boundary lines.
But then also, what I'm tryingto also learn is also a non-map,
like a non-territorialunderstanding of the land, which
(14:46):
is like something not a lot ofpeople do or even know that you
can understand the land withouta piece of paper or your Google
Maps, and I think that's alsoreally interesting about White
Shaman is, I think some of thedepictions show the land just
(15:07):
drawn out as a drawing insteadof you know, this spring is, you
know, 10 miles to the east ofthe city, or, you know, is north
due north, or something.
But in terms of the planningand migration, I think that is
(15:30):
something I do wanna address inthe project or try to wrangle
with, because, yeah, this area,san Antonio, austin is slated to
be like a huge migrant, liketons of people are gonna be
moving into the area.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Wait, finish.
You were about to say migrant.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Like migration into this area?
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, I never saw it that way.
Yeah, this huge metropolis thatthey have planned and it is
people migrating here?
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Yeah, and that, and you know there's also the need
for reverence for the land andfor the aquifers, and if the
people that are coming in andwe're not able to sustain like
(16:22):
their presence here, then youknow we're gonna be causing a
lot of destruction and trauma tothe land itself.
So then it becomes it mightpossibly become like a site for
trauma in terms of landresources.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
In your studies at UTSA.
Did they talk about how SanAntonio because you know what's
unique and interesting about theway San Antonio developed is
that downtown is not in thecenter of the city, right, it's
like real low south, because inthe 1970s, late 70s and 80s they
(17:02):
developed so much on thenorthern side.
Did they talk about like therewas a really big fight to not
develop on the north sidebecause of it being right over
this sensitive part of theaquifer, which I think I saw in
one of your something on one ofyour sites?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Yeah, I'm not sure if I remember learning about that,
but that's something I mean Icould definitely see how that
can be like super influential onthe development of the city.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yeah, that was a big deal.
I forgot when it was, maybewhen I was a teenager about the
PGA building a really big golfcourse on the north side.
That was over the aquifer, ofcourse.
Since then they've developedthat whole like you know,
outside 1604, northwest part.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Oh, that far north I kept thinking of.
Like San Pedro north.
Oh, closer in.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Oh, no, no, no, yeah, I'm talking about like, because
, like, UTSA was built in 1978and the reason UTSA was built is
because there's no publicschools in San Antonio and so
they're like, you know, we needa public edu, um university.
And then it was a bigcontroversy because they built
it so far north and when it wasbuilt in 1978, 78 or 76, I think
78, um, it was farmland.
(18:24):
Yeah.
It was all farmland out thereand it was real controversial
because they were like, okay,well, how are all of the you
know people who need aneducation down here on the south
and west and east sides, howare they supposed to get up
there?
But it was really just aboutopening up the development
pathway to the north side.
(18:45):
So that was only what 40something years ago, yeah.
And now look at right, it wasfarmland and it is so developed,
highly developed and even youknow way farther and continuing
to go further.
So, yeah, they were reallytrying to not develop that land
at all because of how sensitiveit is over the aquifer.
(19:07):
Maria Barriosabel, she was acouncil woman at the time of a
lot of those fights and shefought really hard and was
sometimes like the only person,the only council member, to vote
no on a lot of those projects,and so she did a lot of work
trying to protect the aquifer.
She had said to me once that itwas.
(19:29):
It's one of the last freshwater, large fresh water sources
in the entire world.
Wow yeah.
Which makes me nervous about,like why is Elon Musk so
obsessed with Austin?
San Antonio yeah, he wanted tobuild a subway underneath, from
(19:50):
downtown to the airport andthat's all like.
That's where the first springis, where the San Antonio River
starts, that's where that springis.
I'm like what?
What does he know?
Is what, I wonder.
He's just lazy and he don'twant to see us.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
He just wants to be able to go downtown and not like
I don't know, but it's funnyhow the gentrification continued
throughout the years, causewhen they were taking away
mobile home neighborhoods in theSouth side, they were doing the
same out there near UTSA,because there were still mobile
(20:29):
home neighborhoods with familiesand a freaking pet cemetery
that they just like bulldozedthrough.
You mean recently.
This was like yeah, within thepast, like 10 years.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I guess, oh yeah, it's grown so much by UTSA I
said that yesterday when I spokeat the Health Equity Forum is
that when I went to UTSA I couldpay my rent $500 one bedroom
easily by waitressing, like Icould get by by myself.
That's like.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Kansas prices.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, now I looked up that unit and it's $1,200 right
now.
I'm like that is an over, a100% rent increase.
It is so unsustainable.
How are you going to go toschool how?
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Pull that off.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
I do wonder that, and I'm concerned about that for my
kids.
Urban planner Louise, what doyou think?
How do we like?
Okay, yeah, because let's talkabout that too, how you did your
thesis on housing in urbanplanning at UTSA and you know if
(21:33):
you want to talk about what youkind of studied there.
But also I am curious what isyour?
What, in your perspective, is asolution, or some solutions, to
the affordable housing crisis?
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Oh man yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I know it is hard, it is hard to answer.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Well, I'll go into the thesis stuff.
So yeah, I studied.
I got my master's recently,this year.
Yay, congratulations.
From UTSA and urban and regionalplanning and I did my thesis on
corporate landlords in SanAntonio and I basically studied
(22:16):
from 2018 through 2022, thegrowth and the characteristics
of corporate landlords in thecity.
I showed a.
Between 2018 and 2020 there waslike a.
There was a presence ofcorporate landlords in the city
already.
That kind of followed nationaltrends and then after 2020,
(22:39):
there was a statisticalsignificance of an increase of
their presence here.
With that said, they operate inboth realms of single family
and multi family and then alsolike inventory buildouts for,
(23:00):
for potential build to rentcommunities.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
And I'm glad you explained that, because you had
to explain it to me.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Yeah, yeah, build to rent community is a developer, a
home builder company will buildout, you know, a subdivision
and then just rent it out.
They don't sell the units, theydon't sell the houses to
individuals or anyone.
So they're the developer andproperty manager basically and
(23:34):
that's been happening over thepast couple of years where
you'll have a corporate landlordpartnering up with a home
builder and then you get thesebuild to rent communities that
are part of a bigger portfolioof a corporate landlord.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
And what kind of houses are these?
Are they?
Speaker 4 (23:54):
these are your basic single family home in San
Antonio specifically.
So all of the new subdivisionsare just blankets of land that
(24:16):
are being bought up on alldirections.
It's mostly I'm trying toremember the maps, the, I think,
far East side, like way outwhich would become part of the
metropolis, the SanAntonio-Austin metropolis.
Yeah, I mean this is all part ofthat migration point we were
(24:37):
making, like, yeah, with thedevelopment of UTSA a long time
ago and then with all thesehomes being built, there is like
a tying of Austin, san Antoniometropolis in the works,
basically.
But going back to the corporatelandlords, they do buy up land
(25:03):
around the west side to notinter-west side but far out west
side.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
And I'm sorry.
So are these like brand new,like?
Nice homes like KB homes ornice or whatever, but like yeah,
so that surprises me because,like I'm like, all these people
are homeowners but they're allrenting, or at least a lot of
them.
That's crazy.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Yeah.
To rent a big home.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Well it.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Also, it makes a little bit of sense, considering
this is a military city too.
I don't know that just like forme.
That's at least one point to itthat a lot of these.
That's true.
People are in and out of SanAntonio.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, so there's, there's that activity.
But then within San Antonioitself, you have landlord
corporate landlords buying uphomes across established
neighborhoods and in theanalysis I show that after 2020,
(26:09):
they specifically bought homesthat were in black and Hispanic
neighborhoods across the city oracross the county rather, and
within each census tract.
They bought homes that wereunder the median home price.
So they were targeting, likepoor black, hispanic
(26:36):
neighborhoods in the city.
I'm doing, I'm working ongetting that work published with
my advisor and another PhDstudent just to update this
analysis and get it moreprepared for a journal article,
and I think our goal is to getthis information verified and,
(26:58):
if it does, you know, get itinto the hands of like
affordability policy makers in.
Texas or in the city In the.
In the thesis I write a coupleof recommendations.
One recommendation isspecifically for targeting
(27:18):
affordability within the contextof a corporate landlord being a
renter from a corporatelandlord as to have like public
rental registries in the city,which is like if I'm a landlord,
I have to submit some kind ofdocument to the city that I'm
(27:41):
publicly renting out my unit ormy house and people can look
look up the property online andsee, like is who I'm going to be
potentially renting from,someone local or someone that's
just outside of the country oras part of a bigger firm.
(28:03):
Because and I go into the paperlike other trends that have
happened across the US, like inAtlanta, there's been findings
that corporate landlords evictat higher rates than your
typical mom and pop landlordsand evict more so black and
Hispanic people that they, youknow, will increase your rent
(28:29):
over 100% or something like that, something too unsustainable
for the renter.
That's one recommendation.
Another recommendation which isand these are these, both
recommendations like really gohard against, like the Texan
kind of political stance withbeing a rental registry you
(28:52):
don't, like there's an incentive, or I guess, for a landlord to
not know, for their informationto not be public.
Yeah and then the other one isto restrict the purchasing of
single family homes by corporateentities.
(29:14):
That's like a huge one that Idon't know will come to fruition
, just because that's like anencroachment on your, on
someone's rights to purchasesomething.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Because corporations are people according to right.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Yeah.
Yeah so the solution to theaffordable housing crisis.
I think there's.
It's so complex, like I'm stillso young and understanding and
and seeing what has what hashelped in other communities and
(29:54):
for San Antonio specifically,yeah, it's.
I don't really know like youcan build more housing, but then
you know you also have toconfound with, like, the bottom
line of the developer who has tomake the money from building it
and yeah, it's such a reallyhard, difficult thing.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, I'm really inspired to by listening to you
and having come up withsolutions, though, because we
and I were at the health equitysymposium yesterday, and me and
our last guest, rebecca, and oneof my other friends spoke at
the housing breakout session forit, and that was ultimately and
(30:40):
would you say kind of what itcame down to, for our session
was just like coming up withsolutions and speaking up like,
let me, tell you that, like youcoming up with that solution and
bringing it up places, bringingit up to council members
bringing up because, look,honestly, I've worked with and
(31:00):
against the city council andmayor and the departments for
six years now they're not smartLike they're really, like they
don't know about this, theydon't know about this stuff.
And so, when you go up with yourexpertise and say it, like they
really do take it in intoconsideration for policy and so,
(31:26):
so that's really powerful.
And then like yeah, so that wasmy point is that, like the end
of it was like just speaking upwith whatever expertise that you
have and for you, it's, youknow, this academic background,
with the data to prove it, whichyou know, data, just like means
everything for them, becausethen they have like the
(31:47):
information to be able toadvocate for it further.
And we'll say, though, that,like for me, like that's an
important role, that's animportant place.
For me, it's also about gettingthe people who are most
impacted to speak up.
Yesterday, I heard oh, I don'tthink you were there at the end
I heard from somebody that soMission Trials was a mobile home
(32:13):
park on the south side thatwhen they started redeveloping
the river, then this mobile homepark on the river got bought
out.
Everyone got displaced and theybuilt apartments on top of, but
there was a really big fightagainst it, and so there was
community members helpingorganize all of those mobile
(32:36):
home park tenants to bringawareness to it.
And had that not happened, whatI heard yesterday was that
there's this mobile home parkmore south that that was
potentially going to happen to,but instead the city was taking
bond money to help the tenantsbuy out the land so that they
(32:56):
will permanently own that mobilehome park.
That wouldn't have happenedwithout the Mission Trials
tenants speaking up, and sothat's just like how powerful it
is when you do use your voice,and so, yeah, I'd like to offer
that, that bringing that youknow you could just like call
your council member and be like,can I have a meeting with your
(33:17):
supervisor, the head of officeor whatever any any of your
staff and sit down with them andI just I can't express enough.
They really don't know.
They're so busy, they have somuch coming at them all the time
about exhaling in differentissues, that when you bring
information and put it intotheir minds is how I always see
it you put it in their mind andthen they repeat it back out on
(33:39):
the mic and it goes on to therecord, it gets into media, it
gets into more people's heads,like, and so it just it's really
that simple to make differencein policy.
And so, yeah, that is my, mefeeling inspired by you, coming
up with solutions.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
You're district one right.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
I am.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Okay, we have a long history of gentrification here
in San Antonio.
Yeah.
As do most major cities.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So yeah, I wanted to um, because when we came up with
this podcast idea, it was withthe water, um, kind of as the
focal point of it all and thesacredness of it, um, but also
as like concing consideration ofall of our guests.
(34:31):
There was a lot of like housingpeople, people with experience
in housing, and in my mind Ikind of kept being like how to
make the?
To me there's a connection,right, there's a direct
connection between the water,the land and housing today.
But I wasn't sure how to likesort of bring that connection
together because, like, as webring more guests on, I was like
(34:52):
, hmm, how do we like you knowit's this like mystical sacred
water podcast, but how do theselike housing activists come in?
So that it makes sense in mymind, but I didn't know how to
like articulate it or verbalizeit and I still don't think I do.
And I feel like you are justexemplifying all of that in that
(35:14):
your background, like yourfascination with the water and
history of this land and howthat relates to urban planning,
is is it possible for you to rearticulate what I'm trying to
say, like from your perspective?
Because, like, I still don'treally know, although you are
(35:36):
the epitome of it right now.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Oh, thank you very much.
You know, starting the projectand the collage work, it was so
separated from my research andinterest, like in in school,
that I had not tried to makethat connection.
The connection that I can, thatI am circling around in my head
(36:05):
right now is the, the notion oflike migration, people wanting
to live here, and I think I'llgo back to this concept of like
reverence for the land.
So to live here is to bereverent to and I guess this can
be applied everywhere acrossthe world but to be reverent to
(36:28):
the land that you're living on,but specifically in San Antonio,
to have reverence for thesacred waters, the, the, the
land itself here and whenthinking about, like
gentrification and the peoplewho have been displaced, they've
(36:48):
been removed from their homesor their homelands, in which
there should be an advocacy tobring them back or a way to get
them stay put, I don't take thestance that that, like I think,
(37:11):
gentrification happens.
There's there's no way tocompletely stop it, but there
are ways to stop the, thefastness of it happening.
And I think that's like.
That's like for me.
That's the issue that I wouldwant to tackle with housing is
like, if you are going to buildnew developments and have these
(37:38):
apartments be at market rates,have some of those units be for,
like, established residents,keep them at the same rate that
they're at, or and like have away to keep residents there for
(37:59):
as long as possible.
Yeah, it's a hard thing to like, say, and make the connection
between housing specifically,because also with housing here
or in the modern world, it'slike single-family homes or
apartments and not like homesthat have generations in them.
(38:26):
I know a lot of San Antoniansthat are from here or even just
have like a Mexican, hispanicbackground, where you do have
generations living in onehousehold.
And for, like, the newcomers,it's usually across across the
(38:47):
country that come in and wantnew single-family homes.
They want just a one home forone family and that can
contribute to sprawl.
And then that gets into likeenvironmental issues, of like
not being sustainable for theland itself, things like that.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
So I think there is like now I feel like I'm
swirling around the connectionthere has to be because we've
been, I've been so interested init and now that you have the
exact same interests in the landand the water and housing, I'm
like there's something about,you know, forming connections to
the land and recognizing theimportance of home, of like
(39:31):
having a place that's like,meaningful to you and honoring,
like you said, the sanctity ofit.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
I love that and you know we've you mentioned the
word before trauma, but it was adifferent kind of word.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Was it terra, trauma or something like that?
Speaker 4 (39:51):
It was geo trauma, geo trauma yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
And I really remembered when, when you used
that word and when you weretalking about that, because I
see the connection too is likean appreciation for the land's
journey.
You know the ever-changingjourney of the land and for so
(40:14):
many years, right, millions ofyears, it's gone through these
different traumas to to get tothat place.
Sort of like people who gethere, they go through all kinds
of trauma.
The journey to get here, youknow, and then so it.
There's got to be a reverenceand respect and acknowledgement
(40:39):
of that.
When you, when you go toceremony and take, take medicine
, eat peyote, which which I'vedone I didn't, I didn't, I don't
know if I didn't eat enough orsomething, but I I didn't have
too much of an experience inthat sort of a way, but what
(41:01):
I've heard is that theexperience really connects you
to the land like you really feelthat connection to the land in
a way where we disrespect it.
So, like you know, when I thinkof fracking how we're, we're
disrespecting the land and whatit's gone through, and here
(41:24):
we're just poking holes andextracting what took millions of
years to create and to getthere.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
I don't know, I don't know where I'm going with that,
but no, it's all like complexstuff, like we were saying in
the beginning, this concept of aspiral right and it's like it.
It it makes sense, but it's itis, it's systemic, and so you
can't bring a gizilliondifferent things that are
interconnected into a singlethought except, like through
(41:56):
this process right of justdiscussing it and making sense
of it while processing it yeah,I'll go into a little bit about
the project itself.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
So, yeah, the project itself is, is this whole
concept of a a reverence for theland and water, but also
because, like I'm not from Texas, I'm not from this land, and so
I've always been wanting tounderstand it, and for me it's
(42:33):
it's asking questions likewhat's here and why and what has
happened here.
And then I start to investigate,like I think of it like a
detective crime scene orsomething, and I start the, the
pinboard with, with geology,looking at the development of
the earth, the, a cosmologicaltrauma that formed the earth,
(42:57):
and then going into, like nativeknowledge on the cosmic and
origin stories of these watersand this land, of, of this part
of Texas.
And then another element of theof the project is like a
(43:19):
romantic thought, like old theromantics who would like look at
the sublime and nature to tryto recover like a lost self.
That was happening during theindustrial revolution.
And that's where this conceptof geotrauma comes in, which is,
instead of a sublime experience, where an exterior visual
(43:48):
account of the earth, or lookingat the earth and being like so
overwhelmed that your sensescan't comprehend what you're
seeing, that it's not anexterior and interior conflict,
but that the exterior struggleor the traumas of the earth are
(44:10):
within you as an organic beingon the inorganic earth, and that
you know the crust of the earthis like the only layer that has
life.
Everything underneath it islike this inorganic material,
that is, that, like overmillions of years, you get to
(44:36):
see the blossoms of what it'sproduced, those beautiful
minerals and rocks the graniteand granite and that, yeah, that
brings me to like enchantedrock, like that's going to be a
chapter in the book, which isit's a place where you can touch
the flesh of the sun's flesh,like when you think of the sun
(44:59):
like the formation of the earthis, like this protoplanetary
disk glob of sun ejection thatthen solidifies and then you
have this event of enchantedrock, where part of the magma is
trying to come through but thenit cools off too quickly and
(45:22):
the surrounding dirt and stuffover millions of years starts to
erode off and then now you cansee granite as this, like big
punch through the crust.
Wow, yeah that's amazing so.
So there is.
There is that like the, thepoint of passage into deep earth
(45:42):
and time, and for me, somethingthat'll bring up in the book or
this project is like thepassage of time too.
Um, I think, when it comes toreverence, um, I think things
(46:03):
like clocks or calendars andthings like that really put a
constraint on like how you livelife, like I mean, throughout
the week.
My work week it's just likefilled with meetings and
deadlines and tasks and stuff,but in the few weeks that I take
like a vacation to the FourCorners or something, and like
(46:26):
time slips, like I don't, I trynot to look at the clock and
time slips away, just to be likepresent and enjoy life in the
moment.
And with the confrontation oflike aquifers or deep geology,
you only understand it throughlike our understanding of clock
(46:50):
time, and so we understand likeminerals and rocks form over
millions of years, but for theearth it's just like it's just
happening, and so that's like apoint of the project that I want
to kind of flesh out.
And so there is like a conflictthere with with the modern
(47:15):
world of like not all time canhappen at once.
You can't have this like longperiod of of like deep time
that's happening and then alsohave like your miniature time of
, or I would say, likeadministrative time where, like
you have your second clock, doyou have your minute day
(47:36):
scheduled and still try to bereverent to the earth, and I
think there's a removal of theclock that might be necessary,
and just saying that itself,like removing the clock from the
(47:57):
modern world, is likecatastrophe for us.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Oh yeah, total chaos.
Yeah.
Yeah Well, I was going to asklike what kind of your big
vision and goal for when peoplepick up your book or when they
look at your Instagram, likewhat they get out of it, and
when you just said those words,the passage of deep earth and
time that just sort of like flewme took me into that zone of
(48:26):
what I feel like is like whereyou would desire people to be
able to go to like see thatreverence.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
Yeah, and you know I've not.
I wasn't grown up or brought upin this style of fashion, like
of having a connection with theearth.
You know I can.
I can view.
I used to view and enjoy thebeauty of nature and the planet
(48:54):
and stuff, but it wasn't untiljust a few years ago, like
having an actual reverence forit or how did you grow up?
Speaker 3 (49:02):
I know you are from Lawrence Kansas, but like so,
what was your experience?
Because you're surrounded bynature in.
Lawrence and.
Kansas Like, first of all, theweather.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
All four seasons and not just all four, but like the
rain, y'all have an abundance ofwater.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Yeah, I mean y'all go through droughts, don't get me
wrong, but like abundance ofwater, we spoke about the soil
and how it's not like ourKaleichi, you know, putting that
shovel in it goes all the way.
In the first time you put thatin the dirt.
So what was your experiencewith with nature?
Like out there, did you gofishing?
Speaker 4 (49:43):
No, I mean I.
So I grew up, I was in, I grewup in Kansas, I was three years
old and then we moved.
But I still visit.
I would still visit everysummer and winter for family?
Speaker 3 (49:57):
Where did you move to ?
Speaker 4 (49:59):
My dad was military so we moved to Seattle and then
to San Antonio and then toGermany and England and then we
came back to San Antonio.
But like nature growing up,yeah, we would like.
I remember being in Seattle asa young boy.
Bob Scout would do all theforests and stuff and walking,
(50:22):
and with my parents.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
Those are forests, yeah, those are beautiful
Washington State, yeah.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
And then don't really have too much memory of land
here when.
I was here as a young boy too.
I remember going to the caverns, that's.
that might be like an initiationto the book you know, seeing
the caverns and then in Germanyand England that was kind of a
(50:53):
form starting the formation of,like my interest of finding the
earth beautiful Because thereare there is so many trails and
public spaces to go through.
In England you have the rightto roam, so you can just you can
walk through a farmer's ranchor a farmer's farm, really, yeah
(51:15):
, what you know like signs, likeplastered everywhere, Like here
.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
I'm kidding.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
That's kind of surprising.
Yeah, In Germany.
What was your experience there?
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Where did you live?
We lived at the Ramstein base,not on the base, but we lived
near it and that's kind ofSouthwest Germany, close to the
French border and Belgian border.
But yeah, there there was somany beautiful trails.
(51:47):
I mean we lived in a littlevillage and the end of our
street cut through, or likethere was a small bumpy road
through some farmland and thenyou hit a trail like a paved
trail through the forest thatwas behind the village.
Nice, yeah, and I mean that waslike a huge introduction to
(52:15):
like or like a retouch with myyoung boy in Seattle and being
in love with the trees there,because there's really big trees
in Germany too.
And then coming here to this, toTexas, like I had like a
negative view of like the desert, I was like nothing's out here,
(52:38):
but yeah, and then just findingthat this land is actually
really, really beautiful.
West Texas is super beautiful.
This year I've like extended my, my understanding of the
Southwest, from El Paso andonwards, really liking Taos, new
(53:03):
Mexico, that place is beautiful, the Caldera out there is
amazing.
And then hitting up like MesaVerde, hove and Weep National
Monument, and then likePetrified Forest area, grand
Canyon, and just finding likeall of this place.
(53:24):
This place is like so beautifuland yeah, so like along that.
And then coming back into Texasafter these travels, I've
started to pick up the projectagain, finding that this area is
like super green in terms oflife and trees and stuff.
(53:45):
Like I don't know, when I firstmoved, when I first lived here,
I don't know, probably 10 plusyears ago, I always thought this
was like a deserty, kind of dryplace.
And then I come back and it'slike actually very, very green
when it when it is like a goodrainy season and yeah, there's
(54:10):
just so much life in this area.
That's amazing, it's so funny.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
I had the exact same experience when I lived in San
Antonio for college and thenleft for like 10 years and came
like I had that same exactvision.
I was like, oh, there's nothingthere.
It's like not even green at all.
It's South Texas, super deserty.
And then I came back and I waslike why?
Was I like.
Why did I have?
Speaker 4 (54:32):
that in my head.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
And especially like to go to the rivers.
I'm just when I am on thoserivers, just floating man like I
am, just like this is heaven.
This is pure, it's so green allaround me.
These trees are beautiful, thiswater is green even, but like
the pretty, you know river greenand it's just like I'm like
this is literal heaven here andit's like not like there's not
(54:56):
other parts of Texas that arelike this and like you can't in
Dallas you can't just go to 50different water spots within an
hour and a half of you.
We have so many differentplaces that you can just chill
in a river and it's so magical.
I was like I totally missed outon this somehow Last time I was
(55:17):
here and I guess because I wascoming back for good, like I
knew that I was like coming tosettle and with my family and
kids and stuff, and so I waslike, okay, like this is home
now Right Maybe that was it.
It was transitory before, andthis time I was like no, this is
home, and so I wanted to likedevelop that reverence.
And I certainly did and, youknow, had the same experience
(55:39):
too, where I was like there'ssomething special for this land.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Imagine the days when all the waterways here in San
Antonio were swimmable and clean, you know how heavenly they
will be, they will be againright.
But yeah, we're surrounded bywater but we can't like jump in
it.
But imagine if there wereswimming holes everywhere, like
in Austin or San Marcos andwe're just like going to Blue
Star and jumping in the riverthere or wherever you know like
(56:08):
yeah, we're surrounded by water,it's amazing and I wonder do
they teach you at all in urbanplanning how to clean the water?
Speaker 1 (56:19):
Is there any way To bring our river back?
Speaker 4 (56:24):
You know I think there I mean my track in the
urban planning program was justhousing.
I didn't really focus onanything else.
But I have good friends in theSan Antonio River Authority that
do take environmental stuffvery seriously and they're
(56:44):
really big advocates there andyeah, I mean, I think you just
there's like tons of stuff thatyou have to contend with, like
with the cleanliness of thewater in regards to like all the
stormwater drainage stuff picksup a lot of trash.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
Stronger regulation.
Like the zoo pours its trashwater into the river, yeah, ew.
Speaker 4 (57:11):
I know Sacred.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
They do it, they want , they do it, they want, they
land up sacred water and they'relike well, let's just trash it,
make it un-drinkable and thenswim-able.
And yeah, we I think we broughtthis up with Alicia, but we had
come across like a postcard ofsomebody in like the 20s who
sent it to a friend from SanAntonio and it was like the
(57:35):
rivers here are incredible.
You can walk all along at anyday of the year, it's the same
temperature and there's kids ofall colors and ages swimming
around like ducks in this river.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
From day to night.
Wow, that's what the littlepostcard said.
Yeah, that's heaven right.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yeah, and that was 100 years ago.
Yeah, what did we do?
Where did we go wrong?
I mean, I know, but nonetheless, yeah, actually, like I like to
end with that, what is yourvision for the city of San
(58:12):
Antonio as far as, like all ofyour information expertise goes?
If you could just like wake upin 20 years?
And it look exactly how youwant it to look, and people
recognizing everything that,like you've learned, and stuff.
What does that look like?
Speaker 4 (58:34):
Oh, man, that's.
You know I have a really hardtime with envisioning.
I just hope that, yeah, thatthings like the water systems
get back into a healthysituation where people can enjoy
the waters as they once wereused.
(58:55):
Yeah, yeah, because this place,I mean this whole area, should
be like overflowing with springs.
You should be able to just goget a bucket and drink from the
aquifers, or like even like Ijust passed the the album of the
other day and was reminded ofthe well, that's there.
(59:16):
All right, glad to have youwith me today.
Okay, like that should be stillopen and for the public to use.
There should.
I guess the Envisionment islike a severe Course correction
for development, for newdevelopment, basically like I
(59:44):
don't know what that looks like.
If that looks like completelystopping development now so that
in 20 years things clear up, orif that means building in
sustainable ways, or Both, orboth, you know, or just keep on
having these conversations andfigure it out as we go.
(01:00:06):
Okay, so your Instagram it'seaten up by the sea.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
He and up by the sea and is there anywhere else
people can find your work.
Speaker 4 (01:00:17):
Yeah, there's.
There's a link that I've madeon arena.
It's like a Platform where youcan put up projects and I've
started like a Link to get allmy resources in order.
I Kind of want that to be aliving document or like a living
(01:00:39):
link.
So I think over the next yearor so I'll be in there like
drafting up things, writingthings up, adding new resources,
things, all reference so that,like users themselves can get in
there, see what I'm workingwith and maybe Something from
(01:01:02):
what I'm working on or or writesomeone might take off with an
idea?
Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Yeah, that's great.
It's like I don't like publicparticipation of life.
Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Yeah we can all get involved with this, and then it
expands upon your work too yeah,and I mean just thinking now
like Going that route mightmight prove like helpful to open
it up like yeah.
Make it be a communal book oror a public book or something
(01:01:34):
that Contributes.
Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
There should be.
I want to decide it's gonna goyeah we have cool sounds on our
sound board.
Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
We haven't figured out how to use yet cool, but
yeah, so that's you know.
Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
That's what I appreciate about your work is
like it brought in thisdifferent, new perspective of
what we're looking at andreminded me of the images with
the maps and the, the codeximages, because back then we had
(01:02:14):
an understanding of earth as weexperienced it physically.
We walked everywhere, you know,and so like we were talking
about the white shaman mural andhow it's.
It's a map, but things depictedon there Don't show things in
Distance and space.
That that we think in our mindsback back then.
(01:02:34):
You know it's describingtextures of the land and that
sort of a thing.
So it looks different, or or itmight be a shorter distance, but
it's got the texture, you know,and so you know, and then you
have.
You don't have to be out in theocean to use the skies to
navigate you know, so you knowthey were.
(01:02:56):
They had an understanding notonly of that, and then also the
resources they're eating asthey're migrating around, and so
you have this um Digestivehistory in your mind to of the
land you know, so you rememberthat spot has this certain food,
and in your mind you're makingthe connection of why those
(01:03:17):
foods are only found in the hillcountry or by the shore, or
that sort of a thing.
So like that.
I really appreciate that, theperspective that you brought and
not for me.
Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
That food pot especially brings up the time.
Like you know, create.
We create our own time rightnow and when you have to live
where you, you, you have tolearn the land and like what
grows and when to grow and stuff.
You're like, your time isconnected to the land, you know.
You know that one certain planswhere it certain berries start
Growing, that it's like thistime of year, that's that's
(01:03:55):
totally connected to the earthand not some like calendar Right
, that has been just like kindof given to you.
Yeah, that's quite like that.
Yeah, it's very.
Speaker 4 (01:04:07):
Yeah, like the in terms of like going back to the
maps and time, like these aresystems of like striation.
Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
What does that mean?
Striation is like.
Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
I think it means like like lines or or layers, or
like a like a grid system kindof thing, that's like placed
upon something that doesn't havethat kind of Dividing up like
like a topo map yeah.
Yeah, topo maps or or just anykind of map itself.
(01:04:40):
Yeah, I can go into maps tolike, so bring you back for maps
.
Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
The maps episode.
Okay.
Yeah, thank you so much Thankyou.
I'm so glad, thank you.
That's I'm you and Angelaconnected, yeah, and then we got
to bring your perspectiveespecially early on, because it
is such a important Part of ourpuzzle that we're kind of trying
to put together here.
Cosmic water podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:05:14):
Yeah, I love that the .
I Think that's why I hadn'treached out was because of the
name.
Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Oh, Okay, it was cosmic water.
Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
Something that I was yeah, writing up about thinking
through.
Yeah, on point, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Well, thank you so much and hopefully you'll be
back for sure, thank youAppreciate it, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Oh.
As the cosmos connects the universe, water
connects life.
At the Cosmic Water Podcast,we're exploring the history,
mythology and future of thesacred land known as San Antonio
.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Well, welcome to another episode of Cosmic Water
Podcast.
I'm Angela, I'm Maureen and wehave Luis Escalante with us.
So glad to have you here, thankyou.
Thank you A planner with anarchitect firm, but what I
thought was so interesting waslooking at your artwork, your
collages that you have onInstagram.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
And so I guess, go ahead if you want to talk about
the collages, because that's theinitial connection that I like.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Yeah, for sure.
The account is called Eatin' Upby the Sea on Instagram and
it's I think I had mentioned toyou and messages saying that the
collages on there are just kindof introductory thinking ways,
(01:15):
like a design thinking way forthis book project I have, and
the collages show a lot of maps,geological maps of Texas and
the fault zone, the Bacconi'sfault zone, overlaid with images
(01:35):
of like native art or images,hydrology maps too, kind of
focusing specifically along thelike aquifers and overlaying
images of like seashells thatyou'll find in Texas,
(01:58):
specifically in like the HillCountry area, and all of these
collages kind of have a hyperfocus on one specific aspect of
all these things.
So I have a collage that'sfocusing on oil and fossils on
West Texas and then I haveanother one that's got a map of
(02:20):
like Highway 35 going acrossTexas and then having it
overlaid with images ofseashells.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
All of this is showing how the ocean just like
used to go, I guess, in like itwas in West Texas the coastline,
and then it just like moved.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Yeah, yeah, so a long time ago, about 500 million
years ago, the sea was in thenorthern part of Texas northern
and western Texas and thensometime between there and 200
million years ago the Bacconi'shad an uplift or a fault and
(03:00):
there were multiple differentbreakings of the earth where you
then had a reverse.
So then West Texas, northernTexas, became higher than the
Gulf area and the sea kind ofreceded into the Gulf and then
from there you have thisoscillating shoreline that kind
(03:20):
of went back and forth across.
Yeah, the Bacconi's escarpmentis basically like this.
You can think of that as likethe shoreline oscillation.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, and so the Bacconi's escarpment?
Yeah, like what and where?
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Yeah, so it starts like, I want to say, mccallan
and it's like a wide band and itgoes all the way up through
Waco and this whole band itmight go past.
Waco is just kind of ageological like uplift or a
(04:02):
fault line, almost like anancient fault line that became
active over those hundreds ofmillions of years ago.
And yeah, and what you see nowtoday is like all of the Texas's
big cities are along thisescarpment and I always thought
that was an interesting thing,because it's like you have ocean
(04:25):
life for millions of years herein this huge band of Texas and
it dies off as the sea recedesinto the Gulf.
And then you have people,natives, coming in and settling
in the area, finding that thisarea is very holy and filled
(04:45):
with tons of water, and theSpanish come through.
They find this area to be veryresourceful.
There's some trauma with thatcoming into the new world and
then, yeah, like this thenbecomes still like a huge basis
(05:06):
for life, for organic life, yeah, yeah.
So then you just have, then youhave the modern world now so to
deal with.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
I was looking at all the or several of those pictures
anyway, and your curriculumcame across right and I noticed
that, so I know exactly whatyou're talking about now.
The balconies, I guess thatit's called, and it has the four
springs.
Yeah.
And that's where like so.
(05:39):
So it seems like for a long,was it for a long time?
The ocean coast or the GulfCoast was like right there.
Yeah where those springs are.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Yeah, so those springs were, as I understand
were made as the escarpment wasuplifting and there were other
many different lifts and likethe earth was sharing across
itself.
So what you would have had waslike a solid piece of earth and
(06:14):
then, as this fault line wasbeing reawoken or something like
that, you have these pocketsthat ended up being developed
over millions of years and withholes from the crust of the
earth, the rain would fall intothose areas and like start to
fill up and those became thesprings, and that's as far as
(06:35):
like I can give like a veryrough and filling up the aquifer
.
Yeah, and that's how theaquifers are made too.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, that's what I read once about like an aquifer.
Maybe it was in Kansas actually, which is where you're from
right.
I think, what is there anaquifer there?
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I'm not really versed on Kansas geology.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
There was a.
There was an aquifer somewherein that like I don't know either
central or mid east part of thecountry, but I was reading
about how all of the water inthere and I guess this is true
for all aquifers, but it wasthis one specific I was reading
about was that all of the waterin there is from rainwater from
potentially millions of yearsago.
(07:14):
Yeah, I just thought that wasfascinating, and so the Edwards
aquifer would be the same, whichis the aquifer under us.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So when we're drinking our water from the
aquifer, because it rainwaterYeah- basically rainwater.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
But we've.
But this is the issue with likethe modern world and our whole
development across this land,because it's not just Edwards,
there's Carrizo, there's BartonSprings.
We've used up like like wedrain the Edwards aquifer pretty
heavily, like just for drinkingwater.
(07:52):
So when it does rain we'rereally like happy and that's why
you see like on the newschannel they're like reporting
it every day.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah it went up an inch or whatever.
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
And so, yeah, so that's like the the beginnings
of this Instagram account is isto kind of visually have a
framework or some kind ofprecedent for the book which
kind of will go over likespecific stuff and like the
(08:27):
formation of the earth,formation of Texas.
But yeah, the collages aresuper fun to make.
I do like research while I'mmaking the collage, so it's like
a process of reading some kindof dense geological material and
then trying to translate thatinto something visual.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
And it does translate because I understood it.
You know, like I didn't, Ididn't know you or we didn't,
you know, but like I was likelooking at this and like this
guy he's, he's researching thestuff that we're talking about
you know, just by looking at theart.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So yeah, so we had an hour to guess to go In our
second episode guests who spokeabout those springs, those four
springs and their placement onrock wall, rock mural art, what
is it called?
Speaker 4 (09:20):
a white shaman.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yes, on the white shaman mural.
Is that something that you werefamiliar with?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
No, no, I met Angie earlier this week and she had
mentioned it to me and I'm goingto probably go see it later
this month or next month.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
What's it seeing it mean for you, like all the
research that you've done andthe you know coastline being on
those four springs?
What's it like when you heardthat it was like on this art
from what?
How many years?
1000 years ago, was the white?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
shaman mural.
I don't even know.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I think they're saying right now, I don't
remember, I think 2000, butthere's an argument there's an
argument about that.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
A lot older than that , yeah, and that it was an
ancient, like you said, sacredholy water place where
indigenous people from all over,yeah, yeah, and so, yeah,
that's what bringing that bringtogether some of the stuff that
you had been learning.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
It really did like because I was mentioning to
Angie like there was in thecollages you'll see kind of
glimpses of native art ordepictions of reverence, of like
like I took some, some imagesfrom an old codex that a Spanish
(10:41):
priest did that was studying, Ithink, my ends and because I
didn't know of any specifichyper local art like that or
like old art like that.
But I would overlay images ofwhat was depicted was like my
end and a spring source and Iwould like overlay that with
(11:03):
some of the collage maps to kindof indicate like there is this
presence of native people in thearea and that I was wanting to
get more into like understandingorigin stories in this area or
in this land and then being toldabout white shaman.
It like very clearly shows thatlike this is obviously like
(11:28):
there is a history of an originstory.
And that, like native people,knew of this entire escarpment
basically, and had, as far as Iunderstand, the the white shaman
murals depict like almost likea map, and then the springs, all
(11:49):
of Texas basically.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
And yeah, and for those who aren't familiar with
the springs that we're talkingabout, it's in San Antonio, with
new Bronfills, san Marcos andAustin, which you said to you
mentioned, and I never eventhought about that all along.
I 35.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And so does it keep as the escarpment.
Now that I know that that's thename for it, does that keep
going up?
I 35 past Austin.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Yeah, it goes all the way through Waco Pam, like
towards Dallas.
I don't know if 35 maps it, butit is an odd coincidence, you
know, like such a moderninvention of the highway is like
overlaying this beautiful watersource.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I guess that I've also heard that there's like a
sort of ring, that it continuesin a circle west from Waco and
then goes into West Texas wherethere's other springs, because
there's spring all over yeah.
A lot of them are dried out,though, and then it comes down
(12:58):
before you get to like the aridwest Texas, and then down and
scoops down into Del Rio, backup again.
I think maybe Gary might haveshown that or something at one
point, but I'm I really.
I also really like the how wewere talking about earlier the
(13:23):
migratory sort of connection ofhumans and following these
waters and.
So how do you see that?
I don't know, I guess, asbecause you studied urban
planning, is that correct.
How do you connect these sortsof ideas or whatever with what
you're doing now, or maybe justhow people move now?
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Yeah, I think the usage of maps is certainly
embedded within the field ofurban planning.
So that's kind of like why themaps or why the collages show a
lot of maps is because of, like,my schooling we learned how to
(14:11):
make maps.
I knew where to find publicdata and stuff like that to make
maps and stuff.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
And do you, when you think of land, do you think like
that?
Do you in your mind?
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Yeah, you know there is like a top-down view of, like
, I think of you know, thisstretch of highway that runs
through San Antonio or aroundSan Antonio, or, yeah, like
state boundary lines.
But then also, what I'm tryingto also learn is also a non-map,
like a non-territorialunderstanding of the land, which
(14:46):
is like something not a lot ofpeople do or even know that you
can understand the land withouta piece of paper or your Google
Maps, and I think that's alsoreally interesting about White
Shaman is, I think some of thedepictions show the land just
(15:07):
drawn out as a drawing insteadof you know, this spring is, you
know, 10 miles to the east ofthe city, or, you know, is north
due north, or something.
But in terms of the planningand migration, I think that is
(15:30):
something I do wanna address inthe project or try to wrangle
with, because, yeah, this area,san Antonio, austin is slated to
be like a huge migrant, liketons of people are gonna be
moving into the area.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Wait, finish.
You were about to say migrant.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Like migration into this area?
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, I never saw it that way.
Yeah, this huge metropolis thatthey have planned and it is
people migrating here?
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Yeah, and that, and you know there's also the need
for reverence for the land andfor the aquifers, and if the
people that are coming in andwe're not able to sustain like
(16:22):
their presence here, then youknow we're gonna be causing a
lot of destruction and trauma tothe land itself.
So then it becomes it mightpossibly become like a site for
trauma in terms of landresources.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
In your studies at UTSA.
Did they talk about how SanAntonio because you know what's
unique and interesting about theway San Antonio developed is
that downtown is not in thecenter of the city, right, it's
like real low south, because inthe 1970s, late 70s and 80s they
(17:02):
developed so much on thenorthern side.
Did they talk about like therewas a really big fight to not
develop on the north sidebecause of it being right over
this sensitive part of theaquifer, which I think I saw in
one of your something on one ofyour sites?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Yeah, I'm not sure if I remember learning about that,
but that's something I mean Icould definitely see how that
can be like super influential onthe development of the city.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yeah, that was a big deal.
I forgot when it was, maybewhen I was a teenager about the
PGA building a really big golfcourse on the north side.
That was over the aquifer, ofcourse.
Since then they've developedthat whole like you know,
outside 1604, northwest part.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Oh, that far north I kept thinking of.
Like San Pedro north.
Oh, closer in.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Oh, no, no, no, yeah, I'm talking about like, because
, like, UTSA was built in 1978and the reason UTSA was built is
because there's no publicschools in San Antonio and so
they're like, you know, we needa public edu, um university.
And then it was a bigcontroversy because they built
it so far north and when it wasbuilt in 1978, 78 or 76, I think
78, um, it was farmland.
(18:24):
Yeah.
It was all farmland out thereand it was real controversial
because they were like, okay,well, how are all of the you
know people who need aneducation down here on the south
and west and east sides, howare they supposed to get up
there?
But it was really just aboutopening up the development
pathway to the north side.
(18:45):
So that was only what 40something years ago, yeah.
And now look at right, it wasfarmland and it is so developed,
highly developed and even youknow way farther and continuing
to go further.
So, yeah, they were reallytrying to not develop that land
at all because of how sensitiveit is over the aquifer.
(19:07):
Maria Barriosabel, she was acouncil woman at the time of a
lot of those fights and shefought really hard and was
sometimes like the only person,the only council member, to vote
no on a lot of those projects,and so she did a lot of work
trying to protect the aquifer.
She had said to me once that itwas.
(19:29):
It's one of the last freshwater, large fresh water sources
in the entire world.
Wow yeah.
Which makes me nervous about,like why is Elon Musk so
obsessed with Austin?
San Antonio yeah, he wanted tobuild a subway underneath, from
(19:50):
downtown to the airport andthat's all like.
That's where the first springis, where the San Antonio River
starts, that's where that springis.
I'm like what?
What does he know?
Is what, I wonder.
He's just lazy and he don'twant to see us.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
He just wants to be able to go downtown and not like
I don't know, but it's funnyhow the gentrification continued
throughout the years, causewhen they were taking away
mobile home neighborhoods in theSouth side, they were doing the
same out there near UTSA,because there were still mobile
(20:29):
home neighborhoods with familiesand a freaking pet cemetery
that they just like bulldozedthrough.
You mean recently.
This was like yeah, within thepast, like 10 years.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I guess, oh yeah, it's grown so much by UTSA I
said that yesterday when I spokeat the Health Equity Forum is
that when I went to UTSA I couldpay my rent $500 one bedroom
easily by waitressing, like Icould get by by myself.
That's like.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Kansas prices.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, now I looked up that unit and it's $1,200 right
now.
I'm like that is an over, a100% rent increase.
It is so unsustainable.
How are you going to go toschool how?
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Pull that off.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
I do wonder that, and I'm concerned about that for my
kids.
Urban planner Louise, what doyou think?
How do we like?
Okay, yeah, because let's talkabout that too, how you did your
thesis on housing in urbanplanning at UTSA and you know if
(21:33):
you want to talk about what youkind of studied there.
But also I am curious what isyour?
What, in your perspective, is asolution, or some solutions, to
the affordable housing crisis?
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Oh man yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I know it is hard, it is hard to answer.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Well, I'll go into the thesis stuff.
So yeah, I studied.
I got my master's recently,this year.
Yay, congratulations.
From UTSA and urban and regionalplanning and I did my thesis on
corporate landlords in SanAntonio and I basically studied
(22:16):
from 2018 through 2022, thegrowth and the characteristics
of corporate landlords in thecity.
I showed a.
Between 2018 and 2020 there waslike a.
There was a presence ofcorporate landlords in the city
already.
That kind of followed nationaltrends and then after 2020,
(22:39):
there was a statisticalsignificance of an increase of
their presence here.
With that said, they operate inboth realms of single family
and multi family and then alsolike inventory buildouts for,
(23:00):
for potential build to rentcommunities.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
And I'm glad you explained that, because you had
to explain it to me.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
Yeah, yeah, build to rent community is a developer, a
home builder company will buildout, you know, a subdivision
and then just rent it out.
They don't sell the units, theydon't sell the houses to
individuals or anyone.
So they're the developer andproperty manager basically and
(23:34):
that's been happening over thepast couple of years where
you'll have a corporate landlordpartnering up with a home
builder and then you get thesebuild to rent communities that
are part of a bigger portfolioof a corporate landlord.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
And what kind of houses are these?
Are they?
Speaker 4 (23:54):
these are your basic single family home in San
Antonio specifically.
So all of the new subdivisionsare just blankets of land that
(24:16):
are being bought up on alldirections.
It's mostly I'm trying toremember the maps, the, I think,
far East side, like way outwhich would become part of the
metropolis, the SanAntonio-Austin metropolis.
Yeah, I mean this is all part ofthat migration point we were
(24:37):
making, like, yeah, with thedevelopment of UTSA a long time
ago and then with all thesehomes being built, there is like
a tying of Austin, san Antoniometropolis in the works,
basically.
But going back to the corporatelandlords, they do buy up land
(25:03):
around the west side to notinter-west side but far out west
side.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
And I'm sorry.
So are these like brand new,like?
Nice homes like KB homes ornice or whatever, but like yeah,
so that surprises me because,like I'm like, all these people
are homeowners but they're allrenting, or at least a lot of
them.
That's crazy.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Yeah.
To rent a big home.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Well it.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Also, it makes a little bit of sense, considering
this is a military city too.
I don't know that just like forme.
That's at least one point to itthat a lot of these.
That's true.
People are in and out of SanAntonio.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, so there's, there's that activity.
But then within San Antonioitself, you have landlord
corporate landlords buying uphomes across established
neighborhoods and in theanalysis I show that after 2020,
(26:09):
they specifically bought homesthat were in black and Hispanic
neighborhoods across the city oracross the county rather, and
within each census tract.
They bought homes that wereunder the median home price.
So they were targeting, likepoor black, hispanic
(26:36):
neighborhoods in the city.
I'm doing, I'm working ongetting that work published with
my advisor and another PhDstudent just to update this
analysis and get it moreprepared for a journal article,
and I think our goal is to getthis information verified and,
(26:58):
if it does, you know, get itinto the hands of like
affordability policy makers in.
Texas or in the city In the.
In the thesis I write a coupleof recommendations.
One recommendation isspecifically for targeting
(27:18):
affordability within the contextof a corporate landlord being a
renter from a corporatelandlord as to have like public
rental registries in the city,which is like if I'm a landlord,
I have to submit some kind ofdocument to the city that I'm
(27:41):
publicly renting out my unit ormy house and people can look
look up the property online andsee, like is who I'm going to be
potentially renting from,someone local or someone that's
just outside of the country oras part of a bigger firm.
(28:03):
Because and I go into the paperlike other trends that have
happened across the US, like inAtlanta, there's been findings
that corporate landlords evictat higher rates than your
typical mom and pop landlordsand evict more so black and
Hispanic people that they, youknow, will increase your rent
(28:29):
over 100% or something like that, something too unsustainable
for the renter.
That's one recommendation.
Another recommendation which isand these are these, both
recommendations like really gohard against, like the Texan
kind of political stance withbeing a rental registry you
(28:52):
don't, like there's an incentive, or I guess, for a landlord to
not know, for their informationto not be public.
Yeah and then the other one isto restrict the purchasing of
single family homes by corporateentities.
(29:14):
That's like a huge one that Idon't know will come to fruition
, just because that's like anencroachment on your, on
someone's rights to purchasesomething.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Because corporations are people according to right.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Yeah.
Yeah so the solution to theaffordable housing crisis.
I think there's.
It's so complex, like I'm stillso young and understanding and
and seeing what has what hashelped in other communities and
(29:54):
for San Antonio specifically,yeah, it's.
I don't really know like youcan build more housing, but then
you know you also have toconfound with, like, the bottom
line of the developer who has tomake the money from building it
and yeah, it's such a reallyhard, difficult thing.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, I'm really inspired to by listening to you
and having come up withsolutions, though, because we
and I were at the health equitysymposium yesterday, and me and
our last guest, rebecca, and oneof my other friends spoke at
the housing breakout session forit, and that was ultimately and
(30:40):
would you say kind of what itcame down to, for our session
was just like coming up withsolutions and speaking up like,
let me, tell you that, like youcoming up with that solution and
bringing it up places, bringingit up to council members
bringing up because, look,honestly, I've worked with and
(31:00):
against the city council andmayor and the departments for
six years now they're not smartLike they're really, like they
don't know about this, theydon't know about this stuff.
And so, when you go up with yourexpertise and say it, like they
really do take it in intoconsideration for policy and so,
(31:26):
so that's really powerful.
And then like yeah, so that wasmy point is that, like the end
of it was like just speaking upwith whatever expertise that you
have and for you, it's, youknow, this academic background,
with the data to prove it, whichyou know, data, just like means
everything for them, becausethen they have like the
(31:47):
information to be able toadvocate for it further.
And we'll say, though, that,like for me, like that's an
important role, that's animportant place.
For me, it's also about gettingthe people who are most
impacted to speak up.
Yesterday, I heard oh, I don'tthink you were there at the end
I heard from somebody that soMission Trials was a mobile home
(32:13):
park on the south side thatwhen they started redeveloping
the river, then this mobile homepark on the river got bought
out.
Everyone got displaced and theybuilt apartments on top of, but
there was a really big fightagainst it, and so there was
community members helpingorganize all of those mobile
(32:36):
home park tenants to bringawareness to it.
And had that not happened, whatI heard yesterday was that
there's this mobile home parkmore south that that was
potentially going to happen to,but instead the city was taking
bond money to help the tenantsbuy out the land so that they
(32:56):
will permanently own that mobilehome park.
That wouldn't have happenedwithout the Mission Trials
tenants speaking up, and sothat's just like how powerful it
is when you do use your voice,and so, yeah, I'd like to offer
that, that bringing that youknow you could just like call
your council member and be like,can I have a meeting with your
(33:17):
supervisor, the head of officeor whatever any any of your
staff and sit down with them andI just I can't express enough.
They really don't know.
They're so busy, they have somuch coming at them all the time
about exhaling in differentissues, that when you bring
information and put it intotheir minds is how I always see
it you put it in their mind andthen they repeat it back out on
(33:39):
the mic and it goes on to therecord, it gets into media, it
gets into more people's heads,like, and so it just it's really
that simple to make differencein policy.
And so, yeah, that is my, mefeeling inspired by you, coming
up with solutions.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
You're district one right.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
I am.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Okay, we have a long history of gentrification here
in San Antonio.
Yeah.
As do most major cities.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So yeah, I wanted to um, because when we came up with
this podcast idea, it was withthe water, um, kind of as the
focal point of it all and thesacredness of it, um, but also
as like concing consideration ofall of our guests.
(34:31):
There was a lot of like housingpeople, people with experience
in housing, and in my mind Ikind of kept being like how to
make the?
To me there's a connection,right, there's a direct
connection between the water,the land and housing today.
But I wasn't sure how to likesort of bring that connection
together because, like, as webring more guests on, I was like
(34:52):
, hmm, how do we like you knowit's this like mystical sacred
water podcast, but how do theselike housing activists come in?
So that it makes sense in mymind, but I didn't know how to
like articulate it or verbalizeit and I still don't think I do.
And I feel like you are justexemplifying all of that in that
(35:14):
your background, like yourfascination with the water and
history of this land and howthat relates to urban planning,
is is it possible for you to rearticulate what I'm trying to
say, like from your perspective?
Because, like, I still don'treally know, although you are
(35:36):
the epitome of it right now.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Oh, thank you very much.
You know, starting the projectand the collage work, it was so
separated from my research andinterest, like in in school,
that I had not tried to makethat connection.
The connection that I can, thatI am circling around in my head
(36:05):
right now is the, the notion oflike migration, people wanting
to live here, and I think I'llgo back to this concept of like
reverence for the land.
So to live here is to bereverent to and I guess this can
be applied everywhere acrossthe world but to be reverent to
(36:28):
the land that you're living on,but specifically in San Antonio,
to have reverence for thesacred waters, the, the, the
land itself here and whenthinking about, like
gentrification and the peoplewho have been displaced, they've
(36:48):
been removed from their homesor their homelands, in which
there should be an advocacy tobring them back or a way to get
them stay put, I don't take thestance that that, like I think,
(37:11):
gentrification happens.
There's there's no way tocompletely stop it, but there
are ways to stop the, thefastness of it happening.
And I think that's like.
That's like for me.
That's the issue that I wouldwant to tackle with housing is
like, if you are going to buildnew developments and have these
(37:38):
apartments be at market rates,have some of those units be for,
like, established residents,keep them at the same rate that
they're at, or and like have away to keep residents there for
(37:59):
as long as possible.
Yeah, it's a hard thing to like, say, and make the connection
between housing specifically,because also with housing here
or in the modern world, it'slike single-family homes or
apartments and not like homesthat have generations in them.
(38:26):
I know a lot of San Antoniansthat are from here or even just
have like a Mexican, hispanicbackground, where you do have
generations living in onehousehold.
And for, like, the newcomers,it's usually across across the
(38:47):
country that come in and wantnew single-family homes.
They want just a one home forone family and that can
contribute to sprawl.
And then that gets into likeenvironmental issues, of like
not being sustainable for theland itself, things like that.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
So I think there is like now I feel like I'm
swirling around the connectionthere has to be because we've
been, I've been so interested init and now that you have the
exact same interests in the landand the water and housing, I'm
like there's something about,you know, forming connections to
the land and recognizing theimportance of home, of like
(39:31):
having a place that's like,meaningful to you and honoring,
like you said, the sanctity ofit.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
I love that and you know we've you mentioned the
word before trauma, but it was adifferent kind of word.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Was it terra, trauma or something like that?
Speaker 4 (39:51):
It was geo trauma, geo trauma yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
And I really remembered when, when you used
that word and when you weretalking about that, because I
see the connection too is likean appreciation for the land's
journey.
You know the ever-changingjourney of the land and for so
(40:14):
many years, right, millions ofyears, it's gone through these
different traumas to to get tothat place.
Sort of like people who gethere, they go through all kinds
of trauma.
The journey to get here, youknow, and then so it.
There's got to be a reverenceand respect and acknowledgement
(40:39):
of that.
When you, when you go toceremony and take, take medicine
, eat peyote, which which I'vedone I didn't, I didn't, I don't
know if I didn't eat enough orsomething, but I I didn't have
too much of an experience inthat sort of a way, but what
(41:01):
I've heard is that theexperience really connects you
to the land like you really feelthat connection to the land in
a way where we disrespect it.
So, like you know, when I thinkof fracking how we're, we're
disrespecting the land and whatit's gone through, and here
(41:24):
we're just poking holes andextracting what took millions of
years to create and to getthere.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
I don't know, I don't know where I'm going with that,
but no, it's all like complexstuff, like we were saying in
the beginning, this concept of aspiral right and it's like it.
It it makes sense, but it's itis, it's systemic, and so you
can't bring a gizilliondifferent things that are
interconnected into a singlethought except, like through
(41:56):
this process right of justdiscussing it and making sense
of it while processing it yeah,I'll go into a little bit about
the project itself.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
So, yeah, the project itself is, is this whole
concept of a a reverence for theland and water, but also
because, like I'm not from Texas, I'm not from this land, and so
I've always been wanting tounderstand it, and for me it's
(42:33):
it's asking questions likewhat's here and why and what has
happened here.
And then I start to investigate,like I think of it like a
detective crime scene orsomething, and I start the, the
pinboard with, with geology,looking at the development of
the earth, the, a cosmologicaltrauma that formed the earth,
(42:57):
and then going into, like nativeknowledge on the cosmic and
origin stories of these watersand this land, of, of this part
of Texas.
And then another element of theof the project is like a
(43:19):
romantic thought, like old theromantics who would like look at
the sublime and nature to tryto recover like a lost self.
That was happening during theindustrial revolution.
And that's where this conceptof geotrauma comes in, which is,
instead of a sublime experience, where an exterior visual
(43:48):
account of the earth, or lookingat the earth and being like so
overwhelmed that your sensescan't comprehend what you're
seeing, that it's not anexterior and interior conflict,
but that the exterior struggleor the traumas of the earth are
(44:10):
within you as an organic beingon the inorganic earth, and that
you know the crust of the earthis like the only layer that has
life.
Everything underneath it islike this inorganic material,
that is, that, like overmillions of years, you get to
(44:36):
see the blossoms of what it'sproduced, those beautiful
minerals and rocks the graniteand granite and that, yeah, that
brings me to like enchantedrock, like that's going to be a
chapter in the book, which isit's a place where you can touch
the flesh of the sun's flesh,like when you think of the sun
(44:59):
like the formation of the earthis, like this protoplanetary
disk glob of sun ejection thatthen solidifies and then you
have this event of enchantedrock, where part of the magma is
trying to come through but thenit cools off too quickly and
(45:22):
the surrounding dirt and stuffover millions of years starts to
erode off and then now you cansee granite as this, like big
punch through the crust.
Wow, yeah that's amazing so.
So there is.
There is that like the, thepoint of passage into deep earth
(45:42):
and time, and for me, somethingthat'll bring up in the book or
this project is like thepassage of time too.
Um, I think, when it comes toreverence, um, I think things
(46:03):
like clocks or calendars andthings like that really put a
constraint on like how you livelife, like I mean, throughout
the week.
My work week it's just likefilled with meetings and
deadlines and tasks and stuff,but in the few weeks that I take
like a vacation to the FourCorners or something, and like
(46:26):
time slips, like I don't, I trynot to look at the clock and
time slips away, just to be likepresent and enjoy life in the
moment.
And with the confrontation oflike aquifers or deep geology,
you only understand it throughlike our understanding of clock
(46:50):
time, and so we understand likeminerals and rocks form over
millions of years, but for theearth it's just like it's just
happening, and so that's like apoint of the project that I want
to kind of flesh out.
And so there is like a conflictthere with with the modern
(47:15):
world of like not all time canhappen at once.
You can't have this like longperiod of of like deep time
that's happening and then alsohave like your miniature time of
, or I would say, likeadministrative time where, like
you have your second clock, doyou have your minute day
(47:36):
scheduled and still try to bereverent to the earth, and I
think there's a removal of theclock that might be necessary,
and just saying that itself,like removing the clock from the
(47:57):
modern world, is likecatastrophe for us.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Oh yeah, total chaos.
Yeah.
Yeah Well, I was going to asklike what kind of your big
vision and goal for when peoplepick up your book or when they
look at your Instagram, likewhat they get out of it, and
when you just said those words,the passage of deep earth and
time that just sort of like flewme took me into that zone of
(48:26):
what I feel like is like whereyou would desire people to be
able to go to like see thatreverence.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
Yeah, and you know I've not.
I wasn't grown up or brought upin this style of fashion, like
of having a connection with theearth.
You know I can.
I can view.
I used to view and enjoy thebeauty of nature and the planet
(48:54):
and stuff, but it wasn't untiljust a few years ago, like
having an actual reverence forit or how did you grow up?
Speaker 3 (49:02):
I know you are from Lawrence Kansas, but like so,
what was your experience?
Because you're surrounded bynature in.
Lawrence and.
Kansas Like, first of all, theweather.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
All four seasons and not just all four, but like the
rain, y'all have an abundance ofwater.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Yeah, I mean y'all go through droughts, don't get me
wrong, but like abundance ofwater, we spoke about the soil
and how it's not like ourKaleichi, you know, putting that
shovel in it goes all the way.
In the first time you put thatin the dirt.
So what was your experiencewith with nature?
Like out there, did you gofishing?
Speaker 4 (49:43):
No, I mean I.
So I grew up, I was in, I grewup in Kansas, I was three years
old and then we moved.
But I still visit.
I would still visit everysummer and winter for family?
Speaker 3 (49:57):
Where did you move to ?
Speaker 4 (49:59):
My dad was military so we moved to Seattle and then
to San Antonio and then toGermany and England and then we
came back to San Antonio.
But like nature growing up,yeah, we would like.
I remember being in Seattle asa young boy.
Bob Scout would do all theforests and stuff and walking,
(50:22):
and with my parents.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
Those are forests, yeah, those are beautiful
Washington State, yeah.
Speaker 4 (50:28):
And then don't really have too much memory of land
here when.
I was here as a young boy too.
I remember going to the caverns, that's.
that might be like an initiationto the book you know, seeing
the caverns and then in Germanyand England that was kind of a
(50:53):
form starting the formation of,like my interest of finding the
earth beautiful Because thereare there is so many trails and
public spaces to go through.
In England you have the rightto roam, so you can just you can
walk through a farmer's ranchor a farmer's farm, really, yeah
(51:15):
, what you know like signs, likeplastered everywhere, Like here
.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
I'm kidding.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
That's kind of surprising.
Yeah, In Germany.
What was your experience there?
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Where did you live?
We lived at the Ramstein base,not on the base, but we lived
near it and that's kind ofSouthwest Germany, close to the
French border and Belgian border.
But yeah, there there was somany beautiful trails.
(51:47):
I mean we lived in a littlevillage and the end of our
street cut through, or likethere was a small bumpy road
through some farmland and thenyou hit a trail like a paved
trail through the forest thatwas behind the village.
Nice, yeah, and I mean that waslike a huge introduction to
(52:15):
like or like a retouch with myyoung boy in Seattle and being
in love with the trees there,because there's really big trees
in Germany too.
And then coming here to this, toTexas, like I had like a
negative view of like the desert, I was like nothing's out here,
(52:38):
but yeah, and then just findingthat this land is actually
really, really beautiful.
West Texas is super beautiful.
This year I've like extended my, my understanding of the
Southwest, from El Paso andonwards, really liking Taos, new
(53:03):
Mexico, that place is beautiful, the Caldera out there is
amazing.
And then hitting up like MesaVerde, hove and Weep National
Monument, and then likePetrified Forest area, grand
Canyon, and just finding likeall of this place.
(53:24):
This place is like so beautifuland yeah, so like along that.
And then coming back into Texasafter these travels, I've
started to pick up the projectagain, finding that this area is
like super green in terms oflife and trees and stuff.
(53:45):
Like I don't know, when I firstmoved, when I first lived here,
I don't know, probably 10 plusyears ago, I always thought this
was like a deserty, kind of dryplace.
And then I come back and it'slike actually very, very green
when it when it is like a goodrainy season and yeah, there's
(54:10):
just so much life in this area.
That's amazing, it's so funny.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
I had the exact same experience when I lived in San
Antonio for college and thenleft for like 10 years and came
like I had that same exactvision.
I was like, oh, there's nothingthere.
It's like not even green at all.
It's South Texas, super deserty.
And then I came back and I waslike why?
Was I like.
Why did I have?
Speaker 4 (54:32):
that in my head.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
And especially like to go to the rivers.
I'm just when I am on thoserivers, just floating man like I
am, just like this is heaven.
This is pure, it's so green allaround me.
These trees are beautiful, thiswater is green even, but like
the pretty, you know river greenand it's just like I'm like
this is literal heaven here andit's like not like there's not
(54:56):
other parts of Texas that arelike this and like you can't in
Dallas you can't just go to 50different water spots within an
hour and a half of you.
We have so many differentplaces that you can just chill
in a river and it's so magical.
I was like I totally missed outon this somehow Last time I was
(55:17):
here and I guess because I wascoming back for good, like I
knew that I was like coming tosettle and with my family and
kids and stuff, and so I waslike, okay, like this is home
now Right Maybe that was it.
It was transitory before, andthis time I was like no, this is
home, and so I wanted to likedevelop that reverence.
And I certainly did and, youknow, had the same experience
(55:39):
too, where I was like there'ssomething special for this land.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Imagine the days when all the waterways here in San
Antonio were swimmable and clean, you know how heavenly they
will be, they will be againright.
But yeah, we're surrounded bywater but we can't like jump in
it.
But imagine if there wereswimming holes everywhere, like
in Austin or San Marcos andwe're just like going to Blue
Star and jumping in the riverthere or wherever you know like
(56:08):
yeah, we're surrounded by water,it's amazing and I wonder do
they teach you at all in urbanplanning how to clean the water?
Speaker 1 (56:19):
Is there any way To bring our river back?
Speaker 4 (56:24):
You know I think there I mean my track in the
urban planning program was justhousing.
I didn't really focus onanything else.
But I have good friends in theSan Antonio River Authority that
do take environmental stuffvery seriously and they're
(56:44):
really big advocates there andyeah, I mean, I think you just
there's like tons of stuff thatyou have to contend with, like
with the cleanliness of thewater in regards to like all the
stormwater drainage stuff picksup a lot of trash.
Speaker 3 (57:05):
Stronger regulation.
Like the zoo pours its trashwater into the river, yeah, ew.
Speaker 4 (57:11):
I know Sacred.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
They do it, they want , they do it, they want, they
land up sacred water and they'relike well, let's just trash it,
make it un-drinkable and thenswim-able.
And yeah, we I think we broughtthis up with Alicia, but we had
come across like a postcard ofsomebody in like the 20s who
sent it to a friend from SanAntonio and it was like the
(57:35):
rivers here are incredible.
You can walk all along at anyday of the year, it's the same
temperature and there's kids ofall colors and ages swimming
around like ducks in this river.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
From day to night.
Wow, that's what the littlepostcard said.
Yeah, that's heaven right.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yeah, and that was 100 years ago.
Yeah, what did we do?
Where did we go wrong?
I mean, I know, but nonetheless, yeah, actually, like I like to
end with that, what is yourvision for the city of San
(58:12):
Antonio as far as, like all ofyour information expertise goes?
If you could just like wake upin 20 years?
And it look exactly how youwant it to look, and people
recognizing everything that,like you've learned, and stuff.
What does that look like?
Speaker 4 (58:34):
Oh, man, that's.
You know I have a really hardtime with envisioning.
I just hope that, yeah, thatthings like the water systems
get back into a healthysituation where people can enjoy
the waters as they once wereused.
(58:55):
Yeah, yeah, because this place,I mean this whole area, should
be like overflowing with springs.
You should be able to just goget a bucket and drink from the
aquifers, or like even like Ijust passed the the album of the
other day and was reminded ofthe well, that's there.
(59:16):
All right, glad to have youwith me today.
Okay, like that should be stillopen and for the public to use.
There should.
I guess the Envisionment islike a severe Course correction
for development, for newdevelopment, basically like I
(59:44):
don't know what that looks like.
If that looks like completelystopping development now so that
in 20 years things clear up, orif that means building in
sustainable ways, or Both, orboth, you know, or just keep on
having these conversations andfigure it out as we go.
(01:00:06):
Okay, so your Instagram it'seaten up by the sea.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
He and up by the sea and is there anywhere else
people can find your work.
Speaker 4 (01:00:17):
Yeah, there's.
There's a link that I've madeon arena.
It's like a Platform where youcan put up projects and I've
started like a Link to get allmy resources in order.
I Kind of want that to be aliving document or like a living
(01:00:39):
link.
So I think over the next yearor so I'll be in there like
drafting up things, writingthings up, adding new resources,
things, all reference so that,like users themselves can get in
there, see what I'm workingwith and maybe Something from
(01:01:02):
what I'm working on or or writesomeone might take off with an
idea?
Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Yeah, that's great.
It's like I don't like publicparticipation of life.
Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Yeah we can all get involved with this, and then it
expands upon your work too yeah,and I mean just thinking now
like Going that route mightmight prove like helpful to open
it up like yeah.
Make it be a communal book oror a public book or something
(01:01:34):
that Contributes.
Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
There should be.
I want to decide it's gonna goyeah we have cool sounds on our
sound board.
Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
We haven't figured out how to use yet cool, but
yeah, so that's you know.
Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
That's what I appreciate about your work is
like it brought in thisdifferent, new perspective of
what we're looking at andreminded me of the images with
the maps and the, the codeximages, because back then we had
(01:02:14):
an understanding of earth as weexperienced it physically.
We walked everywhere, you know,and so like we were talking
about the white shaman mural andhow it's.
It's a map, but things depictedon there Don't show things in
Distance and space.
That that we think in our mindsback back then.
(01:02:34):
You know it's describingtextures of the land and that
sort of a thing.
So it looks different, or or itmight be a shorter distance, but
it's got the texture, you know,and so you know, and then you
have.
You don't have to be out in theocean to use the skies to
navigate you know, so you knowthey were.
(01:02:56):
They had an understanding notonly of that, and then also the
resources they're eating asthey're migrating around, and so
you have this um Digestivehistory in your mind to of the
land you know, so you rememberthat spot has this certain food,
and in your mind you're makingthe connection of why those
(01:03:17):
foods are only found in the hillcountry or by the shore, or
that sort of a thing.
So like that.
I really appreciate that, theperspective that you brought and
not for me.
Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
That food pot especially brings up the time.
Like you know, create.
We create our own time rightnow and when you have to live
where you, you, you have tolearn the land and like what
grows and when to grow and stuff.
You're like, your time isconnected to the land, you know.
You know that one certain planswhere it certain berries start
Growing, that it's like thistime of year, that's that's
(01:03:55):
totally connected to the earthand not some like calendar Right
, that has been just like kindof given to you.
Yeah, that's quite like that.
Yeah, it's very.
Speaker 4 (01:04:07):
Yeah, like the in terms of like going back to the
maps and time, like these aresystems of like striation.
Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
What does that mean?
Striation is like.
Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
I think it means like like lines or or layers, or
like a like a grid system kindof thing, that's like placed
upon something that doesn't havethat kind of Dividing up like
like a topo map yeah.
Yeah, topo maps or or just anykind of map itself.
(01:04:40):
Yeah, I can go into maps tolike, so bring you back for maps
.
Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
The maps episode.
Okay.
Yeah, thank you so much Thankyou.
I'm so glad, thank you.
That's I'm you and Angelaconnected, yeah, and then we got
to bring your perspectiveespecially early on, because it
is such a important Part of ourpuzzle that we're kind of trying
to put together here.
Cosmic water podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:05:14):
Yeah, I love that the .
I Think that's why I hadn'treached out was because of the
name.
Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Oh, Okay, it was cosmic water.
Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
Something that I was yeah, writing up about thinking
through.
Yeah, on point, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Well, thank you so much and hopefully you'll be
back for sure, thank youAppreciate it, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Oh.
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