Ma-guōlena

Ma-whōlena

Ma-chuōlena

Notes.

The slope of Machu'alena. A symbol of the slope. All automatic society is running down, breaking up, struggling to form new automatic societies, possibility of the creation of a conscious society.

The great question of life - if human existence is for the purpose that human beings may develop souls, if struggle is the basic condition by means of which souls are developed, then all difficulties and all struggles are valuable, and this age in which nothing runs smoothly is the age of great opportunity. If however man in only his body, then struggle is at the best no more than a natural necessity which must be met by man for no advantage, and this age is the age of great mistakes.

The background - that of the mountain at night - symbolizes: the beginning, the source to which all things return at the end. It is being, it is eternity, it is silence. The fore-ground, that of day and human activity symbolizes: human development, struggle, restlessness. In the first third of the play increase restlessness to a climax, have people come and go. In the second third of the play have it move so that the fore-ground and the background blend. In the third third of the play, there is again restlessness, but now the restlessness is of the nature of divine discontent.

A quotation of an ancient saint, "Happy is he who has no soul. Happy is he who has a soul completely formed. But suffering is the lot of whoever has a soul in the making."

2

Notes.

When people are harrassed, are hard-pressed they protest.
In such a condition, the primary protest is that of cruelty,
the desire to punish. Brutality is the order of the day. If
the protest is or seems futile, then cruelty is unmitigated.
But when and as the protest makes its way towards fullfillment,
then this tenderness alternates with brutality and tempers it,
and when a new era dawns, tenderness blends with cruelty to
produce a new affirming strength. In the old peoples of New
Mexico, those whose civilization has not yet been broken up,
namely in the Indians and the Mexicans there still exists a
certain blending of tenderness and cruelty. In the white people
of New Mexico, they whose civilization is breaking up, they who
feel the impingement of world chaos - in the worst of them there
is brutality and debauchery, in the best of them tenderness
alternates with cruelty (they are friendly today, nasty tomorrow)
and not as yet have tenderness and cruelty blended into a new
stable and assured strength. This will be shown in certain of
the characters that revolve around the Elliotts. The Elliotts
themselves, having left their world, being in the process of
establishing themselves in this new place are without atmosphere
at first, and hence exposed to the currents and cross-currents
of Taos. Their harmony will be disorganised, and they will
epitomize what is happening to people everywhere. They will feel
the primary emotions of human life when put in a nude situation.
Fear, anger and rage, cruelty - until, by spiritual alchemy,
these emotions are tempered and blended in the process of human-
ization.

3

Notes.

The meaning of the Elliets' search for land and a place and an establishment: this symbolizes the attempt of human x values to materialize and have their place in the life of the contemporary world. That they do not fully succeed in the outside world, means the time is not yet, that other issues and values must be the chief interests of man for yet awhile. An oasis is needed, perhaps an ark; but these two are increasingly difficult to obtain.

Between a person and his environment a balance must be maintained - an equalization of tension. If the environment completely and continually invades the person, the person goes insane - as has actually happened to a solitary man adrift on the ocean for days - as happens even more frequently with shepherds - . If the person overmasters the environment to an extreme detree, he too goes insane, insane with egotism. In so-called normal life a balance is maintained - at one time the environment may overmaster him, at the next he may overmaster it - but there is an exchange, a fluctuation, and, over a long period, it can be seen that the person and his environment are more or less evenly matched. Periods of new experience and creation, however, are often preceded by a period in which a person is almost obliterated by the outside world. The ecstacy of creation is preceded by the ecstacy of anihalation.

Taos is an end-product. It is the end of the slope.
It is an end-product of the Indians, an end-product of the
Spaniards, an end-product of the Yankees and puritans.
It must be blown under. Out of the fertility which death
makes in the soil, a new people with a new form may grow.
I dedicate myself to the swift death of the old, to the
whole birth of the new. In whatever place I start work,
I will call that place Taos.

(taken from Drama of the Southwest.)

Taos is an end-product. It is the end of the slope.
It is an end-product of the Indians, an end-product of the
Spaniards, an end-product of the Yankees and puritans.
It must be plowed under. Out of the fertility which death
makes in the soil, a new people with a new form may grow.
I dedicate myself to the swift death of the old, to the
whole birth of the new. In whatever place I start work,
I will call that place Taos.