By Emily Withnall

There’s a place I like to walk with my dog on the outskirts of Santa Fe. The trail offers views of the city and the pink and orange cotton candy clouds that often illuminate the sky at sunset. As I walk, I take in the soft hoots of owls as the sun slips behind the mountains and the echoes from coyotes throwing their voices between the hills. Sometimes, I spot the small grey silhouette of a coyote on the hillside and watch it dart out of sight as Venus and the first evening stars appear in the twilight. 

I recently learned that coyotes are ventriloquists; they
can project their voices and make themselves sound greater in number. Called the Beau Geste Effect—which translates to “Beautiful Gesture”—this auditory illusion is part of what gives coyotes their mythological “trickster” reputation.
And because they are so often maligned by humans, these vocal tricks allow coyotes to survive. I grew up hearing coyote stories from Pueblos and tribes across the Southwest,
and between these stories and the few scientific details I
know, I am aware of how much more I don’t know—and how much about the wider natural world humans may never understand. 

This issue of El Palacio is teeming with animals and the more-than-human. Whether reading Tamara Enz’s article about ancient life billions of years ago in New Mexico, diving into the long, rich history between the Diné and Navajo-Churro sheep, or learning about the oryx that live at White Sands in Marcus Chormicle’s photo essay, there is much we can learn when we take time to reflect on Earth’s vast geologic history and our relationships to the living beings around us. Eliza Naranjo Morse, an artist from Santa Clara Pueblo profiled in this issue, encourages us to consider what we can learn from the soil, ocotillo, and rabbits—among many other beings in the natural world.

Two essays in this issue, by Pam Houston and Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, explore what it means to belong to a place, a family, or a community. Which are the people, animals, and places that claim us? What and who do we claim in return? When considering ideas like belonging and home, adjusting the scope can sometimes deepen our understanding, or complicate it. Whether we are considering a kinship with a screech owl, as Candelaria Fletcher does, or a relationship to a city—like Santa Fe, as Houston does, or whether we can transport our imaginations backward in time 1.4 billion years so as to appreciate the formation of the Precambrian pink granite that make up the Sandia Mountains, as Enz describes, there are many ways to understand our connection to place, other beings, and the ongoing story of the world. 

As a perpetual knowledge-seeker and researcher, my thirst for understanding can sometimes feel unquenchable. But there is also beauty in surrendering to the vast unknown and embracing the mystery. It is easy to feel disconnected or isolated but paying attention to the life around us can offer an entry point into a deeper knowing. Whether considering how many mass extinctions and land formations Earth has experienced to make current life possible or wondering what a coyote or sheep perceives that humans cannot, there can be some relief in feeling how deeply interconnected we all are to each other, all living beings, and the landscapes we inhabit.