Charger - The Power to Override Injustice

South of my hometown there's a mountain we call Two Buttes (you can see the bumps on the horizon in the picture - that's it) and it rises up out of the prairie like a sentinel to time. The pioneers pointed their wagons toward the mountain for several days, knowing it would lead them westward, watching it rise out like a phoenix on the sunset side of the horizon. Skirting the mountain to the south, they trailed the Butte Creek Valley that gouged a channel through the land. On the north, the mesa rose up out from the valley floor and if you were far enough north, the Arkansas River ran wide and strong.

As a child, I remember thinking nothing was bigger than Two Buttes. I'd been to the Rocky Mountains, and there were just more mountains in a different shape, they didn't seem bigger.

I remember hearing Granddad talk about Uncle Bill driving in the Rockies. No matter which way he was going, he drove on the mountain side of the narrow canyon roads. Even Uncle Bill could navigate Two Buttes. Two Buttes Mountain was the biggest thing on the prairie. No roads crossed the mountain, and I'd actually be surprised to find out Uncle Bill bothered to climb the mountain. He tended to do the necessary rather than the flamboyant.

The mountain rising out of the prairie seemed superfluous to me as a child. There was no obvious reason for the mountain. I'd often asked if there was any reason why the mountain was there, or what purpose it served, but there was never an answer. Below, the river runs through a valley cut through the land, but on the prairie, the mountain reigns supreme.

Life on the prairie wraps around the concept of living big. You can't live small on the prairie, you have to exist on a higher greater plane. The mountain stands as a sentinel, as do the wind chargers that have more recently grown out of the mesa. Standards of modern technology suck power from rivers of wind that scorch life from the Buffalo Grass and harden and crack the land.

Independently a windmill can draw water from the earth and provide power for a battery too light up a home for one family, in mass the towering giant generators can bring power to wide bands of country side. Homesteaders relied on windmills to draw water from deep in the ground. Now cities draw power from vast cartwheeling giants that hover over the plains, miniaturizing the mountain that previously reigned.

The wind carries more power than the mountain, in this scenario. No matter how big the mountain, the wind generates power and brings sanctions against the prairie, scolding those who live there for not thinking big enough, revering those who understand the thought of going outside the concept of raising cattle to feed their families and grow wealth. Greater resources have none, compared to these winds of time, towers in the sun that dance supreme over the grasses and beasts of the prairies.

Technology isn't always a pretty or pleasant option, but it seems to be the modern option. Injustice surrounds us, and the power to override injustice resides in the source, the power supply of the future. Those who are big enough to give you anything are big enough to take everything away.