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Woman under a Microscope – An Argument on Helen Chalmers
When we touch this domain, we are filled with the cosmic force
of life itself, we sink our roots deep into the black soil and draw
power and being up into ourselves. We know the energy of the
numen and are saturated with power and being. We feel grounded,
centered, in touch with the ancient and eternal rhythms of life.
Power and passion well up like an artesian spring and
creativity dances in celebration of life.
David N. Elkins
The Sacred as Source of Personal Passion and Power
The Woman at Otowi Crossing (Frank Waters, 1966) is the story of Helen Chalmers, who flees to New Mexico to escape a life with a drunken husband and oppressive in-laws only to fall in love with her newly adopted environment. It is at Otowi Crossing that Chalmers finds the peace that she has sought and becomes in tune with the native environment. Chalmers not only befriends the nearby Indian pueblo, but also becomes close to the first atomic scientists. Chalmers’s Tea House forms a link, or a bridge, between the two worlds– the Native Americans in their simple life and the world of the atomic scientists. Helen Chalmers is a modern-day Siddhartha (Herman Hesse, 1922). She gives up all of her worldly possessions to seek a higher truth – a self realization. In the time period for which the novel was written, the 1940's, Chalmers is very unique in attempting this self-realization. Women of the 1940's did not leave their families or their children to find themselves. Not only does Chalmers walk out on her family, she walked out on money and social status. Her husband’s family is wealthy, and could well afford to give her a life of luxury and ease. Chalmers instead chooses to take the hard road and give up the wealth and luxury for a simpler life.
Some might say that Chalmers, the main protagonist of The Woman of Otowi Crossing, is a confused, deluded, and ultimately somewhat self-destructive character whose motivations are obscure and whose personal philosophy is a murky mix of pantheism and ecological awareness. Certainly her daughter, Emily, and Chalmers ex-lover Jack Turner, do not understand what it is that Chalmers is going through. Emily, who has a college degree in anthropology, believes her mother is unsophisticated and uneducated when it comes to her “visions” or insights into the Pueblo mythology. She believes that her mother’s visions are superstitions that have no bearing in the real world. Turner is confused and anxious over Chalmers’ behavior because it has severed their physical relationship. Chalmers self emergence has come between them, and Turner just wishes that it could be the way it was. Those who would argue [next page]