Defining Cerros
by Michelle Katz
Over the years, many people have asked me why I named Cerros Consulting, “Cerros”. As a storyteller, I feel this is an important one to tell.
I began this company just shy of a decade ago at a very pivotal rite of passage for myself. At the time, the name of this business was “Oaks Counsel” named after the Oak tree I would visit frequently in adolescence, when home was Cleveland, Ohio. Martin Shaw said, “All a tree wants is our fidelity.” And in the naming of the business, my fidelity to this oak seemed important. I remembered how that tree always had my back and I would turn to it for counsel as I watched a swift river flow below, teaching me of life being every changing, tumultuous at times, and still life giving. The Oak gave me counsel and also consistency and trust. There were oak trees around where I lived when Oaks Counsel came to be, in a sweet small California town, so the name seemed appropriate and related to the landscape of the practice. Though a part of me always knew that I would return to Santa Fe at some point and the name would not be so relevant, Oaks Counsel remained the name of the business from its infancy into its adolescent stage.
I returned to Santa Fe in 2016; but it took years after my return, in the first few months of the global pandemic, for me to seriously begin to contemplate what would bring this organization into full maturity. I asked myself what was needed to reflect this notable time. A rebranding/renaming was being called into actuality. A connection to its new home and the natural landscape that surrounds this work. A step into adulthood and a clarity of purpose and gift to the world. Adulthood is about perspective taking, is includes being prepared and seeing the bigger picture. Santa Fe offers this in the most literal way through its mountain views and its desert lessons.
Cerros whispered into my ear as I sat on the earth pondering this transformation. Cerros is the Spanish word for hills and peaks. Spanish being a largely spoken language of this city, thus more deeply connected the name to its landscape and people, the landscape, and people I know to be home. There are many places in the region with Cerro embedded in the place name, Cerro streets, Cerro trails and Cerro parks, Cerro often followed by a descriptor word or surname. But Cerro truly can stand alone, strong and grounded at its foundation and base. Each Cerro is uniquely created of various ecosystems evolving off each other as the ground grows upward to its peak.
In reflection and contemplation of a name for what I wish to bring to the world, Cerros spoke to me of the life I have had and the lessons it has taught me. Life’s turns and edges brought me to various trials and trails, the uphill battles, and the tumbles downhill, the landscapes of pause sometimes forced upon me and sometime self-created, unexpected experiences and long-awaited harmonious experiences, transformative and all contributing to who I am/am becoming. Experiences that take us out of the comfort zone and reveal ourselves to ourselves are largely unpredictable and never straightforward in their lessons. Experiences can be ugly, though we must be able to see they are also encircled by beautiful ones. I have had challenges beyond measure, bringing up questions of self and the world that I have wrestled with along my way. I’d find myself in a meadow of wildflowers with a trickling creek alongside me one moment only to turn a number of zigzags into a scene of rocky grounding, dry, windy and desolate. I think we all know what the very top of the mountain looks like, and we all decide that the view is worth every bit of the uncertain footing along the way.
We all know the journey to the top is never a clear or carved to be a straight upward path. It is full of switchbacks, different terrain, ducking down into the ravens, climbing up crevasses, pattering down paths, trudging up cliffs, meandering around boulders or trickling slippery streams, hopping across rock fields to avoid the cracks, screeing shale, and taking long breathers every now and again all before we stretch our arms victoriously to take in the peak. And you know once we are up there for a while, the cold sets in, the sandwich and snacks get eaten, the storm clouds look to be rolling in or the sun ducks behind the western ridge and we must turn our backs to the glorious view and begin the journey down. We cannot stay up there for too long.
The fact of the matter is that the peaks don’t exist without all that surround it. Cerros gets its name from this deeper truth. Hills don’t exist without their base and valleys between them, without their rounded and gaged and jagged edges, their changes in elevation and the different sceneries that are part of its makeup. It is important that we learn to wander and amble all the terrains to and from the top.
It is often overlooked that Cerro is also translated to mean backbone. An important part of our physiology. The structure of our being, our standing in the world, our central support that is connected to our entire musculoskeletal system, the part of us that empowers us to move in the world: sit, stand, walk, twist and bend. Our strength and foundation are in this essential part of our body. It is easy to note that our backbone is also made up of bones with valleys and peaks, curves, and bends in all directions, hard and flexible all at once. It is also easy to connect the word backbone to the long-used idiom of “have a backbone” meaning to have strength in character. To commit and live into your knowing and hold strong to your own decisions and feelings. This knowing of self is the core value of the organization.
Cerros is named such for these two very essential reasons: 1.) It is a reminder that peaks and valleys exist together, and all inform/make up the fullness of a life, the perspective from the top is important in revealing this truth. And 2.) Cerros teaches us about the backbone, the base, the foundation of who we are. Remembering, connecting, and returning to this again and again, no matter where you may be on the journey, is what the organization aims to evoke in every person that steps in and enrolls into the services and offerings of Cerros Consulting. If we strengthen our knowing of ourselves it allows for us to find our home all along the way. And if you care for a bonus reason, it is the story of my transition into true adulthood, the movement toward seeing a great perspective and knowing even in this great big world, connecting to my base self, day in and day out, is the practice of living into my best self.