10/24 Arrive in Albuquerque
• Gen & Pamela pick me up at the airport.
• Ate the Shed. Yummy New Mexican food.
Some time ago, Gen and Pamela invited me to Santa Fe. But the time and opportunity didn’t come until this trip. It was wonderful to see Gen again and get to know Pamela. I am grateful to their hospitality and in making me feel at home.
Gen and I stopped at a bar enroute to Santa Fe. Gen asked for a coke, I for a bottle of water. The lady bartender asked to see our ID. Gen and I were amused but complied. I think she was flirting with Gen.
Charming political poster.
• Ate the Shed. Yummy New Mexican food.
I first visited Santa Fe with Connie some 12 years ago and I was charmed by it. The high altitude makes for clear skies and mild temperatures (at least in the summer/fall). It is a haven for the arts and has a large number of museums. The food is so tasty: posole (with green chile) and sopaipillas (Indian fry bead). Present also is the mosaic juxtaposition of Indigenous, Hispanic and White cultures that impact each other yet remain distinct in this city.
Said to be the oldest house in the US. Dated from 1200 to 1646.
Santa Fe, City Different, is the oldest capital city in the US. Originally a Pueblo village, it was founded as the capital of Nuevo Mexico in 1515 by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. At 7000 feet above sea level, it is the highest capital in the US. It has about 60,000 inhabitants, whose demographics are largely White, Hispanic and Native American.
10/25
• Frank Ortiz Park to walk Chloe
• Farmer’s Market at the rail yard
• Bandelier National Monument
We did a loop trail through Bandelier National Monument. The park is situated along the Frijoles Canyon which contains the remains of the homes of the Ancestral Pueblo People. It was abandoned by the time the Spaniards had come to the area. One can see the adobe homes situated along the cliffs and near the river. Having climbed hand over hand, foot over foot some 140 feet along ladders to an alcove house in one cliff, I wonder how they brought up water and food to their shelter.
There were also kivas, located throughout the settlement. Kivas are round rooms built into the ground that are used social and ceremonial purposes. The Puebloan people believe that their origin is from the earth. It is no wonder. The earth provides the food and shelter they need to live. Kivas, an intermediary place between the world above and the underworld, provide a space to commune with the spirits of the underworld. There is a spiritual dimension upon entering the kiva. The darkened round room is spare except for sunlight that streams in from a hole in the roof. A fire in the center of the room would illuminate it as well.
a rattlesnake along the trail.
Pueblo people believe that clay has life. A sacred relationship between the potter and the clay begins the day the clay is taken form the earth. Before removing the clay, the potter prays and asks Nun-ochu-quijo (Earth Clay Old Lady) to be considerate of the needs of her family. “Just as you eat us, you will feed us and clothe us, so please do not hide.”
--Tessie Naranjo, Santa Clara Pueblo.
Shelter is not just a place to live but an extension of the natural world, or of the sacred realm. The house reflects the relationship of earth and sky, mother and father.
Houses are also symbols of the larger ordering of the universe in which mountains, hills, and valleys define spaces where humans can dwell. Building and creating shelter is to bring the human and the cosmic forms together. The roof or ceiling of the structure may be seen as the sky, or the father, which protects and nurtures people who live inside. The floor is Mother Earth, which embraces us when we die.
--Tessie Naranjo, Santa Clara Pueblo.
10/26
• Mass at Guadalupe Sanctuary
• Tent Rock National Monument
• Dinner: Chiles Rellenos
Sanctuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the oldest shrine in the US dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Tent Rocks or Kasha-Katuwe National Monument is located in the Cochiti Pueblo lands. Kasha-Katuwe means “white cliffs” in the traditional language of the Pueblo. The rock formations remind me of the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon. The cone shaped formations are the result of volcanic eruptions that left pumice, ash and tuff deposits some 6-7 million years ago. The erosion by water has left boulder caps on the tapering hoodoos. Some of the formations are distinctly phallic.
10/27
• Walk the dog at Frank Ortiz Park
• Gen & I to Pecos Historical Park
• Walk along Canyon Drive Art Galleries
• Dinner: Nabe
Pecos National Historic Park is the site of a former Pueblo village. It was unique among the Pueblos in that it was known as a central trading post for many Indigenous tribes. It was here that products from surrounding Pueblos, and products from Mesoamerica were traded with products from the Plains Indians, mostly Apaches. The pueblo was economically and culturally rich, being at the crux of two worlds.
When the Spanish arrived, their aim was to colonize the land and convert the Pecos Indians to Christianity. The result was mixed; there was both acceptance and resentment to the new strangers’ culture and religion until the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 that drove the Spanish back to Mexico for 18 years. When the Spanish returned, the Pecos Indians welcomed them; they formed an alliance against invading tribes. But with time the importance of Pecos diminished as the population declined due to disease, Comanche raids and migration. The last Pueblo Indians left Pecos to a neighboring Pueblo, Jemez.
I have been illuminated in a kiva
10/28
• Walk dog at Frank Ortiz Park
• Run errands: Panadería Zaragoza & Whole Foods
• To Museum Hill: International Folk Art Museum and Museum of Indian Art and Culture
• Dinner: Chilorio tortas
The International Folk Art Museum is my favorite museum because of the large breath of folk art items displayed there. The art created by artists all over the world for their use and enjoyment testifies to the importance of art and creativity in everyday life. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take photos of the art…
Tutte il mondo è paese. The whole world is hometown. –Sandro Girard, the International Folk Art Museum.
Wealth
“We’re rich,” Gen claims. Pamela and Gen are rich, but not in ways conventionally understood. Pamela works less than full time and Gen works intermittently to bring home a very modest combined income with no benefits. Many would character their situation as underemployed. But they live richly and fully. They eat good food—organic, whenever possible and dine. They are able to travel locally, nationally, & internationally. And they were able to purchase a house (in Santa Fe’s market) in the past year. I was witness to the time they have to hike, to see friends, to create, to read, to play, to rest, to walk their dog, to garden and work on their house. Enviable. How do they do it?
They would claim that the key is in the choices they have made. They choose to work less, but it opens up time to do other things. A “no” to the inordinate hours of work, is a “yes” to leisure—to the enjoyment of life. A modest income limits one’s the amount one can purchase, but they do not aspire to be consumers, as is so prevalent in our society. They have no Internet, no cable TV, need to buy “stuff’ and no other debt. This is the challenge: to live consciously of one’s choices. How often is work a way to escape one’s inner callings? Or how is work employed to determine one’s self-worth? How often is the purchase of products a way to define oneself, to provide oneself with small measure of happiness or a symptom of unconscious automaticity because we live in a consumer society? And how conscious am I of the choices I’ve made especially when I try to flee dissatisfaction? The point is to live life fully and one must make choices to make that happen.
Leave No Trace 24/7
Gen and Pamela strive to live in way that is conscious of the resources they use and to minimize their impact on the environment. This means recycling, reusing, composting and reducing the amount of garbage thrown out. It means eating seasonal and locally grown food. It means being judicious of the purchases they make. They are especially conscious of the water they use—by employing a grey water system that reuses domestic water from bathing and washing to water their garden.
I realize how others’ life choices challenge my moral compass. One cannot but reflect on how the choices others make has us reflect on our own. People in the US are coming to the realization that we cannot treat the environment as we have. Whether this is evident in the energy choices one makes to mitigate the impact on our atmosphere, or in to supporting local farmers that grow organic produce and pay just wages, or in working for environmental justice in our communities. In my travels, more and more people in the US are living out this “new” morality. Pamela reminded me that it is an old morality; our ancestors knew it important to take care of the world, its resources and the plants & animals. This is no longer a “lifestyle” choice—it is imperative that we take care of our world. How we steward our world impacts how we treat our fellow brothers and sisters.
10/29
• Museum Hill: Wheeler Museum of the American Indian, Museum of Spanish Colonial Art.
• Cathedral: Jose Chavez
• Lunch: Plaza Café
• Palace of the Governors
• Hike to Hyde Park with Pamela
Spiritual Place
Throughout my visit in Santa Fe, I am reminded again and again the integral role spirituality has in the part of the Indigenous Peoples, and specifically here with the Pueblo people. It is simply woven into everyday life. It is a presumption that one’s life is wholly dependent on a Power beyond our own. It could be that I’ve been accustomed to the Western idea of separation of church and state. But separation doesn’t mean we live bilateral lives: one spiritual, one secular. It means we integrate them. Our faith dimension impacts the moral choices we make and our secular informs our spiritual claims.
A thriving spirituality seems to pervade New Mexico. It could be that the arid environment that brings to light and in sharp contrast the human need on the Otherworldly. It is in the spirituality of the Pueblo People who retain Indigenous religious practices even as many are Christian. There is the prevalence of Catholic santos and retablos brought by the Spanish. Even in a fast food restaurant while waiting for an order of tacos, I noticed a Bible quote and ad for traditional Catholic Mass at a local church. Santa Fe has also come to draw Buddhists and New Age believers. It could be the draw of the desert that attracted hermits to commune with something higher than themselves.
10/30
• Drive to Cordova
• Sancturario de Chimayó
• Lunch at Taos
• Taos Pueblo
• Hike in River Gorge of Rio Grande
The story of el Sanctuario de Chimayó is that in 1810, Don Bernardo Abeyta saw a light coming from the surrounding area. He went to the source in the earth and dug up a crucifix. He and fellow villagers took the crucifix to the local church. In the morning, the crucifix had disappeared. They went to the original place, dug it up again and returned it to the church. The following morning it had disappeared again. This happened three times. Don Bernardo decided to build a church on the site where the crucifix was found.
Now pilgrims come from New Mexico and Mexico to the church for physical and spiritual ailments. One can take soil from a small hole from a small room in the church. The testimony of the this pilgrimage site is from the ex votos and testimonies pilgrims have left: images of Jesus and the saints, crutches, rosaries, hand made paintings, photos of children, uniformed men and families. The domestic devotional faith of the pilgrims is moving and touching.
I had a chance to visit the Taos Pueblo. It is said to be the oldest continuously inhabited in the US. It was from here that that Popé (poh PEH) led a revolt against the Spanish in 1680. Many Tiwa people still live in the old community, which looks as it has for the last 1000 years. There is no electricity or running water there. In the “new” section of town, the residents live with modern conveniences. I took a tour with a volunteer who took us on a tour of the church, the cemetery, the hornos, the river and the community. Throughout the village are shops where one can buy art, crafts and baked goods. They guard their culture, language and religion—and who can blame them with the negative encounters they have had with Western culture.
What intrigues me about the Pueblo tribes is how they have been able to remain intact communities. The history of the indigenous peoples in the US has been one of decimation and expatriation to reservations. It is not that the Pueblo Indians didn’t experience this with contact with the Spaniards, but many of the Pueblo Indians largely live in the lands their ancestors have lived in and in ways that are ostensibly whole.
It is also interesting that many Pueblo Indians are Christian, a religion brought to them by their oppressors. The Pueblo Indians still practice native rituals but they are also largely Catholic. This is also true of many of the indigenous peoples of Latin America, where many practice a syncretism of Indigenous religion and Christianity. Perhaps the answer lies within as I too am from a culture that is a mixture of the Indigenous and the European.
10/31 Halloween
• Pumpkin Patch
• Atalaya Trail
• Ice cream and Soda pop
• Dog Food & Candy
• One Trick or Treater
• Too pooped to do anything else
Gen and I hiked up the Atalaya Trail near the outskirts of Santa Fe. The trail is through some forests in the surround Sangre de Cristo Mountains and offers some scenic views of the city. The trail is classified as difficult. But the difficulty for me was that the city lies at 7200 feet above sea level and we hiked to about 9100 feet above sea level. The path itself was not especially strenuous, but because of the elevation, I had to stop every 100 yards or so to catch my breath. It pooped me out for the rest of the day—I took a shower and a nap later that day.
While many of the cottonwoods had dropped their leaves, some were dressed in autumn glory.
Cottonwood leaves ablaze in gold.
Gen and I at Atalaya Point
11/1
• Breakfast at Tune Up
• Restore—Habitat for Humanity Thrift store
• Library
• Downtown Santa Fe
• El Parasol for Chicken Tacos
• Badminton
• Dinner with Japanese language & Culture Group
• Movie: Ping Pong
11/2
• Mass at Sanctuario de Guadalupe
• To Abiquiu: Georgia O’Keeffe’s home
• Lunch: Abiquiu Inn
• Ghost Ranch. Hike to Chimney Rock with Beth.
• Café Pascual’s for Dinner
Georgia O'Keeffee's house in Abiquiu
El pedregal.
11/3
• Pack
• Lift to Downtown
• Loreto Chapel
• San Miguel Church
• Oldest House
• Post Office
• Lunch: Frito Pie
• Santa Fe Plaza to sketch
• Shuttle to Albuquerque
• Arrive at 12:30 am SFO
The stairs in the Loretto chapel which has no central or visible support.
Santa Fe has a local dish they call Frito pie. It is a bag of Fritos topped with chili beans and cheese; I know it as Frito boats. I am told it is present at many social functions.
Family Photo: Pamela, Isaac (feline) , Gen, Koki (feline) , and Chloe (dog).
hanging out in SF (Santa Fe)
