Taos, New Mexico: Looking Back On Enchantment

Dodge City, Kansas

June 7, 2011

11:37 a.m.

Taos, New Mexico:  Looking Back on Enchantment

We left New Mexico a week ago, but I cannot quite bring myself into the “midwest mindset” engendered by the hot, flat Kansas plains, without one last, wistful look backward at some memorable moments in New Mexico, which aptly calls itself “The Land of Enchantment.”  

The Pueblo of Taos lent itself to mystical moments and memorable encounters in bookstores, old and new adobe buildings, all in earth brown tones with soft contours.  We visited galleries, homes, churches and  intentional communities -- not to mention the sustainable “earth-a-tecture” building sites.  We attended spiritual services and were the object of a blessing rite offered by a radiant Peruvian brother in a Hindu ashram.   

The “Divine Feminine” -- both as a concept and as a presence, is everywhere evident (both in Taos and in Santa Fe) in the Virgin of Guadalupe.  We encountered a number of “heart-centered men” who were not ashamed to be labeled as such.  Our message about the importance of balancing masculine and feminine energies in the critical social and environmental decisions affecting all of humanity received a favorable reception.  In fact, among the people we met, it was a bit like preaching to the choir.

So much for the journal and travelogue.  Let it serve as context.  If you have been reading this blog you know that I am not confining myself to mere reportage, but am trying to add a dimension of personal revelation on top of that.  So what I really want to share with you is a specific moment of mystical enchantment that happened in Taos.

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Deborah Marcum, a friend of a friend had graciously allowed us to park our RV on her property for a few days.  She lives in a charming adobe house, tastefully decorated by her own hands, on an acre of lawns and gardens bounded on two sides by flowing streams.  Her property is remarkable in that water is a rare and precious commodity throughout the Southwest. 

One morning I was sitting at the dining table in our RV, looking out upon a corner of Deborah’s garden when I noticed a couple of hummingbirds.  Now you have to understand that I have been a reverential fan of hummingbirds since my 20s when I began to notice that they always seemed to appear to me at special times, bringing a clear sense of joy, hope and well being.  I have adopted these remarkable creatures as my special “totem” animal, and am always on alert for them.  Since we began this walking pilgrimage or March 8, I had seen very few -- one in Joshua Tree, California, and another one in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  So you can imagine how excited I was to see two of them at that moment.   As I looked closer, however, I realized that the flowers these hummingbirds were visiting were wild roses growing beside Deborah’s stream.

Hummingbirds and Wild Roses?  So what’s your point?  But if you knew me at all you would know that the wild rose is another symbol deeply embedded in my psyche.  Briefly here is the origin of the attachment:

One day, more than 20 years ago when I was living in Montana I climbed a mountain on some sacred land.  While meditating in the sunshine at the top I noticed a small bush with a single rosebud on it -- a wild rose.  The only flower around at such a great height, I thought it was remarkable and it seemed to speak to me:  “Way up here on top of this mountain I have found a way to live and survive, and offer my flower.  Thank you for noticing -- that makes us friends forever.”  (It was truly “A Little Prince” moment, for -- if you recall that tale -- The Little Prince learns from the fox that the important things in life, like the precious rose he loves so deeply, are visible only to the heart.)

Now the wild rose is not showy or exotic, just five pink petals that bud and bloom and quickly fade; but because they are the predecessors of today’s cultivated modern roses they can be traced back to the period between the demise of the dinosaurs and the most recent Ice age, 70 million years ago.  This means that the wild rose predates the evolution of humans!  Every time I look at these modest flowers in their simplicity I sense I am seeing something remarkable, literally, as William Blake has written:

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

So when these two deeply personal symbols came together for me in time and space in front of my eyes for the first time in my life it was as though I was resonating through many octaves and layers of consciousness all at once.  At the risk of sounding corny and impossibly self indulgent I must say that it was like seeing into the heart of my own soul because of the many layers of meaning that came together.  It was a rare gift of the moment, and, I might add, thoroughly in keeping with our current knowledge of the more “feminine” or “intuitive” right brain mode of knowing.

If only I could give each reader of this blog a comparable gift!  I cannot do this, because a moment like the one I am describing must be personally meaningful to the individual on a level where his or her own personal mythology dwells -- a level deep enough to trigger the rare “music” of the soul.  Every artist longs to make such a connection happen, and endeavors to tap into the underground rivers of feeling that we all share in common as human beings, both male and female. 

What I find most remarkable in retrospect is that every morning we stayed on her property Deborah and I would have a heart to heart conversation over an excellent cup of coffee.  On the very morning this event occurred -- the last day of our stay -- she and I worked on a statement of intention in the form of an affirmation that we could each carry into the days ahead.  Here is what she came up with, and I simply could not improve upon it: 

“Today may you find what glows your soul and happys your heart.”

In my case it was hummingbirds and wild roses.  What is it for you?