Desert Diva

Only the Good Friday is hosted by the eclectic, but multi-talented Shelly.

El Santuario de Chimayó

Recently, while in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a friend and I took a drive up to Chimayó to visit the chapel and the surrounding town.  Whether or not you are Catholic, (or even Christian) it’s a beautiful area and peaceful and serene.

The Potrero plaza of Chimayó is known internationally for a Catholic chapel, the Santuario de Nuestro Señor de Esquipulas, commonly known as the Santuario de Chimayó. A private individual built it by 1816 so that local people could worship Jesus as depicted as Esquipulas; preservationists bought it and handed it over to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in 1929. The chapel is now managed by the Archdiocese as a Catholic church. For its reputation as a healing site (believers claim that dirt from a back room of the church can heal physical and spiritual ills), it has become known as the “Lourdes of America,” and attracts close to 300,000 visitors a year, including up to 30,000 during Holy Week (the week prior to Easter). It has been called “no doubt the most important Catholic pilgrimage center in the United States.” The sanctuary was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

Chimayó is also known for the weaving traditions of the Ortega and Trujillo families, who have been weaving in the Spanish Colonial tradition for many generations and now operate weaving businesses near the Plaza del Cerro and in the placita of Centinela. Their traditional craft is but one of several still practiced in the region, including tin smithing, wood carving, and making religious paintings.

My friend Luz and I toured the chapel, walked through the town sampling the chile, and visited the old cemetery.   We even met a local woman who turned out to be the wife of the maker of the cross that Luz purchased (and the maker of a bracelet she bought).

What heals?  Is the “dirt” really holy and a conduit of special powers, or is it the faith of the person seeking?  The site itself is anticlimactic – a small hole with uh, “dirt” (tierra bendita) with plastic scoops like one would see in a child’s sandbox.  Nevertheless, people flock to the site and apply the dirt to themselves as well as take it in various packages to loved ones.

For me, the “miracle” was to visit a beautiful place and to be attuned to “the Divine in nature.”  Somehow, that seems enough…  The entire Flickr set of Chimayó is here.

The “Fire on the Mountain” that I’m familiar with is a fiction book based on a true story by Edward Abbey.

Abbey based his plot around actual events in which a New Mexico rancher named John Prather who fought government attempts to confiscate his land to make it part of the White Sands Missle Range. Considering the time when this book was written, following the era of McCarthyism and the onset of the Cold War, Abbey was especially bold in putting forth the philosophical preposition that an individual has a moral and ethical responsibilty to protect the land against its despoilers, whether corporate entities or even the US government.

Check it out sometime – it’s an excellent read.

The onset on autumn has been a busy time for me. I just printed, spray mounted, and matted twenty photos to enter in the Southern New Mexico State Fair. The cost incurred was much more than I would ever recoup if I even won, but it’s a great learning experience to “take your photo” all the way through the process. I’m also working on submitting a few photos to the annual New Mexico Magazine Photo Contest.

Saturday evening, I attended a gallery opening of an El Paso Photo group entitled “Megapixels.” As I stepped from my car to go the the little coffee shop where the exhibit was, “Fire on the Mountain” is what I saw. A few minutes earlier I was driving over Transmountain Road, (a faster shortcut to get to the other side of town) and stopped and photographed the twilight sun over the city. I wanted to stay longer and get the sunset, but I had somewhere to be. Sometimes, I get so wrapped up in my job and personal “trauma” that I forget how beautiful life is – if only we have “eyes to see.”

The current tragedy is that my teenage nephew in Indianapolis was recently diagnosed with lymphoma. I’m not going to lie, my youngest brother and I are like “oil and water.” We disagree on many issues, and just don’t see “eye to eye.” However, I’m so sad that he as a father has to see his son go through this trauma.  Still, he’s my brother and in our own private ways, I know we care about each other. Please say a prayer or send positive thoughts for my nephew J. I think he’s going to need them for the battle he’s facing ahead.