Viva Guadalupe!

It's probably because of the way we learned about her but Mars and I seem to have acquired quite a secular attachment to the Virgin of Guadalupe.

It was Wishbone, the PBS television program.

In spite of our religious upbringing prior to marriage, Methodist for her and Roman Catholic for me, and possibly because of our lack of "churchiness" since our wedding day, we both were totally unaware of this particular apparition of the mother of Jesus on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City in December 1531.

Then a few years ago, while I was out somewhere, Mars was watching the above mentioned TV show starring Jack Russell Terrier (yup, a real, live dog) who daydreams about being the lead character in stories from classic literature or history. And then, with the help of several human actors, he actually portrays those characters and presents the story.

The canine thespian had performed such roles as Ichabod Crane in the Headless Horseman, Sancho Panza in Don Quixote, and Louis de Conte in Joan of Arc. And this particular evening in an episode titled "Viva Wishbone!" he was cast as Senor (now Saint) Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, the indigenous Mexican who first witnessed and then reported the apparition of the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531.

Now Mars doesn't get outwardly excited too often, particularly about programs on the tube, but when I got home she could not wait to tell me what she had seen. And she continued for several days afterwards. It was hard to tell if she was more excited about discovering the V.O.G. or the idea of a feisty small dog acting the part of a (at the time) potential Saint of the Catholic Church, albeit one whose actual existence may be questionable.

"For more than three hundred years, the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe in her Mexican advocation has been celebrated in New Mexico.....Guadalupe is a folk symbol, an emblem of statewide culture and history.....She stands on home altars, lends her name to men and women alike, and finds herself at rest under their skin in tattoos. Guadalupe's image proliferates on candles, decals, tiles, murals, and old and new sacred art. Churches and religious orders carry her name, as do place names and streets. Trivial and sacred objects abound. Far from vulgarizing her image, these items personalize her and maintain her presence in daily life." (Viva Guadalupe by Jacqueline Orsini Dunnington - a Christmas gift from Monica and Bram)

Neither of us remembers when it was that Juan Diego/Wishbone first appeared to Mars, but we are reasonably certain that it occurred several years after we had begun our annual pilgrimages to the state of New Mexico. According to the above book and others Our Lady of Guadalupe was at that time pretty ubiquitous in the everyday culture and commerce of the Land of Enchantment. I am certain that we saw some of those appearances (how could we not have seen her?), but evidently too few to form any kind of lasting impression. However now that we had been alerted to her Mexican manifestation by a manic mutt we saw that she was, in fact, basically everywhere. And wondered in a different sense "how could we not have seen her?"

We began to collect her.

(Pause if you like now and ponder the philosophical and sociological meaning of the transmutation of an apparition of the Mother of Jesus from being a simple object of devotion to a small chosen group of relatively impoverished Central American peasants to becoming an item of interest and decorative element to an increasingly larger self-selecting number of fiscally-fit religious aesthetes and collectors - while still largely maintaining her original "down home" significance. Okay - enough of that serious stuff! Back to the game.)

Neither Mars nor I remember which came first but one of the earliest pieces that we bought was done by a Taos New Mexican folk artist named Lydia. We actually met Lydia a few years ago at what was at the time her relatively new gallery/workshop on the outskirts of town. When we first came across her works they were being sold at a small private gallery in the downtown area of Taos.

Lydia's art falls into the category of New Mexican religious folk art - paintings and statues made by formally untrained artisans using the materials at hand in an effort to portray the stories of the various Saints who have such meaning to them in their day-to-day life. The Guadalupe that we purchased was painted on the inside of a tin "Hormel Spam" container whose sides had been cut into strips making them look like rays emanating from the image of the Virgin which is painted in the remaining center portion. On the back of the icon, where for example the illustrative photo of the prepared Spam was still visible (albeit in strips of thinly sliced metal), Lydia had written "Nustra SENORa de Guadlupe: I Love you mother. amen Lydia 94Taos".

Not all of the images of the V.O.G that we have were made in New Mexico and some have a more "professional" look to them. Monica and Bram gave us a large throw pillow with her brightly colored image on the front, and we have purchased similarly decorated large glass candles. We also have a compact disk called "El Milagro de Guadalupe" performed by the San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble and car visor clip-ons for both of our vehicles. One of my favorites was a baseball cap that we came upon when Mars and I were hiking by ourselves through the sandstone cliffs and spires of Plaza Blanca in Abiquiu, New Mexico. We left it there out of respect for the aura that it created.

We are not hoping for nor are we expecting any miraculous interventions on our behalf simply for having a great number of Guadalupe effigies in our possession. Our interests lie much more on the iconic folk symbol side of la Virgencita's persona.

Our son Bram describes Domestic Diva Rachael Rae as "Cute and she can do just about everything. What's not to like?" The V.O.G. is similar to that and more so - well maybe "cute" isn't the right word, but hopefully you get the idea.

She's just really nice to have around.

One Crow - Two Possibilities

Companionless bird
Impatiently pacing, with
Murder on his mind.




Solitary bird
Shifts side to side, one step back.
Seeing crimes to come.

I don't get the lyrics, but...I'll give it a ten.

Bison hood dancers
Stalk antler clad human prey.
A "Rite To Bear Arms"?

We have gone to the Buffalo Dance at the Cochiti Pueblo on December twenty-fifth for three years running now. I guess that makes it our official Christmas service. Each time I have sat and stared silently at the participants, and listened intently to the chanting and drumming, unaware of the passing minutes and surprised by how long we had actually been there. I also have understood very little, if anything, of what I witnessed - but have left feeling better about things than I did before I arrived. And that to me is what makes a good ritual.

Being a sacred ceremony, no pictures or sketches are allowed. This year a spectator was caught photographing the event. The surreptitious shutterbug was made to delete each digital image and show the blank results before being dismissed from the premises - not quite as dramatic as ripping the roll of film out and flapping it in the wind (as in the "analog days") but equally effective. At least the miscreant wasn't also drummed out of the area, the percussionists being otherwise occupied.

So here is what I am able to remember without the benefit of supporting pictorial evidence.

Two alternating groups perform these dances at Cochiti Pueblo in sets that last about twenty-five minutes apiece. Each ensemble is made up of the following: two male dancers garbed principally in a cloak made of the head and upper back of a buffalo; one male dancer wearing Indian clothing with no animal adornments; either one or two females dressed in similar fashion to the single performer; fifteen or more participants ranging in age from early teens to five or so wearing white one-piece outfits with antlers; and a chorus of non-dancing chanters and drummers. The "buffalos" and the single male each have a bow and arrows and all of the dancers either carry branches from fir trees or have them attached to their costumes. The chorus wears a variety of clothing ranging in style from modern jeans and collared shirts to Native American pattern Pendleton blankets to full-length buffalo pelt robes and beaded moccasins.

The event was held in an open flat dirt area surrounded on three sides by Pueblo housing with a "grandstand" made by five rows of wooden bleachers imbedded in a small hill at the other end. Each entourage was led into (and out of) the arena by one of the older members of the chanting chorus followed by the main dancers, dancing chorus and then the chanters and drummers.

The percussion rhythm was a repetitive "one, two, three" beat. The dance itself seemed to have two basic formations: (1) either the main dancers faced the audience executing their steps while the chorus scattered themselves around the periphery posing as if standing on four legs or (2) both groups turned their sides to the crowd, faced each other and the main dancers moved alongside the two lines formed by chorus. In the latter instance the buffalo clad performers moved down the lines simulating a shooting motion with their bows and arrows while the antlered ensemble knelt on one knee and then the maiden(s) moved through the assembly motioning for them to arise, which they did. These two formations were each performed several times before the music stopped and the group left the arena. Each iteration took several minutes and was followed by some slow walking around and realignment of the dancers. Based solely on the verbal description it's not exactly what most people would consider "must see TV."

There was no applause or any kind of outward audience reaction. However during the first year members of the Cochiti pueblo walked into the performance area and threw packages of snack food, fruits, and even toilet paper rolls to the observers. This Christmas there were no presents for the house but it may have been that we were just there are the wrong time - unlike our previous visits it was much colder and we therefore did not linger as long.

The first time that we went I expected to see something with a mixture of Catholic and Cochiti religious symbols - much like we had seen at the Taos Pueblo e.g. in the Catholic Church where an enormous statue of The Virgin Mary as a Corn Goddess (or vice versa) dominates the center of the altar. (Conventionally a crucifix would be the centerpiece with the mother or Jesus displayed off to the side.) On several tours of the Taos Pueblo we were told that such things were the result of the "forced conversion" of the Indians to Catholicism, and the Tewa Indians way of retaining their old beliefs and practices while paying (for safety sake) at least lip service to the ecclesiastical demands of the Spanish missionaries.

But nothing in the Cochiti ceremony made me think of the manger or anything else about Christ's birthday - so perhaps what we have here is a pure unCatholicized Cochiti ceremony performed on Christmas Day for reasons not to be revealed, at least to outsiders. Since they don't charge for admission or even take a collection it certainly isn't to make money off non-pueblo residents looking for a way to fill their holiday afternoon - and besides they give us the presents just for being there.

So what's it all about? I've "Googled" the world wide web and looked through several books in New Mexican museum bookstores and all that I found were some general references about the purpose of the dances being to ensure a successful hunting season (understandable) and produce more snow (huh?). I could not however find any detailed information about the meaning of the various movements, gestures and steps - no Rosetta stone to the assumedly metaphorical event. Nor did I find out why the dance was performed on Christmas Day.

Then I realized that I really didn't want to know all of the details. At a local museum there is an allegorical painting commemorating the 9/11 attack on World Trade Center. It is quite large, carefully laid out and expertly executed. And it comes with a complete written explanation of each of the symbols. It also doesn't work for me at all - probably because, even without the Cliff Notes, my mind immediately starts to dissect the painting into each of its component symbols. And then no matter how hard that I try (and I shouldn't be trying) I just cannot put it back together and appreciate it in its entirety.

Perhaps at Cochiti it was simply my atavistic response to the repetitiveness and the resonance of the drums; or maybe, since at the moment I have no appropriate organizational rituals of my own to officially solemnize this day, it was a personal need just looking to be satisfied. But either way it worked.

And I don't think that I was the only one. Monica's and Bram's friend J* for example comes every year and spends several hours seated on the ground with her back pressed firmly against the first row of bleachers - the better to feel the percussive vibrations. Many others looked to be likewise in the "Buffalo Dance Zone". I was reminded somewhat of the teenagers on television's old American Bandstand program being asked to evaluate the hit potential of new records - "I don't get the lyrics, but the beat is really good. I'll give it a ten."

Obviously something is at work here - and it is working!

I was brought up Roman Catholic during the time when the language of the mass was changed from Latin to the local vernacular, and the priest's position was changed so that he now faced the congregation during the service - so I am familiar with ritual from a believer's point of view. At that time a portion of the Church membership was, and may still be, resistant to those reformations.

And in one way they may have been correct. Mystery really is the key to magic. For simple sleight-of-hand all you need is a willing suspension of disbelief. More esoteric practices require an explicit willingness to suspend your intellectual curiosity.

Frequently what you don't know can help you.

Sound Santa Fe

Tourist-less sunrise.
We catch sight of the Spitz Clock.
After we hear it.

It was so quiet in the Santa Fe Plaza on Christmas morning at eight that we could hear the Spitz Clock ticking.

It would be wrong to say that we had never noticed the twelve-foot tall timepiece before. Over the years we probably have checked the accuracy of our own watches against it many times. But it definitely was the first time that we perceived its presence with our ears.

Not that Santa Fe is a noisy city. But, like any large gathering of Homo sapiens, it does have a certain inherent background buzz whose presence settles into your ears - and isn't recognized until it is absent.

The "City Different" does have its spikes in loudness however. There was the pail-banging, sleep-interrupting trash collection that took place outside our rental casita at 3:45 a.m. on Christmas morning. And the chest-pulsating sound wave emanating from the trunk-mounted subwoofers of a slow-passing lowrider - ironically as I sat inside quietly trying to recreate in Haiku the sensation of Cochiti Pueblo Buffalo Dance drumbeats pulsating up my spine from the ground on which I sat and the dancers performed.

But in general the town's decibels are pretty much at the easy listening level - laid back with a soft, quirky rhythm, like the Getz/Gilberto "Girl From Ipanema" that Monica and Bram played for us one evening during our most recent holiday visit. It is the kind of ambience that doesn't require a loud voice in order to be heard - just a clearly articulated thought and interested listeners.

It snowed on our third night in town - four or so inches and all over by the time we awoke around 6:30 a.m. We were out and about and walking up Canyon Road two hours later along with, well, basically nobody else.

There were in fact about as few fellow travelers tramping along the canyon that morning as we came across on our later hike with Monica and Bram through the snowbound pine trees near Valles Caldera. As on that deep woods journey, all that we basically heard were the sounds of ourselves.

Canyon Road normally bills itself as the "art and sole of Santa Fe [with] more than 100 art galleries and studios, unique specialty shops, world class restaurants, and the historic adobe architecture that gives Santa Fe its legendary southwestern charm." On Christmas Eve it is the main thoroughfare for the town's annual Farolito Walk - attended (over a four or five hour period) by about twenty-five thousand people, and at least ten times that many paper bag Christmas lanterns. This year we began our night-before Christmas walk early by attending the Flying Farolitos show and then strolled out against the burgeoning influx of spectators. The four of us then returned to M's and B's for a low'key, high-class snack fest and some quiet conversation.

But that would be two days away. On this morning the farolitos were not yet out, the galleries didn't open until ten a.m., and the restaurants even later (as we discovered during our search that forenoon for a soul-warming cup of coffee or tea). When we arrived the freshly fallen snow was already cleared off of the road as well as some of the sidewalks. In most of the unshoveled areas however Mars and I were the first footprint makers. And the subfreezing morning temperatures, in spite of the bright sunshine, kept the clean snow locked in place on the streetside outdoor sculptures.



We passed a white bearded dog-walker who wished us a "Merry Christmas" - a shock to us New Englanders who at home had heard nothing but "Happy Holidays". As the week progressed we discovered that no one in Santa Fe greeted us with that politically correct form of salutation. (The dates at the area museums however did use the newly invented B.C.E (Before Common Era) nomenclature rather than the more familiar B.C. to designate the "negative numbers" of history.) Mars exchanged Christmas salutations, and compared angles and settings with a fellow female photographer who likewise was prowling the area in search of unspoiled photo-ops. A few gallery keepers likewise greeted us impoliticly as they shoveled or brushed their walkways. And that was about it for human contact.

We walked up the canyon as far as we wanted, surprised at how quickly we seemed to have gotten there, and headed back down just as the beginnings of the trade day were occurring. In most places, our outwardbound tracks were still untrammeled.



On Christmas Mars and I wandered into the town square for what has become our own traditional private ritual - early morning Starbucks Eggnog Lattes and the annual "two shadows on the Plaza" picture. There was a steady stream of caffeine seekers at the coffee emporium but never enough to cause a delay. A few regulars greeted each other quietly and then went to their designated seats to sip in silence. A nervous twenty-something woman left her place in line repeatedly to tend to her Saint Bernard dog that was pacing anxiously but silently next to the outdoor newspaper machine to which it was leashed

After our high-cal drinks were drained, and Mars had taken our customary photo we walked largely without speaking back towards our temporary home, and noticed the previously silent (to us anyway) Plaza timepiece.

Then we went to Monica's and Bram's for a relaxed breakfast and gift exchange, a midday visit to the mesmerizing Cochiti dances, and back to their house for Monica's delicious Posole and panbaked cornbread - a southwest Christmas culinary convention that they have shared with us on our two previous Christmas visits as well.

The late author Madeline L'Engle wrote of the need in her life for a "Circle of Quiet" - "...in order to regain a sense of proportion [where] I move slowly into a kind of peace that is indeed marvelous." As did Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond, L'Engle found this place "out--away from all these people I love most in the world."

Others of us are able to find that same Circle of Quiet with the people we love most, in the kind of place that allows the simple tick of a clock to be heard publicly.



(photos by Mars)

Think Snow...

Several years ago bumper stickers containing the phrase "Think Snow" began to appear on the vehicles of enthusiastic skiers throughout the New England area. I was not one of them. I refused to join in the collective importuning of Ullr, or any other "God of Snow" - feeling that, in a world governed by the laws of trickle-down meteorology, at least some of the white fluffy stuff that graced the ski slopes up north would inevitably also end up on my sidewalk out front. Fun sport for others (most of whom are and always will be strangers) versus hard work for me - humm, what should I choose? Others apparently agreed, for soon I saw an auto decal that began with the same annoying snow slogan but ended with the phrase "...Good, Now Think Shovel!"

These days shoveling snow is my favorite winter sport. It burns slightly less calories than cross country skiing which used to be my preferred form of snow exercise - five hundred eighteen versus six hundred ninety calories per hour according to nutristrategy.com - without the inherent danger of broken bones and hopelessly twisted limbs that the Nordic form of snow gliding offers as possible side effects. Plus you don't have to drive anywhere to do it.

When Mars and I originally took up cross country it actually used to snow a lot on free, close by, open-to-the-public places such as golf courses, public reservoirs and state parks. A morning of x-country involved thirty minutes or less of driving and two hours or more of actual skiing. As we got better at herringboning and snowplowing, the amount of ski-able local snow decreased correspondingly and the ratio of drive time to ski time reversed - then got worse.

But the white precipitation didn't stop entirely - at least at my homestead.

We live in a corner house with sidewalks along two sides of the property, a path across the front of our house, and a four-plus-car-length driveway. I have a snowblower that was purchased in 1978 as a direct result of what became known in Connecticut as "Ella's Storm" - named after our then Governor Grasso who, apparently for the first time in recorded history "shut down the state" for a couple of days in order to deal with a multi-inch dumping of snow.

This was before we skied, so all there was to do snow-wise for forty-eight hours or so was to shovel.

I don't remember how much snow there was, or how many shoveling laps around the property we did, but it was enough to convince me and a neighbor that we each needed one half interest in a machine method of snow removal. Obviously at that time I was not as entranced with the idea of manual loose-granular labor as I am now. All I was, was tired and sore - all due to my false belief that age and not physical condition should determine my ability to do things like repeatedly tossing shovelfuls of endlessly accumulating snow onto the top of a pile that, as I grew more and more tired, grew concomitantly taller, and taller.

Over the years I have had many occasions to use the snow blower. But Mars and I also have had the opportunity to get ourselves into better physical condition, beginning about twenty-five years ago when we realized that our home and work activities did not provide enough activities requiring significant manual effort.

We began with running and have added, here and there over the years, weight lifting, yoga, and other cardio stuff, including our brief career as Nordic skiers. As a result the physical discomfort, exhaustion, and resentment previously associated with activities such as snow shoveling were replaced first by a sense of relief at their absence; then by an appreciation of the benefits of the act itself (time out of doors, exercise, a sense of accomplishment); and a finally a gradual understanding that if I did more stuff like this then I wouldn't have to "exercise" as much.

The last realization was the hardest of all to accept. I had never in my upbringing made the equation between physical-exertion-type-work and exercise probably because, other than two summer jobs, I had basically never performed any of that type of labor. "Exercise" was done in a gymnasium and work was done in an office - and never the twain shall meet. Fortunately I was now in good enough condition from my "exercising" to be able to continue "exercising" every day and periodically also do some of that manual labor type stuff that didn't technically count as "exercise".

So, back during my working days, I would rise at 4:45 a.m. in order to shovel the snow so that we could be at work by 7:00 a.m. (our normal start time) and also get in my regular health club training session. Although I never totally gave this routine up until retirement, I gradually began to enjoy my pre-dawn work more than my workout

The sky was cloudless and the early morning stars were visible. The air was clean and cold - and the neighborhood around me was absolutely still. I had an (admittedly self imposed) time constraint of twenty minutes, thirty maximum, so I moved quickly. This resulted in enough generated body heat to cause my turtleneck shirt to absorb perspiration, and my stocking-hatted hair to matt down with moisture. The few cool-down stretches that I allowed myself after, and the warm shower that followed were like whipped cream and cherries on top.

On weekends I traded the solitude of early morning for the warm sunlight of the midday - and with it the opportunity to strip off my sweater and allow the natural light to supplement my man-made heat with an equal dose of externally generated warmness.

Although I actually miss them, in retirement I'm not planning on any more pre-sunrise snow shovel fests. Instead I'll have breakfast, read the comics, and wait for the sun to light the way to my exercise d'jour - right here in my own front yard.