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« Older Entries Newer Entries »Leaving Taos…for the moment
Monday, November 22nd, 2010
In the morning we leave Taos for now…to our daughter, Laura, and her family’s home in Salida, Colorado, for Thanksgiving—then home to California. It has snowed most of the day—white cotton fragments tumbling from the sky, sometimes piercing blue, other times deep gray. It is cold, very cold to Californians. Yet we leave reluctantly, although we miss our California family and friends.
At lunch today, our Taos friends Gal and Janice asked if we had completed our research here. While the research into Taos cultures, DH Lawrence, and anthropology has been an explosion of riches…one thing leading to ever-deepening understandings…we will return in the spring and fall to pursue more questions. We leave with new relationships that are adding to our cultural, intellectual and spiritual experiences.
One friend has a web page on Mabel Dodge Luhan and the Remarkable Women of Taos. Check it out at www.mabeldodgeluhan@blogspot.com.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Linda
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Searching for D.H. Lawrence….
Saturday, November 13th, 2010
Lawrence died 80 years ago, yet he is very much alive here in Taos. Incredible, isn’t it? It’s important to realize that even though Lawrence was only in Taos three times for a total of 16 months (1922-1925), he considered the Ranch—given to his wife Frieda by Mabel Dodge Luhan in 1923—to be his real home. His letters written from 1926 to 1930, when he died of tuberculosis, brimmed with yearnings to return to the embrace of Taos.
Bill Haller, President of the Friends of the D.H. Lawrence Ranch, is more passionate about Lawrence than anyone I’ve ever met. He has been our frequent host. Most of what we’ve experienced here in reference to Lawrence has been the result of Bill…including the climb to the cave and waterfall (sans water at this time of year) on the Kiowa trail featured in the sacrifice scene at the end of The Woman Who Rode Away.
Art Bachrach is the owner of the bookstore Moby Dickens, founder of the Friends group, author of D.H. Lawrence in Taos, and 30-year resident of this vibrant village. His health is fragile and his eyesight is gone, but his mind is extraordinarily sharp. Today we spent the last couple of hours that we’ll have with him on this trip at his house. He is home now from a couple of months in the hospital and regaled us with little known stories of Lawrence and Taos. He returned to The Rainbow many times during our conversation, telling us that it was the most scandalous of Lawrence’s writings, after which the disappointed author could not get anything published for four years (The Rainbow is the selection for our next Sea Ranch book club).
Santa Fe seems jealous that Lawrence chose Taos and occasionally offers up mini-festivals devoted to the famous author. One set of events occurred just last week: a BBC remake of Women in Love by William Ivory and a play entitled Empty Bed Blues by Stephen Lowe. Both men from Nottingham, England, came to the Ranch here in Taos in the middle of the week and we met them there—at the behest of our gracious host, Bill. Our discussion of Lawrence was fascinating and Morgan and I drove to Santa Fe the next day to see the play.
Bill also introduced us to Professor David Farmer, who was responsible for bringing the Cambridge University version of Women in Love to publication. David’s carefully researched Introduction to the text traces the multitude of letters, struggles with content, agents, and publication; and, he faithfully rectified the text itself, thereby publishing one of the foremost novels of the 20th century in the form originally intended by the author. On Tuesday, we’ll meet again with the Farmers for wine at Lambert’s (a restaurant).
Dr. Tomas Jaehn, the archival director of the New Mexico Historical Museum in Santa Fe, unearthed for me (from behind glass in the museum) a three-page typed essay by Mabel that described Lawrence as the mystic I believe him to be. Yesterday, he sent a postcard from Lawrence mailed in New York in May, 1929. Since Lawrence did not return to the U.S. after 1925, Tomas asked if I thought it was the author’s handwriting. I matched the writing with a copy of the original manuscript of Sons and Lovers (the original now in the possession of UC Berkeley) and said that I thought it was his writing…but sent it on to David Farmer for verification.
Jan Mellor, owner of the Taos Art Gallery, cared for Eya Fechin at the end of her life. Now who is Eya, you may ask? In the mid-20’s, the famous Russian artist Nicolai Fechin came to Taos. Now a major museum occupies his home and studio where his wife Alexandria, and later his daughter Eya, lived out the end of their lives. Eya was central to the dramatic sociogram of interconnected artists that made this community unique. On Wednesday, after the D.H. Lawrence Ranch board meeting (at which I’ll report on my progress here), Jan will give us a historical tour of the Fechin home.
Mabel Dodge Luhan, who started it all by inviting the great minds and talents of the day to Taos (Lawrence, O’Keeffe, Carl Jung, Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Tennessee William, Nicolai Fechin—to just name a few), is buried near Ralph Myers in the Kit Carson Cemetery. Ralph’s son Ouray explained that her wise husband, Tewa Indian Tony Luhan, suggested that “Ralph would take care of her.” Tony returned to die and be buried on the Pueblo. More about Mabel in future posts.
Across the meadow from Mabel’s home are two cottages that were part of the compound, one the temporary housing of Lawrence and Frieda, the other occupied occasionally by Carl Jung, Tennessee Williams, Ansel Adams. To Kevin Cannon’s–artist, sculptor, musician–great fortunate, a few years ago he was able to purchase both of them. Kevin has respected the property with an almost sacred regard. His home–that of Lawrence–feels as though nothing has changed. Each turn of attention captures an image of light and stucco and wood…oh my, I’m such a romantic! Stop this, Linda. Will I ever regain objectivity about Lawrence?
Roberta Myers, a playwright and performer, is the former wife of Ouray. We have come to know Roberta by attending her sparkling performances of some of the women who made Taos famous, among them, the three women of D.H. Lawrence and the three wives of Kit Carson. This Wednesday, we’ll attend Roberta’s storyteller event again with friend, Mary Gardner.
We will reluctantly leave Taos (this time) on November 23 and spend Thanksgiving in Salida with daughter Laura and family. But the Taos story is just beginning….
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Emergence and…
Friday, November 5th, 2010
Emergence has many definitions but can be considered as complex patterns of life that arise from less complicated parts or elements. Whether in biology, psychology, or philosophy, emergence explains how complex systems grow from dynamic interactions among basic cells or ideas, beliefs or feelings. Perhaps the older biological metaphor is “primordial soup.”
The Indians of the Taos Pueblo here—Tewa Red Willow people—believe that they emerged from the darkness underneath the Blue Lake on Sacred Mountain into summer and winter people. This morning I was listening to a Jewish Kabala story send to us by friend Daniel Callahan of emergence from the dark into the light. And, Morgan and I are watching a DVD on complexity theory in conjunction with our friend, Sharon Albert, from the Sea Ranch. Emergence seems to be everywhere.
In Who Will Save Our Schools (1997) I wrote of emergence as it relates to teachers emerging into leadership roles and how they can tap into talents and intentions they didn’t know they had. Within the next week, I’ll write about the emergent properties of leadership capacity.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about “synchronicities.” Well, they continue to happen with such frequency that they are almost commonplace in the shadow of the Sacred Mountain.
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The Conquistadora…Changing Woman?
Thursday, October 28th, 2010
The Conquistadora is the given name of a stature of the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, that adorns the alter of the Cathedral of St. Francis in Santa Fe. A special exhibit on the Conquistadora at the Spanish Colonial Museum displays her story of rescue and return and some thirty costumes, many donated by other countries and societies.
Like Changing Woman, the ancient Indian goddess, Mary’s costumes are changed with the seasons—and for special events. Mary takes on the persona of Mother Earth, as well as Changing Woman, transformations that—among others—serve to integrate Native and Catholic beliefs.
Curiously, “Conquistadora” means “to conquer” as well as “to win over.” Both apply here. The original Conquistadora, Queen Isabella of Spain, would be proud of the Church’s victories in New Spain 400 years after the Queen’s original vision launched the crusade.
A persistent curiosity of ours is how do people make sense of the relationship between native beliefs and Catholicism. In response to that question, David Fernandez, local writer of “The Blessing Way” reminded us that all belief systems have creation myths in which the creator makes a covenant with the people; all have rules for living; all contain a higher vision of hope and mystical experiences, a vision of the super-natural and something to rely on when trouble and illness strikes.
Taos beliefs are but one theme in my forthcoming novel…
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Synchronicity and Taos
Sunday, October 17th, 2010
Synchronicity is a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, where something other than the probability of chance is involved.
-Carl Jung
Some say it is the Sacred Mountain—the Taos hum—the collective unconscious—an abundant spiritual presence. A fortune teller this morning told me it was a heightened intuitive awareness. Let me explain.
The themes for my research—the reasons for coming to Taos—include: DH Lawrence and the array of personalities invited into Taos by Mabel Dodge Luhan; the special spiritual nature (from all spiritual traditions, especially the unique blend of native beliefs and Catholicism) of this place called “The Roof of the World” by natives; the Spanish conquistador history; the archeological mysteries buried under a city that sets on a volcanic field next to the Rio Grande rift that is tearing the world apart.
Since we have been here synchronicity has guided and informed our inquiry. A few examples:
• Two years ago, we met Art Bachrach, owner of the local Moby Dickens bookstore, author of DH Lawrence in Taos and an involved member of the Friends of the DH Lawrence Ranch. We discovered that Art was the colleague, advisor and mentor of our California friend, Bob Nelson, while at Columbia—a friendship that has only deepened in preceding years. Art is now in a rehabilitation center where we visit him.
• On our journey to Taos from Santa Fe on the High Road (September 14) we happened onto Nambe Pueblo. As we began to walk into the St. Francis church, Mr. Garcia, the Lieutenant Governor, assured us that there had been a death in the family, but would we return for their special feast days. Later he called us to give us the schedule for the vespers, bonfires, processional and dancing on Oct. 3-4. We went.
• On our second night in Taos, our friend and owner of this home, Emily Nelson and her daughter Heather invited me to a midwifery benefit dinner. There I met and eventually became friends with Dolly, the wife of the former mayor of Taos and current director of the Millicent Rogers museum, as well as a couple who led me to novelist Lucinda and artist Kat.
• The day we arrived, we noted that a 40-year celebration of the return of Blue Lake (see the Blue Lake post) and the Sacred Mountain would occur over the coming weekend. We had followed the saga and meaning of the Blue Lake since Carl Jung had visited here in 1925. What a rich beginning to our research.
• Lucinda told me about the long-time caretaker of the DH Lawrence Ranch, Mary, whom I met at a performance by Roberta Myers of the three women in DH’s life (Frieda Lawrence, his wife; Mable Dodge Luhan, the intellectual socialite who invited the luminaries to Taos; and Lady Brett, who followed the Lawrences to Taos and lived here the rest of her life). At lunch two days later, Mary regaled me with stories of the Ranch and gave me several pertinent documents re. Lawrence.
• Meanwhile, we pursued the means by which Morgan and I could get into the DH Lawrence Ranch that is now closed. After five phones calls, two other gems appeared: another Mary at the UNM campus in Albuquerque (who make calls to open the Ranch) and Bill Haller the President of Friends of the DH Lawrence Ranch, who volunteers to go with us to the Ranch. Never have I met an individual so devoted to Lawrence—since the days that he first read Women in Love while in the Peace Corps.
• Giovanna Paponetti stood in front of the Community Theater and had an extra ticket to sell. As we talked, we learned that she had just written a book entitled Kateri Tekakwitha, Native American Saint, and was giving a book talk in a few days. We attended the book talk, became friends and invited her to breakfast at our house. She told us of an immense altar screen in St. John’s church in the San Juan pueblo (now returned to its native name, Ohkay Owingeh). We went to the pueblo 40 miles south and entered with a native woman from the village, Clovis, and her husband (who are scientists in San Jose, CA). Clovis had been born in the village and was married in this church, but never saw the screen. We followed them into a community bazaar and were introduced to her family and Sylvia, the sister of Alphonso Ouray, the famed anthropologist and author of The Tewa World. I had just located this rare book on native beliefs that discloses secrets for which he was ostracized from his own tribe. Note that pueblo tribes are Tewa or Tiwa, but do not understand each other’s language.
• Heather Nelson is a friend of Mary Bishop, an archeologist who generously came to the house and describes for us the terrain of this region, the laws relating to archeological finds, and discoveries so far. She recommended several contacts, chief among them the Taos Archeology Society.
• A few days ago, we attended the monthly meeting of the Taos Archeology Society. I sat pondering how to break in to this large illustrious group when—at the end of the meeting—I hear “Dr. Lambert!” and there appears Ann Acrey, a former student of mine from Cal State Hayward. Her partner is the President of the society.
• Morgan was in a local electric shop to order light bulbs and stood listening to the stories of Roland who has worked at the Mabel Dodge Luhan house for 40 years. We look forward to that conversation, especially the stories related to the times when Dennis Hopper (“Easy Rider”) personified the hippie movement here. In June, his funeral took place in the near by St. Francis de Assisi church (which Yahoo Travel identifies as the #1 place to see before you die).
• We have made personal connections with the curators of the Fechin, Kit Carson, Blumenshein, and Millicent Rogers museums—interviews still to come. Meanwhile, we are attentive to local issues and the upcoming election.
A good month—we’ll see what November 2 reveals. More next week, Linda
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Effigia Okeeffeae – O’Keeffe’s Ghost
Sunday, October 10th, 2010
“There are times in my own life when, half deliberately, I take a kind of restless action to uncouple from the familiar in the midst of ordinary life, just in order to see.”
Maxine Greene~
Why do people seek out Ghost Ranch? Clearly to find the essence of Georgia O’Keeffe, the artist who repeatedly painted the landscapes there from every angle. To stand in the middle of the Ranch and pivot your consciousness is to experience a natural museum hung with her paintings, edge to edge. She believed in amplifying meanings—the oranges are more orange, the golds more gold, the reds more red. The hills become thighs and shoulders; the ancient trees, sensuous statues.
Yet, there is an even more dramatic reason for finding Ghost Ranch, ten miles west of Abiquiu, Georgia’s finally home. It is the site of the most stunning paleontology discoveries in the Western Hemisphere. Dinosaurs lived there 210 M years ago and are now yielding their secrets to even the most earnest amateur. The Hayden Quarry is the site of the recent paleontology class that we visited last week. For more information, see Science, July 2007, or Dinosaurs Alive! (IMAX movie).
Georgia O’Keeffe had a way of hanging around when the digging got interesting in the past, thus one of the sleek yellow and lime green dinosaurs is dubbed, Effigia Okeeffeae.
Both Cairo Diary and Etruscan Evenings have stunning archeological finds. I am in hot pursuit of more striking discoveries—but will they be dinosaurs or early man? Who knows?
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Leadership and Literature – a conflict?
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
I am a skeptical consumer of astrology. A Gemini by birth, and therefore naturally dualistic, I find myself believing star signs if it provides a schema for thinking about ideas. In this case, I am pondering the edginess between leadership and the pursuit of literature. As a leader, I value voice, opinion and influence in balance with listening and observing, believing that listening is an essential aspect of provoking others to think and lead, as well as a vital pathway to learning. Yet as a researcher (inquirer), observing, listening, and inferring must occasionally quiet my leadership voice.
This has long been a dilemma for me. In studying schools, I found that when strong patterns emerged, I would place those patterns of behaviors into archetypes and schemas and deduce meanings, such as my understandings of “leadership capacity.” Once developed, I began to influence educators to think in terms of enhancing the leadership capacity of their schools and systems. I shifted from inquirer to activist.
Yet the challenge is to never let go of the inquiring self, the yearning to create knowledge as an essential aspect of leading. I am persuaded that the primary stance of a leader is to inquire and derive meanings from a setting or experience. These two compose a dynamic constellation called learning.
The challenge of research here in Taos is to listen and observe and seek to understand the richly variant cultures, each respectful of each other, buoyant with their own interpretations of history and spirituality. In introducing my purpose and myself. I report that I am here to research the third in a trilogy of historical novels. The first, Cairo Diary, can be found at the local bookstore, Moby Dickens. The second, Etruscan Evenings, is complete in its first draft. Found letters from D.H. Lawrence in Italy in the second novel have led me to Taos. That is enough to open the gates of local knowledge.
Remember, Linda, to keep your voice soft and subtle.
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Everyone wants a piece of the sky….
Thursday, September 30th, 2010
The Pueblo Indians call Taos Valley and Sacred Mountain the top of the world. No wonder. Their goddesses (Blue Corn and White Corn Mothers) and life itself emerged from Blue Lake on the top of the mountain (see the last entry on the Return of Blue Lake). The sky is conscious of its blessed role and flares with drama at all times of day. Watching the sky is superb theater. Everyone wants a piece of the sky.
Taos is as open as the sky that protects it. Vastly spiritual, the community hosts multiple traditions and seems capable of holding conflicting beliefs in hand while honoring and respecting all. As one local goddess put it: “we don’t deal in either/or.” Buddha shares the stage with the Corn Mothers, Jesus, the God of Sephardic Jews, Sufis and richly assorted gurus. Perhaps the religious dualism of the Indians make such enlightened thinking possible.
As a visiting writer, this already open world revealed itself quickly. Museum curators and Pueblo Indians, off-the-grid settlers and Spanish families of early origin, playwriters and artists, archeologists and attorneys, politicians and mountain men, weavers and carvers…all willing to talk about their lives and their histories.
It is said there are four cultures here: Indian, Spanish, Anglo and Tourist (we are trying to avoid the latter). What rich terrain for a writer.
Yesterday we visited friends “off the grid” on a land beyond the Rio Grande where a house and third of an acre can be bought for $49,000. He a nurse from Israel, she an artist and musician. Today, we are going out to the Pueblo again today for San Geronimo Day (St. Jerome in English). I am closing in on the third novel in the Cairo Diary trilogy, but am not there yet.
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The Return of Blue Lake
Saturday, September 18th, 2010
For more than a thousand years, the Taos Pueblo Indians have lived in this stunning valley at the foot of the 13,000-foot Sacred Mountain, home of Blue Lake. According to their beliefs, Blue Lake is the birthplace of God and the place of origin of the Pueblo people. We have been intrigued by this story for some time. In 1925 when Carl Jung was here he talked with council leader Mountainlake and learned of the meaningful lives lived out in the shadow of the mountain. Mable Dodge Luhan wrote of the Lake and her marriage to Tony Luhan in her autobiography Edge of the Desert.
Today, we joined with hundreds of guests to the Pueblo to hear Tony’s descendant Governor James Luhan, Sr. describe the drama of Blue Lake that began in 1906, the year that the national park service and Teddy Roosevelt took Blue Lake from the Pueblo Indians. After 64 years of struggle to secure the return of the Lake, it was given back to the Indians 40 years ago today. The story is a stunning adventure in belief, determination and bi-partisan effort. This is a long story that I will not seek to capture fully in this post.
The ceremonies began with a full St. Jerome Church at the Pueblo yesterday morning at 7:00 am, a service blending native and Catholic beliefs. Drums, chanting and singing—along with sermon, traditional rites and communion. God is good, this is a sinful world and we are all sinners. Jesus is the way. A processional led by a towering statue of the Virgin Mary ended in bountiful refreshments and conversation. How native beliefs entangle with Catholicism we have yet to learn.
By the end of the day Friday, we all gathered at the Kachina Lodge for dinner and a formal presentation regarding the return of Blue Lake, after which we attended a dramatization of Kit Carson’s three wives at the Carson Museum.
The speeches at the Pueblo today included the voices of local Indian officials and also the former Governor, Senators, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, and officials from the Nixon Whitehouse who had actualized the 64-year dream of the return of Blue Lake in 1970. Governor Luhan expressed it beautifully:
“We fought with every essence of our being against unbelievable
odds and never gave up. We learned to use the tools of the system to
overcome in a 64 years struggle. We can all identify with the need to
protect that which gives us meaning, to preserve the precious cycle of life,
parent to child…Forty years later the world is a different place. I thank
everyone here from the bottom of my heart.”
Rousing speeches were punctuated by dances accompanied by chanting, drums, and wailing. One dance, the Friendship Dance, began with Indians in traditional dress, then began to encompass others as the circle grew larger and larger, soon involved hundreds of people. A sense of incredible unity.
By 1:00, we were invited to go to private homes scattered under the trees along the pristine creek fed by Blue Lake. We ate a lavish lunch in the kitchen of one of the families, talking with others who shared our sense of honor at being present on this remarkable day.
On September 30, we will join the Pueblo families again for San Geronimo day.
This research for the third novel in the Cairo Diary trilogy is more exciting then could have been imagined.
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Steinbeck, Literary Leader
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
The arc of Steinbeck’s life and work was finely drawn by an adherence to remarkable values: social justice, equity, caring, democratic principles. Each novel or short story captured the essence of these values made real by his thoughtful narratives. I was struck last week at the Steinbeck museum in Salinas, California, to be reminded that the man who recommended shipping vegetables across country with refrigeration in East of Eden was in fact the Chinese grocer, not the landowner. In his Nobel speech, he reminds us that:
“…the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit–for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.”
Leaders have the same charge, the same responsibilities that Steinbeck posits for writers…to have faith in the capacities of humans to respond with hope and loving actions, to frame the arc of their lives around deep human values.
Tomorrow, Mary Gardner, my friend, colleague and co-author of Women’s Ways of Leading, will post two conversations about this new book that describes in depth the value journey of women—and men—leaders.
Watch for two new postings tomorrow, Monday, June 14. Linda
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