The labyrinth
at Museum Hill in Santa Fe was covered by several inches of long-accumulated
snow when Mars and I visited it on the projected last day of the world.
We had hoped
to walk this network of bricks to commemorate the winter solstice as we had the
past two Decembers – once on our own, and initially as participants in an event
conducted and carefully monitored by the local “Labyrinth Resource Group”. The absence of any signs of life in the form
of either shovel marks, or warm bodies could have been either a source of
concern or solace – who knew if the L.R.G. had insider
Mayan information?
Mars and I
chose to believe that the invisibility and inaccessibility of the maze was a
propitious omen. So we walked slowly on to the Museum of International Folk Art
and its newly opened exhibit “New World
Cuisine: The Histories of Chocolate and Mate y Más” – the earthy taste of
sweetened cacao being more of a source of comfort than mystical meanderings
anyway. Regrettably no samples were
included in this display.
A large part
of the draw of Santa Fe (in addition to our daughter-in-law, son and grand-dog
– although we discovered it first) is the curious salmagundi of the sacred and
the profane that permeates the local art and culture – mostly taking the form
of the spiritual being secularized. This
is made even more complicated to me by my continuing inability, even after
almost seven decades of earth begun with twenty years of Catholicism, to
understand exactly what spirituality actually is – as witnessed by the fact
that I turn not to prayer to determine its meaning but rather to Wikipedia:
“Spirituality
is the concept of an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path
enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the ‘deepest
values and meanings by which people live.’
Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are
intended to develop an individual's inner life. Spiritual experiences can
include being connected to a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive
self; joining with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the
cosmos; or with the divine realm. Spirituality is often experienced as a source
of inspiration or orientation in life. It can encompass belief in immaterial
realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.”
And to Monty
Python:
“CHAIRMAN:
...Which
brings us once again to the urgent realisation of just how much there is still
left to own. Item six on the agenda: the meaning of life. Now, uh, Harry,
you've had some thoughts on this.
HARRY:
That's right.
Yeah, I've had a team working on this over the past few weeks, and, uh, what
we've come up with can be reduced to two fundamental concepts. One: people are
not wearing enough hats. Two: matter is energy. In the universe, there are many
energy fields, which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a
spiritual source, which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not
exist ab initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into
existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely
achieved, owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters
by everyday trivia.
[pause]
BERT:
What was that
about hats, again?”
…Or was it
about chocolate?
Two of the
earthly things that distract me in Santa Fe are the Virgin of Guadalupe and
“small shots”.
In spite of
my religious upbringing I first learned about the Mexican icon of the mother of
Jesus on the PBS children’s series “Wishbone”:
“…a
live-action television series that brings books to life for kids and their
families. In each episode, the star - a friendly Jack Russell Terrier with an
overactive imagination - leaps into a new and exciting adventure with his human
owner, Joe Talbot and his friends in their hometown of Oakdale. Almost anything
sparks Wishbone's imagination - from Joe's school beach party to the family's
end of the summer adventure in Jackson Park, and he's reminded of a favorite
classic story in which he is the hero!
“[In the episode] ’Viva
Wishbone!’ Joe's family friend Julia tells Joe
stories from Mexico that help him understand the power of love for his mother.
Meanwhile, Wishbone is Juan Diego in the story of ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe’.”
(BTW Juan
Diego, the character played by the Jack Russell Terrier, was canonized a saint
by Pope John Paul II on July 31, 2002.)
Less
surprisingly, having lived in the northeastern part of the U.S.A. for all of my
life, I never saw a picture of the V.O.G. until Mars and I traveled to New
Mexico for our 25th wedding anniversary in 1992. (I told you we discovered Santa Fe first.)
Images of the
Virgen de Guadalupe and other southwestern saints and religious figures are prominently displayed from the back-road churches of Chimayo and other small New
Mexican towns to the priciest gift stores on the town squares of Santa Fe and
Albuquerque. We discovered the work of
one “Santera” (a female “folk” artist who creates religious images) named Lydia
Garcia at a small gallery in Taos on one of our early trips and bought several
of her pieces over the years – beginning the small collection that has become
the southwestern room in our New England casa.
The
Santero(a) tradition began in the New Mexico Hispanic community toward the end
of the 18th century when New Mexican artisans attempted to imitate – to the
best of their untrained abilities – the fine-art statues, paintings and prints
of Spain and Mexico City.
“In this
sense, a santo is holy art because it was fashioned according to a holy
prototype and for a holy purpose.
“The theory
of icons…was based on the Neoplatonic doctrine of participation, and so it
interpreted the icon as a dependent entity that shared the being, holiness,
power, intelligibility, beauty, life, and purpose of its model…a folk-Platonic
mentality.” (Santos and Saints: Thomas
J. Steele, S.J.)
Apparently
even when it becomes a retail object.
One of our
first Lydias (as labeled in her printing
on the back) is “Nustra SENORa de Guadlupe [sic]”. The image is painted on the inside bottom of
a Hormel SPAM can with the aluminum sides peeled back and cut into the rays of
sun that sometimes surround the Virgin.
It is impossible for me not to feel warm, and fuzzy, and a little sad
when I look at this and other similar works that we have (or have not)
purchased.
So every trip
to Santa Fe and northern NM becomes for me in part a quest – a medieval
romantic expedition rather than an arduous search – for V.O.G.s and similar
icons.
Mars and my
way of deciding what we will buy is simple – if it hits us both as “I gotta
have it” (and the price is okay), then we get it.
This year’s
acquisition is (we are both convinced) an abstract representation of the
Virgin. It probably is as
technologically opposite from our SPAM can retablo as two works of art (or
faith) can be. This artist is a
former architect from a small town in North Carolina. But the result feels the same to me.
The “small
shots” that I mentioned above are photos that I begin taking – usually after a
few days in the “city different”. They
are close ups of architectural features, public sculptures, and signage that
create, I hope, an interesting aesthetic image.
And they are either my attempt to participate in the being, holiness,
power, intelligibility, beauty, life, and purpose of this part of the world in
which we both feel so comfortable – or my unique ability to be distracted by
everyday trivia in any environment.
Enjoy.
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